SEAArch - The Southeast Asian Archaeology Newsblog » Uncategorized

Happy year of the Dragon!

noelbynature — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:14:44 +0000

Today marks the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year, celebrated by many Chinese communities living in Southeast Asia and also known as Tet in Vietnam. It is now the year of the Dragon!

Dragon design from the Hock Teik Cheng Sin Temple, Penang

Happy new year!

Downtime

noelbynature — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:44:37 +0000

I’ve been experiencing some technical difficulties over the past week and it’s taking me much longer to resolve. Check back on Monday!

Comment spam

noelbynature — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 06:26:24 +0000

The site’s been under a spambot attack over the weekend, so apologies if you’ve been getting notification emails over posts that you may have been following. I’ve cleaned up the spam and put in some measures to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

No updates this week

noelbynature — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:50:53 +0000

Sorry for the lack of updates this week dear readers, I am taking a little holiday in Vietnam. I hope to be back with the news sometime next week. Happy Holidays (and Christmas, if you celebrate it)!

Research on Gua Bewah skeleton coming to an end

noelbynature — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:41:45 +0000

Research on the oldest skeletal remains found in peninsular Malaysia is rounding up, although the gender of the skeleton still remains unknown. There’s also the curious intention to put the remains back to the site it was found – I don’t know if this is a reburial or a special holding centre.

Research on oldest skeleton in Malaysia coming to an end, says director
The Star, 28 October 2011

The remains of what archaeologists believe to be the oldest skeleton ever found in the country â€“ dating back 16,000 years â€“ will be returned to the site where it was found in Gua Bewah, near here.

To date, local researchers have yet to verify the gender of the remains but they have named the skeleton â€œBewah Manâ€ after the cave, near Tasik Kenyir, where it was discovered two years ago.

The skeleton is currently being kept under lock and key at the Terengganu State Museum here, where some 15 archaeologists and scientists had been toiling daily to unlock its mystery.

Full story here.

Hobbits went Out of Africa a million years earlier?

noelbynature — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 13:45:20 +0000

The Observer’s Science Editor has an update on the latest developments in Hobbit research – and how they might have been the first species out of Africa than the homo erectus. Of course, the usual caveats apply: future research will probably confirm or refute this hypothesis.

photo credit: Rosino

How a hobbit is rewriting the history of the human race
The Observer, 21 February 2010

…

According to this version of events, Homo erectus evolved from apemen predecessors, such as Australopithecus africanus, in Africa and then headed off around the Old World more than a million years ago, armed with a great physique and a modest intellect. These allowed it to settle across Africa, Asia and Europe. This diaspora was then followed by a second wave of humans â€“ our own species, Homo sapiens â€“ which emerged from Africa 100,000 years ago and took over the planet, replacing all pockets of its predecessors it encountered.

Now a far more complex picture is emerging. Ancient apemen, who might have been thought to lack the nous for global conquest, appear to have done the trick almost a million years earlier. One of the major tenets of human evolution, the story of our world conquest, is now urgently in need of revision.

As to the fate of H. floresiensis, that is unclear. The species disappears abruptly from the archaeological record 17,000 years ago. But why? They had apparently survived quite happily on the island for more than a million years. So what did for them in the end?

Seasons' greetings!

noelbynature — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 01:20:29 +0000

Ahem. It seems I am enjoying my Christmas holiday a little too much and it’s a little difficult to sit at a computer for any period of time this month. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all readers of SEAArch, I’ll resume news-blogging in the new year.

Digital Preservation Papers

noelbynature — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:36:15 +0000

I’ve written briefly about digital storage and preservation before because it’s been a personal concern of mine for some time. The Digging Digitally weblog has recently pointed to a meeting by the Library of Congress entitled “Designing Storage Architectures for Digital Preservation”. With the presentations by various practitioners and industry leaders uploaded online. Check them out here.

quick one

noelbynature — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:10:41 +0000

sorry for the lack of updates folks, I’ve decided to take an extended break for what is already a holiday week here in Malaysia. That, and an unexpected resort stay doesn’t help too! I’ll be back posting archaeology news and announcements on Monday.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to all Muslim readers out there!
Noel

Ancient Indonesian manuscripts in digital format

noelbynature — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:57:04 +0000

A literature foundation in Surakarta has announced the digitizing a quarter of the 6,000 ancient manuscripts and books in their possession – with the entire collection to be completed by the end of the year. The founder of this initiative, John Paterson, was in the news last week when he said that he was returning the scripts in his possession to the city of Solo for safekeeping. I certainly hope that such a digitalised collection will be made open access for everyone to access and study.

Thousands of Ancient Scripts Digitalized
Tempo Interaktif, 27 May 2009

The literature foundation in Surakarta has successfully digitalized 1,600 of 6,000 of their total collection of ancient scripts and books.

The foundation founder, John Paterson, said he expected that by end of this year, all of the collection can be digitalized and so can be presented to the Surakarta City Government.

â€œThe digitalizing process and language changing is the hard part,â€ said Paterson, on Tuesday (26/5).

This is because some books are in a poor condition as these is an old collection, so the foundation has had to be careful in carrying out the digitalization process properly, not to mention its limited resources.