Katherine Szabo

The Liang Bua faunal remains: a 95 k.yr. sequence from Flores, East Indonesia

Excavations at Liang Bua, a limestone cave on the island of Flores, East Indonesia, have yielded a well-dated archaeological and faunal sequence spanning the last 95k.yr., major climatic fluctuations, and two human species -H. floresiensis from 95 to 17k.yr.(1), and modern humans from 11k.yr. to the present. The faunal assemblage comprises well-preserved mammal, bird, reptile and mollusc remains, including examples of island gigantism in small mammals and the dwarfing of large taxa. Together with evidence from Early-Middle Pleistocene sites in the Soa Basin, it confirms the long-term isolation, impoverishment, and phylogenetic continuity of the Flores faunal community. The accumulation of Stegodon and Komodo dragon remains at the site in the Pleistocene is attributed to Homo floresiensis, while predatory birds, including an extinct species of owl, were largely responsible for the accumulation of the small vertebrates. The disappearance from the sequence of the two large-bodied, endemic mammals, Stegodon florensis insularis and Homo floresiensis, was associated with a volcanic eruption at 17 ka and precedes the earliest evidence for modern humans, who initiated use of mollusc and shell working, and began to introduce a range of exotic animals to the island. Faunal introductions during the Holocene included the Sulawesi warty pig (Sus celebensis) at about 7ka, followed by the Eurasian pig (Sus scrofa), Long-tailed macaque, Javanese porcupine, and Masked palm civet at about 4ka, and cattle, deer, and horse - possibly by the Portuguese within historic times. The Holocene sequence at the site also documents local faunal extinctions - a result of accelerating human population growth, habitat loss, and over-exploitation.

Shell Artefact Production at 32,000-28,000 BP in Island Southeast Asia: Thinking across Media?

The evolution of anatomical and behavioural modernity in Homo sapiens has been one of the key focus areas in both archaeology and palaeoanthropology since their inception. Traditionally, interpretations have drawn mainly on evidence from the many large and well‐known sites in Europe, but archaeological research in Africa and the Levant is increasingly altering and elaborating upon our understanding of later human evolution. Despite the presence of a number of important early modern human and other hominin sites in Southeast Asia, evidence from this region has not contributed to the global picture in any significant way. Indeed, the acknowledged simplicity of lithic assemblages has led generations of scholars to assume that Southeast Asia was far from the cutting edge of behavioural evolution. Comparison of sophisticated shell tools from levels dated to 32,000–28,000 b.p. in eastern Indonesia with lithic artefacts recovered from the same levels and an assessment of raw‐material procurement suggest that using lithic technologies as markers of behavioural complexity may be misleading in a Southeast Asian context and, indeed, may be hampering our efforts to assess behavioural complexity in global and comparative frameworks.

Early and Middle Holocene Hunter-Gatherer Occupations in Western Amazonia: The Hidden Shell Middens

We report on previously unknown early archaeological sites in the Bolivian lowlands, demonstrating for the first time early and middle Holocene human presence in western Amazonia. Multidisciplinary research in forest islands situated in seasonally-inundated savannahs has revealed stratified shell middens produced by human foragers as early as 10,000 years ago, making them the oldest archaeological sites in the region. The absence of stone resources and partial burial by recent alluvial sediments has meant that these kinds of deposits have, until now, remained unidentified. We conducted core sampling, archaeological excavations and an interdisciplinary study of the stratigraphy and recovered materials from three shell midden mounds. Based on multiple lines of evidence, including radiocarbon dating, sedimentary proxies (elements, steroids and black carbon), micromorphology and faunal analysis, we demonstrate the anthropogenic origin and antiquity of these sites. In a tropical and geomorphologically active landscape often considered challenging both for early human occupation and for the preservation of hunter-gatherer sites, the newly discovered shell middens provide evidence for early to middle Holocene occupation and illustrate the potential for identifying and interpreting early open-air archaeological sites in western Amazonia. The existence of early hunter-gatherer sites in the Bolivian lowlands sheds new light on the region’s past and offers a new context within which the late Holocene “Earthmovers” of the Llanos de Moxos could have emerged.

The Tràng An Project: Late-to-Post-Pleistocene Settlement of the Lower Song Hong Valley, North Vietnam

Trang An is a Vietnamese government supported cultural and ecological park development covering 2,500 hectares that is centred on an isolated massif on the southern edge of the Song Hong delta in Ninh Binh Province, north Vietnam (Fig. 1). The archaeological investigation of Trang An is being led jointly by the Xuan Truong Construction Corporation and the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, under the direction of the lead author. The Corporation is creating an ecologically sensitive development – the ‘Trang An Tourism Resort’ – within this karstic landscape, which is also the subject of a planned application to UNESCO for World Heritage Site status. International involvement in this work has been at the behest of Nguyen Van Truong, the General Director of Xuan Truong and at the invitation of the Ninh Binh Peoples Committee. The research itself is carried out under the guidance of Nguyen Van Son, the Trang An Tourism Resort Project Manager. The main focus of the May 2007 season was to undertake excavations at the site of Hang Boi (the ‘Fortune-Tellers Cave’).

A reassessment of the early archaeological record at Leang Burung 2, a Late Pleistocene rock-shelter site on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi

This paper presents a reassessment of the archaeological record at Leang Burung 2, a key early human occupation site in the Late Pleistocene of Southeast Asia. Excavated originally by Ian Glover in 1975, this limestone rock-shelter in the Maros karsts of Sulawesi, Indonesia, has long held significance in our understanding of early human dispersals into ‘Wallacea’, the vast zone of oceanic islands between continental Asia and Australia. We present new stratigraphic information and dating evidence from Leang Burung 2 collected during the course of our excavations at this site in 2007 and 2011–13. Our findings suggest that the classic Late Pleistocene modern human occupation sequence identified previously at Leang Burung 2, and proposed to span around 31,000 to 19,000 conventional 14C years BP (~35–24 ka cal BP), may actually represent an amalgam of reworked archaeological materials. Sources for cultural materials of mixed ages comprise breccias from the rear wall of the rock-shelter–remnants of older, eroded deposits dated to 35–23 ka cal BP–and cultural remains of early Holocene antiquity. Below the upper levels affected by the mass loss of Late Pleistocene deposits, our deep-trench excavations uncovered evidence for an earlier hominin presence at the site. These findings include fossils of now-extinct proboscideans and other ‘megafauna’ in stratified context, as well as a cobble-based stone artifact technology comparable to that produced by late Middle Pleistocene hominins elsewhere on Sulawesi.

The Brremangurey pearl: A 2000 year old archaeological find from the coastal Kimberley, Western Australia

Abstract A small marine pearl was recovered at the Brremangurey rockshelter, on the Kimberley coast, from layers dating to approximately 2000 years ago. In an area famous for its pearls and history of cultured pearl production, public interest centred on whether the pearl was as old as the layer in which it was contained, or whether it was a recent cultured pearl that had infiltrated down from above. The near-spherical shape of the pearl hinted at a possible cultured origin. Owing to the uniqueness and historic cultural significance of this find, non-invasive analytical techniques were used to investigate whether the Brremangurey pearl was cultured or natural. Midden analysis was further used to assess the likely origin of the pearl within the stratified deposits. Analysis confirmed that the pearl is of natural origin and a dense midden lens of Pinctada albina shells is its likely origin.

Commentary on Farbstein, R. "Technologies of art"

Chaine operatoire, as both an analytical approach and a sociotechnical perspective, has had a presence in material culture literature for some considerable time. However despite the longevity of the concept, its full potential for the comparative study of material culture production and consumption has not really been realized within archaeology. Here, Farbstein explores this area through looking at the production of mobiliary art in a range of raw materials at Pavlovian Upper Paleolithic sites.This paper studies social, material, and technological variation in Paleolithic “art” production. The approach builds on the premise that studying material choices and modification sequences reveals meaningful information about the individuals and society that created the art. Art technologies, rather than appearance, “style,” or iconography, are the focus of inquiry. This paper uses chaîne opératoire methodology to analyze portable art from culturally related Upper Paleolithic (Pavlovian) sites located in the eastern Czech Republic (Moravia). This material-based analysis offers insight into the technological options available to artists working in numerous materials. Comparing chaînes opératoires at four sites clarifies connections between purportedly linked sites and contributes better understanding of the role of art in the generation and reinforcement of social networks in this region. This case study also illustrates how this methodology might be expanded to consider other sites and cultures.