Wednesday Rojak #24

March 19th, 2008
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noelbynature Posted in Cambodia, General Archaeology, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peripheral Southeast Asia, Singapore, Thailand, Wednesday Rojak | 1 Comment »

What do Dungeons & Dragons have in common with ancient Indonesian ruins, Malay dances and explosion of the Toba volcano? Why, they’re all in this week’s edition of rojak – and more!

photo credit: basibanget

Wired magazine has a funny take on archaeologists and grad students in commemoration of Dungeons & Dragons creator, Gary Gygax. Hmm… I hope I don’t end up like one!
John Hawks, who edited last week’s paper on PLOS One about the Palau Skeletons writes about his thoughts of the paper.
Amanda takes us to Sumatra where she gives us a tour of the typical traditional Palembang House.
Alison, in Cambodia, pays a return visit to Oudong.
The Gunong Padang Archaeological Site is a little-known treasure from Sumatra, and the ASEAN travel group posts pictures from this the largest megalithic site in Southeast Asia.
Faddy gives us an uncut, behind-the-scenes look at the Kuda Kepang, a Malay dance using horse imagery that is employed during festive events – but it also has a mystical side to it as well.
The saga continues! Kambiz from anthropology.net alerts us to an upcoming paper to be released anytime now that suggests -surprise, surprise- that the Hobbit is an altogether new species. Who wants to bet we’ll hear another media flurryabout it next week?
Kawadjan explores the Khmer temples of Northern Thailand.
And lastly, Mathilda’s anthropology blog posts a paper by Stephen Oppenheimer about the prehistoric peoples in Asia before the eruption of Toba. Starring the Perak Man (although we’re quite sure he came some time after that eruption).