SEAArch – The Southeast Asian Archaeology Newsblog

Hindus around the world celebrate the Festival of Lights, or Diwali, over the past weekend, and so we have a couple of Hindu-Indian themed posts in this week’s edition of Rojak.

photo credit: magiceye
Read the rest of this entry »

Catching up on a month’s worth of rojak, so some of the stories may be a little dated. Today’s assortment takes us to the ongoing culture war between Malaysia and Indonesia, the origin of the Komodo Dragon (no, it hasn’t gone to Malaysia), and Java Man’s eating habits (no, they didn’t eat at Malaysia either).

photo credit: dalbera Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve got a lot a stories from Malaysia in this week’s edition of Rojak – from the World Heritage Sites of Malacca and Georgetown, to the fates of some of the orang asli (aborigines) and the aftermath of the culture theft incident.

photo credit: a.r.hilmi
Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s rojak features the dying tradition of gong tuning in Vietnam, and a case of stolen tradition in a spat between Indonesia and Malaysia. And a special treat for those who missed the Hobbit Symposium earlier this year.

photo credit: roktobaren
Read the rest of this entry »

Been a pretty busy last few weeks, hence my lack of regular posts and rojaks. This week’s edition links to images of the Bujang Valley, a visit to Kampong Cham and the history of the Hobbit.

photo credit: plassen
Read the rest of this entry »

In this edition of rojak, we feature not one, but two digital recreations of ancient sites in Cambodia, along with other interesting things picked up from the web on the archaeology of Southeast Asia.
Read the rest of this entry »

This week, we step into an ancient boat (at least, a reconstruction of one), mull over small brains and tools, and figure out a contested temple’s role in politics. This and more in today’s edition of rojak!

photo credit: andy_carter

• Anton Diaz takes us inside the Balangay boat, which is due to set sail this weekend in a historic journey to retrace the ancient maritime routes through the Philippines. (Read more about it tomorrow!)
• Why should we be surprised that the small-brained hobbits used tools? Eric Drexler shows us examples of tool use in animals with much smaller brains in Homo floresiensis, Crows, and the Baldwin Effect

.

• Nina wanders her way into Angkor with some beautiful shots of Angkor Wat.
• From Anthropology.net, read about the new paper in Anthropological Science about homo floresiensis’ relation to homo erectus.
• The Open Anthropology Cooperative is a new web resource for anyone with an interest in the subject – form groups, hold discussions and collaborate with friends. The last I checked, there wasn’t a Southeast Asian Anthropology yet.
• This Bangkok Post editorial sheds some light on why the thorny Preah Vihear issue may be too important for Thai politics.

In this series of occasional rojaks (published on Wednesdays) I feature other sites in the blogosphere that are related to archaeology in Southeast Asia. Got a recommendation for the next Wednesday rojak? Email me!