Huw Barton

Terminal Pleistocene to mid-Holocene occupation and an early cremation burial at Ille Cave, Palawan, Philippines

Excavations at a cave site on the island of Palawan in the Philippines show occupation from c. 11000 BP. A fine assemblage of tools and faunal remains shows the reliance of hunter-foragers switching from deer to pig. In 9500-9000 BP, a human cremation burial in a container was emplaced, the earliest yet known in the region

The case for rainforest foragers : the starch record at Niah Cave, Sarawak

A study of preserved starch grains from sedimentary sequences at Niah Cave, Sarawak, Borneo, reveals direct evidence for the use of rainforest plants rich in digestible carbohydrates. Plants identified include several species of Aroids (Alocasia sp., Cyrtosperma sp.), at least one species of yam (Dioscorea sp.), and the pith of sago palm (cf. Caryota mitis, Eugeissona utilis). Starch grains from a total of fourteen recurring types indicate that a wide range of starch-rich plants are present in Pleistocene occupation sediments from the cave, and await identification with a more comprehensive reference collection of tropical species. The technique of starch extraction from archaeological sediments presents archaeologists with a new and powerful tool for investigating the past diet of tropical forest hunter-gatherers.

Desert Migrations: people, environment and culture in the Libyan Sahara

The Desert Migrations Project is a new interdisciplinary and multi-dimensional collaborative project between the Society for Libyan Studies and the Department of Antiquities. The geographical focus of the study is the Fazzan region of southwest Libya and in thematic terms we aim to address the theme of migration in the broadest sense, encompassing the movement of people, ideas/knowledge and material culture into and out of Fazzan, along with evidence of shifting climatic and ecological boundaries over time. The report describes the principal sub-strands of the project’s first season in January 2007, with some account of research questions, methods employed and some preliminary results. Three main sub-projects are reported on. The first concerns the improved understanding of long-term climatic and environmental changes derived from a detailed palaeoenvironmental study of palaeolake sediments. This geo-science work runs alongside and feeds directly into both archaeological sub-projects, the first relating to prehistoric activity and mobility around and between a series of palaeolakes during wetter climatic cycles; the second to the excavation of burials in the Wadi al-Ajal, exploring the changing relationship between material culture, identity and ethnicity across time, from prehistory to the early Islamic period (the span of the main cemetery zones). In addition, some rock art research and a survey of historic period sites was undertaken in the Wadi ash-Shati and Ubari sand sea.

DMP III: Pleistocene and Holocene palaeonvironments and prehistoric occupation of Fazzan, Libyan Sahara

The palaeoanthropological and geomorphological sub-projects of the Desert Migrations Project (DMP) focus on the Pleistocene and early Holocene environment and prehistory of Fazzan so as to assess the timing and extent of hominin and human movement across the Sahara through time. This paper reports on the findings of the 2008 field season, with a focus on the prehistoric evidence along the northern margin of the Ubari sand sea. The geomorphological record of the area preserves evidence of at least five past episodes of lake formation. The exact chronology of these, as well as the spatial extent of these lakes, remains the focus of further study. The archaeological record of hominin and human occupation of Fazzan prior to the establishment of the Garamantian civilisation is extraordinarily rich. Between 2007 and 2008, the DMP palaeoanthropological project surveyed thirty-five localities along the northern margin of the Ubari sand sea, recording a range of assemblages spanning all Palaeolithic industries. Most of the archaeological remains found consisted of stone-tools, while grinding stones were comparatively restricted geographically. Mode 1/Oldowan tools were found at two localities, contrasting with the widespread presence of Mode 2/Acheulean, Mode 3/Middle Stone Age and Mode 5/microlithic artefacts. This indicates that, although hominin presence in the area is probably earlier than previously thought, populations were comparatively sparse until the Middle Pleistocene. Twenty-one localities within the Ubari sand sea, as well as seven south of the Messak Settafet were also surveyed between 2007 and 2008. The detailed study of the lithics from these areas will be carried out next year, but preliminary results stress the different nature of the assemblages found within interdune corridors — very low frequency of cores, no Mode 1 and extremely rare Mode 2 lithics (found at a single locality). The 2009 field season will focus on obtaining further samples of palaeolake sediments for dating, on the evidence of Mode 1 assemblages south of the Messak, as well as on the refining of the archaeological indicators that may distinguish the different phases of hominin and human occupation of Fazzan during the Later Pleistocene and Holocene.

Forest disturbance, arboriculture and the adoption of rice in the Kelabit Highlands of Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo

Holocene vegetation records are presented from palaeochannels in the southern Kelabit Highlands, at Pa’Dalih (PDH 212) and at Pa’Buda (BPG), and from a peat bog in the northern Kelabit Highlands, at Bario (Ba). Results are based on changes in the sediment lithology, loss-on-ignition, magnetic susceptibility, pollen, phytoliths and other palynomorphs. At Pa’Buda, possible clearance occurred ~6500 cal. BP, perhaps for arboriculture. More pronounced signatures of clearance are at PDH 212 by ~3100 cal. BP, and at Ba by 1300 cal. BP. Propagation/cultivation of the sago palm, Eugeissona, may have been taking place by ~2800 cal. BP at site PDH 212 and was probably taking place by at least 1300 cal. BP at Ba. Rice cultivation may have been taking place between 2800 and 1200 cal. BP at PDH 212, but this remains speculative, due to the morphological features of the Oryza bulliforms, but it was likely taking place at Pa’Dalih by 530–490 cal. BP, where Oryza bulliforms, with characteristics similar to domesticated types are present, and there was a sharp rise in sedimentation, caused by intense burning. At Ba, within the last 600 years, an increase in Palmae phytoliths may signify increasingly intense human impact. In more recent times, both rice and banana cultivation are represented in the phytolith record at Pa’Buda.

Patterns of Hominin Occupation and Cultural Diversity Across the Gebel Akhdar of Northern Libya Over the Last ~200 kyr

Excavations at Haua Fteah cave in Cyrenaica, Libya, have revealed a cultural sequence that may span the last glacial–interglacial-glacial cycle. The TRANS-NAP project has been re-excavating Haua Fteah and conducting geoarchaeological survey of an ecologically diverse landscape that includes the fertile Gebel Akhdar and littoral, pre-desert, and desert biomes. A major aim of this project is to characterize cultural and environmental changes across the region and correlate the surface archaeology with that from Haua Fteah. To date, 181 sites have been recorded, ranging from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) to Late Stone Age (LSA). Their geographic distribution suggests temporal variation in patterns of hominin habitat preference, with significantly more LSA than MSA sites at higher elevations. The surface archaeology also points to substantial spatiotemporal technological variation within the MSA. These patterns may be explained by both paleoenvironmental change and paleodemographic shifts in the region, resulting in a variety of hominin adaptive responses.

Archaeobotany in Australia and New Guinea: practice, potential and prospects

Abstract Archaeobotany is the study of plant remains from archaeological contexts. Despite Australasian research being at the forefront of several methodological innovations over the last three decades, archaeobotany is now a relatively peripheral concern to most archaeological projects in Australia and New Guinea. In this paper, many practicing archaeobotanists working in these regions argue for a more central role for archaeobotany in standard archaeological practice. An overview of archaeobotanical techniques and applications is presented, the potential for archaeobotany to address key historical research questions is indicated, and initiatives designed to promote archaeobotany and improve current practices are outlined.

The Thin Film of Human Action: Interpretations of Arid Zone Archaeology

Abstract Laid across most of inland Australia is a behavioural record aggregating the material history of human actions that is of vast size and of vast temporal span. This fourdimensional landscape is a palimpsest on which successive generations have left their impressions, removed and sometimes re-worked the impressions of others. How do we frame and picture this record of the past? Such an archaeological record has the potential to reveal much about the nature of human behaviour and histories of human action, providing we remain aware of the influence of scale on our interpretation and select appropriate units of analysis. This paper explores these issues to infer the long-term behavioural patterns of hunter-gatherers from the Simpson Desert in central Australia.

Geoarchaeological patterns in the pre-desert and desert ecozones of northern Cyrenaica

Geoarchaeological surveys were conducted in northern Cyrenaica in 2009 as part of the TRANS-NAP project. A major objective of the project is to understand the relationship between regional environmental changes and human occupation patterns in northern Cyrenaica over approximately the past 200,000 years. This paper focuses on the results of surveys of the pre-desert and desert ecological zones in the south of the projects study region. The type, density and distribution of Palaeolithic sites were a particular focus of field research in the area. We report data from 42 archaeological sites in the pre-desert and desert zones, concentrating in particular on sites associated with palaeolakes and fan deposits. Analysis of the data reveals several patterns whereby particular archaeological signatures are associated with particular landforms. There is also a broader pattern across the region where sites assigned to the Middle Stone Age (MSA) period are considerably more common than those characteristic of the Late Stone Age (LSA). It is argued that this geographic area is particularly sensitive to changes in global climate and that past occupation patterns during the Palaeolithic were strongly driven by changes in the regions hydrological regime.

The Social Landscape of Rice within Vegecultural Systems in Borneo

The papers by Hayden (2009, in this issue) and Pearsall (2009, in this issue) highlight the importance of our understanding, to quote Pearsall, of the social landscapes in which early agriculture and intensive agriculture occurred and, it could be added, of contexts (e.g., Australia) in which agriculture did not occur. While the enormous transformations of societies that adopted agriculture are obvious, the actual nature of those transformations remains poorly understood, and at a global scale we must consider that the trajectories toward seed-based systems of plant food production and those associated with vegecultural practices in the tropics of Africa, Southeast Asia, Melanesia, and the Neotropics may have been very different. This response is an attempt to think about both social and economic motivations behind the manipulation of plants and food production. In particular, I want to consider the circumstances under which a rice-based system of agriculture might have been adopted in tropical Southeast Asia by hunter-gatherers already engaged in some form of plant management or vegeculture. Pearsall notes that the Neotropics might be the ideal place to investigate agricultural origins through human-environment relationships on a landscape scale. Paleoenvironmental records there include deep sedimentary cores from periods predating human occupation and include good proxies of human-induced disturbance such as long-term fire records and pollen and phytolith sequences. Similar claims might also be made for the tropics of Southeast Asia. Human occupation of the rainforests of Borneo is now dated to at least 45,000 years ago (Barker et al. 2007; Higham et al. 2009), and fire records may indicate a human presence as early as 60,000 years ago in southern Indonesia (Dam, van der Kaars, and Kershaw 2001). Southeast Asia also provides a rather unique context in which to hypothesize about the long-term consequences of people-plant interactions; the emergence of vegeculture and possible independent domestication of a wide variety of tubers, rhizomes, and trees (Barton and Denham, forthcoming; Barton and Paz 2007; Denham and Barton 2006); and the hypothesized rapid introduction of a completely novel mode of plant food production based on the freproduction of a short-lived annual, rice (see Bellwood 2009, in this issue). For example, it is still argued that agriculture did not occur in Island Southeast Asia until after the expansion of rice-farming peoples into the region during the midHolocene (Bellwood 2009). However, this seems increasingly harder to support in light of the archaeological and genetic evidence that shows that the earlier foraging groups may have been actively engaged in the manipulation of several species through vegecultural systems of plant propagation (Barton and Denham, forthcoming; Denham and Barton 2006). It seems likely that rice and its associated systems of propagation were adopted by peoples already heavily engaged in their own systems of plant management, some of which may have already produced domesticates such as the greater yam Dioscorea alata, taro Colocasia esculenta, and bananas Musa spp. (Carreel et al. 2002; De Langhe and de Maret 1999; Lebot et al. 2004). It also seems likely that the transition toward the reliance of rice as a food staple after its mid-Holocene introduction was still occurring in recent prehistory. Even as late as the early twentieth century in parts of Southeast Asia where rice held center stage as a plant of social preeminence, this did not necessarily reflect its role in daily subsistence. Among many groups in interior Borneo, rice remained a relatively minor crop—supplementing other starchy staples, frequently roots that could be grown in greater quantity and that were considered more reliable come harvest (Harrisson 1949, 142). Among the Dusun of North Borneo, though rice was planted by all tribes, it was considered supplementary to a diet of taro and imported South American cultivars such as cassava, sugar cane, and maize (Rutter 1929, 75). Wild fruits and sago were also considerably important, though the latter more so in the swampy lowlands (Rutter 1929, 96), suggesting that it may be the introduced swamp sago Metroxylon sagu Rott. (the timing of this introduction remains unknown, but the original range of this palm was not westward of the Molluccas; Flach 1997). Root crops and