Kate Domett

Can Dental Caries Be Interpreted as Evidence of Farming? The Asian Experience

The seminal development of control of food production and its social and biological effects on human populations has for a long time been one of the foci of prehistoric research. The relationship between diet and oral pathology is well recognised and accepted to the point where rates of dental caries in particular have been seen as indicative of subsistence mode. This is despite the complex aetiology of caries, with both genetic and environmental factors other than diet contributing to lesion frequency. Most publications considering prehistoric diet and caries acknowledge the contribution of non-dietary variables but provide a more comfortable dietary explanation, with the role of domesticated starchy staples paramount. This widespread acceptance of a simple relationship between dental pathology and starchy carbohydrates needs to be challenged, as there is no reason why one dietary component would be solely responsible for the development of caries or why all carbohydrates should have the same effect. Some years ago, on the basis of evidence from prehistoric rice farming communities in Southeast Asia, we questioned the relationship between dental caries and the presumptive increased carbohydrate consumption consequent to the adoption of agriculture. This paper reviews recent literature on the topic and presents evidence that there is still no simple or universally applicable explanation for patterns of changes in caries frequencies during human prehistory.

Health and the experience of childhood in late Neolithic Viet Nam

The article aims to examine aspects of mortuary behavior in late Neolithic/early Bronze Age (Phung Nguyen phase) populations represented at the site of Man Bac in Viet Nam, specifically how mortuary behavior illuminates the role of children, and adult attitudes toward children. In addition, the authors discuss biological characteristics of the human sample, focusing particularly on the child burials, in order to explore aspects of childhood palaeohealth. The methodology includes combining various measures of health—including palaeodemography (childhood mortality), analysis of oral health (Early Childhood Caries or ECC), and analysis of physiological health (Cribra Orbitalia and LEH)—with studies of culturally defined mortuary practices to suggest that, while children clearly had significant health deficiencies and many suffered early deaths, their treatment in mortuary rites shows significant economic value and social esteem placed on children.

Human biology from the bronze age to the iron age in the Mun River valley of northeast Thailand

Recent excavations of 1 wo sites in [he Mun River valley in Northeast Thailand (Fig. t.l, p. 5) as part of The Origins of Angkor Project have uncovered two large cemeteries. The site of Ban Lum Khao includes a bronze age cemetery in use between approximately 3400 and 2500 BP (Higham 2002), A IOm>< 14m square was excavated to a maximum depth of 1.7 m on the edge of this mounded site as other areas of the site had been subjected to looting (Higham 2002). The cemetery site of Noen U-Loke, only a few kilometres to the west, is dated to the iron age, approximately 2300-2200 BP to 1700-1600 BP (Higham 2002), This iron age site was considerably more extensive than earlier sites and covered up to l2ha (Higham 2002). A total of220m2 were excavated to a depth of 5 m (Higham 2002). Given the size of these sites, neither was excavated to their full extent. These two sites present an opportunity to compare health changes through time with the significant advantage that the populations lived in similar natural environments.

Bronze Age Myanmar (Burma): a report on the people from the cemetery of Nyaunggan, Upper Myanmar

Rare information is presented on Bronze Age burials from Burma. Skeletal remains of 43 individuals are placed in a broader southeast Asian context.

Ancient genomes document multiple waves of migration in Southeast Asian prehistory

Ancient migrations in Southeast Asia The past movements and peopling of Southeast Asia have been poorly represented in ancient DNA studies (see the Perspective by Bellwood). Lipson et al. generated sequences from people inhabiting Southeast Asia from about 1700 to 4100 years ago. Screening of more than a hundred individuals from five sites yielded ancient DNA from 18 individuals. Comparisons with present-day populations suggest two waves of mixing between resident populations. The first mix was between local hunter-gatherers and incoming farmers associated with the Neolithic spreading from South China. A second event resulted in an additional pulse of genetic material from China to Southeast Asia associated with a Bronze Age migration. McColl et al. sequenced 26 ancient genomes from Southeast Asia and Japan spanning from the late Neolithic to the Iron Age. They found that present-day populations are the result of mixing among four ancient populations, including multiple waves of genetic material from more northern East Asian populations. Science, this issue p. 92, p. 88; see also p. 31 Ancient DNA data shed light on the past 4000 years of Southeast Asian genetic history. Southeast Asia is home to rich human genetic and linguistic diversity, but the details of past population movements in the region are not well known. Here, we report genome-wide ancient DNA data from 18 Southeast Asian individuals spanning from the Neolithic period through the Iron Age (4100 to 1700 years ago). Early farmers from Man Bac in Vietnam exhibit a mixture of East Asian (southern Chinese agriculturalist) and deeply diverged eastern Eurasian (hunter-gatherer) ancestry characteristic of Austroasiatic speakers, with similar ancestry as far south as Indonesia providing evidence for an expansive initial spread of Austroasiatic languages. By the Bronze Age, in a parallel pattern to Europe, sites in Vietnam and Myanmar show close connections to present-day majority groups, reflecting substantial additional influxes of migrants.