SEAArch - The Southeast Asian Archaeology Newsblog

2 April 2007 (Vietn Nam Net Bridge) - A German archaeological team has been working on the O Chua site in Southern Vietnam, which was a salt-production centre, and also yielded pottery similar to that found in salt-production sites in Europe.

Archeology helps introduce Vietnamese culture in Europe

German Archeologist Andreas Reinecke said introducing Vietnam’s culture in Europe was the purpose of archeology projects he and his Vietnamese colleagues had been conducting for the past decade.

One of these projects is the investigation of O Chua Mound in Vinh Hung District in the southern province of Long An. The site has been excavated by the Archaeological Institute of non-European cultures (the German Archaeological Institute), Hanoi University of Social Sciences and Humanities and Long An Province Museum.

19 March 2007 (New Straits Times’ Travel Times) - An interesting piece about the ancient history of the Malaysian state of Terengganu, from neolithic burials, to the port city of Fo-Lo-Ann during the classical period, to the more recent Islamic finds.

Kuala Berang’s glorious past

It’s a place that few people will notice. It does not arouse any excitement, unlike Tasik Kenyir located 35km away.

Yet, centuries ago, the district of Kuala Berang was one of the busiest ports in Terengganu where traders from as far as China came to trade and to replenish their supply of food and fresh water.

Back then (12th-14th Century), the Chinese called the place Fo-Lo-Ann. The locals, however, named it Kuala Berang after the bamboo species known as buluh berang that grew wildly along the banks of Sungai Terengganu and Sungai Berang.

According to records at the Terengganu State Museum, a Chinese historian, Chan Ju Kau, wrote that Kuala Berang was once a very busy port with traders buying local goods like kayu cendawan (candan), elephant tusks and scented kayu gaharu for export to China, the Middle East and West Asia.

Spring 2007 (Asian Perspectives) - This year’s first edition of the journal Asian Perspectives has a paper on Burmese archaeology, focusing on three walled and moated sites. Asian Perspectives is a subscription-based journal; the abstract is featured in this post.

The Gold Coast: Suvannabhumi? Lower Myanmar Walled Sites of the First Millennium A.D.
Elizabeth Moore, San Win

The high rainfall of the Lower Myanmar coast is balanced by the aridity of the country’s inland plains. The article profiles three sites in a laterite-rich area located in the northern part of the Lower Myanmar peninsula. The walls and moats of these sites underline their role in water management, one where control of water was the decisive catalyst. The sites of Kyaikkatha, Kelasa, and Winka illustrate how slight changes in topography signal critical junctures, the points where walls and moats were constructed. As a result, up to seven walls flank the higher edges of these sites; these protected the interior by diverting excess water to lower areas. Using large finger-marked bricks and terra-cotta artifacts such as votive tablets, plaques, and architectural elements, a broad chronology of c. the sixth to ninth centuries A.D. is proposed, although a majority of the pieces dated to the seventh century A.D. Attention is also drawn to evidence of Lower Myanmar prehistoric habitation in lowland areas close to the coast, where natural and man-made changes continue to alter the ecology and affect archaeological interpretation. The survey is used to encourage comparative studies, drawing in environmentally diverse but culturally related areas of South and Southeast Asia.

Related Books:
- Uncovering Southeast Asia’s Past: Selected Papers from the 10th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists by E. A. Bacus, I. Glover and V. C. Pigott (Eds)

17 March 2007 (The Brunei Times) - Liz Price’s feature in the Brunei Times about the archaeolgical finds in Lenggong, Perak, including the Perak Man, Kota Tampan site, Gua Gunung Runtuh and Gua Harimau.

Tracing back Malaysia’s stone-age man in Lenggong

PERAK Man, Peninsular Malaysia’s oldest inhabitant, is well travelled despite his great age of 11,000 years. A few years ago he went to Japan for an exhibition, and in 2001 and again in 2006 he visited Kuala Lumpur where he starred in his own exhibition called Perak Man. Now he is having a well deserved rest and is back in his native Perak, where he is residing in the new Lenggong Museum. He is, after all, one of the most important inhabitants to have lived in Malaysia, because his bones survived to tell the tale. Perak Man, found in 1991, is the only complete human skeleton found in Malaysia. The cave which was his final resting place is called Gua Gunung Runtuh and is situated in Bukit Kepala Gajah in the Lenggong Valley in Ulu Perak. The skeleton, found by Prof Zuraini Majid and her team from Universiti Sains Malaysia, has been dated about 11,000 years, which makes him a Stone Age man, from the Palaeolithic period. It is believed Perak Man was an important member of his tribe judging by the way he was buried, in a foetal position, and accompanied by stone tools. He was about 157cm tall and probably aged between 40-50 when he died. He had an atrophied left hand and one finger was deformed. The skeleton, remnants of tools and food such as shells and animal bones were found in the cave as well. The first time I went up to the Lenggong area, I visited Gua Gunung Runtuh. Although there was nothing to see except for the pits dug in the floor by the archaeological researchers, it was easy to get the imagination going, and to reflect on how Perak Man and his fellow humans had used that cave as a shelter. The Lenggong valley is one of Peninsular Malaysia’s most important areas for archaeology, as excavations have revealed many traces of Malaysia’s prehistory. The town of Lenggong is situated some 100km north of Ipoh on the Kuala Kangsar to Grik road.

China’s “Southwest”, of course, being what we know as Southeast Asia, particularly mainland Southeast Asia. A public lecture by Dr Robert Murowchick of the International Center for East Asian Archaeology & Cultural History, Boston University to be presented at the National Library of Singapore.

Ancient China’s Back Door: Explorations in the Archaeology of the “Southwestern Barbarians”

Speaker: Dr.Robert Murowchick, Research Associate Professor of Archaeology and Anthropology
(International Center for East Asian Archaeology & Cultural History, Boston University)

Date/Time: Wed, 21 Mar 07, 7.00pm-9.00pm
Venue: Level 5, Possibility Room

Admission is FREE but registration is required. Please register before 5pm on Tue, 20 Mar 2007, by emailing nlprogrammes@nlb.gov.sg and to include “Lecture by Dr Murowchick” in the subject field. Places are limited and will be distributed on a first-come, first serve basis.

Synopsis:
While “Chinese” archaeology has largely focused on the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of the North China Plain and their neighbors, less well known archaeological research was developing in China’s far southwest, influenced not so much by the scholarship of the North China Plain as by discoveries in Southeast Asia. This lecture will present the ongoing archaeological research into the Shizhaishan Culture (also known as the Dian/Tien Culture), best known for its prodigious production of bronze drums and for its spectacularly detailed bronze containers, weapons, and buckles. Enormously exciting new finds of preserved lacquer add new dimensions to this culture, and to our understanding of ancient Yunnan as a place of intersection linking the diverse cultures of a much broader region.

Speaker Biodata:
Dr. Murowchick is Director of the newly-established International Center for East Asian Archaeology and Cultural History (ICEAACH) at Boston University, where he also serves as Research Associate Professor of Archaeology and Anthropology.

He is one of the founding editors of the new Journal of East Asian Archaeology (JEAA) which is edited at BU and published by Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden. He is also an Associate in East Asian Archaeology at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

Dr. Murowchick served as the Associate Director of Harvard’s Bok Center for Teaching and Learning from 1990-1992, and concurrently as Associate Director of the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research and of the National Resource Center for East Asian Studies from 1992-1996.

He is married with two sons, and resides in Needham, Massachusetts, where he serves on the Steering Committee for the Asian Studies Curriculum for the Needham Public Schools.

Click here for his detailed CV.

Related Books:
- Southeast Asia: From Prehistory to History by P. S. Bellwood and I. Glover (Eds)
- Early Cultures of Mainland Southeast Asia
- The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia (Cambridge World Archaeology) by C. Higham

30 January 2007 (Eureka Alerts, BBC) - A new development in the Hobbit debate, paleoneurologist Dean Falk from Florida State University concluded that the Hobbit is indeed a new species, rather than a human with microcephaly. This conclusion was made by making comparisons of the brain casts between human, microcephalic and hobbit specimens.

Comparisons between a microcephalic (left) and the Hobbit (right)
(Image: Kirk E. Smith, Electronic Radiology Laboratory, Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology)

FSU anthropologist confirms ‘Hobbit’ indeed a separate species

After the skeletal remains of an 18,000-year-old, Hobbit-sized human were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003, some scientists thought that the specimen must have been a pygmy or a microcephalic — a human with an abnormally small skull.

Not so, said Dean Falk, a world-renowned paleoneurologist and chair of Florida State University’s anthropology department, who along with an international team of experts created detailed maps of imprints left on the ancient hominid’s braincase and concluded that the so-called Hobbit was actually a new species closely related to Homo sapiens.

Now after further study, Falk is absolutely convinced that her team was right and that the species cataloged as LB1, Homo floresiensis, is definitely not a human born with microcephalia — a somewhat rare pathological condition that still occurs today. Usually the result of a double-recessive gene, the condition is characterized by a small head and accompanied by some mental retardation.

…

In this latest study, the researchers compared 3-D, computer-generated reconstructions of nine microcephalic modern human brains and 10 normal modern human brains. They found that certain shape features completely separate the two groups and that Hobbit classifies with normal humans rather than microcephalic humans in these features. In other ways, however, Hobbit’s brain is unique, which is consistent with its attribution to a new species.

Comparison of two areas in the frontal lobe, the temporal lobe and the back of the brain show the Hobbit brain is nothing like a microcephalic’s and is advanced in a way that is different from living humans. In fact, the LB1 brain was the “antithesis” of the microcephalic brain, according to Falk, a finding the researchers hope puts this part of the Hobbit controversy to rest.

Related Books:
Little People And a Lost World: An Anthropological Mystery by L. Goldenberg

Merry Christmas one and all! The SEAArch Podcast talks to Dr Dougald O’Reilly, the director of Heritage Watch, an NGO in Cambodia that seeks to preserve the cultural heritage of Cambodia. Dr O’Reilly talks about the work of Heritage Watch, the extent of looting of artefacts in Cambodia, and how you can help.

Hear (or download) the podcast on the SEAArch Podcast page.