Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T15:16:19.776Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

New evidence from East Timor contributes to our understanding of earliest modern human colonisation east of the Sunda Shelf

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Sue O'Connor
Sue O'Connor*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology and Natural History, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Acton, ACT, 0200, Australia (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

New dates by which modern humans reached East Timor prompts this very useful update of the colonisation of Island Southeast Asia. The author addresses all the difficult questions: why are the dates for modern humans in Australia earlier than they are in Island Southeast Asia? Which route did they use to get there? If they used the southern route, why or how did they manage to bypass Flores, where Homo floresiensis, the famous non-sapiens hominin known to the world as the ‘hobbit’ was already in residence? New work at the rock shelter of Jerimalai suggests some answers and new research directions.

Keywords

PleistoceneIsland Southeast AsiaEast TimorHomo sapiensHomo floresiensishuman colonisation
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 81 , Issue 313 , 1 September 2007 , pp. 523 - 535
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Balme, J. 2000. Excavations revealing 40,000 years of occupation at Mimbi Caves, south central Kimberley. Australian Archaeology 51: 1–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barker, G., Bandang, D., Barton, H., Béavitt, H., Bird, M., Daly, P., Doherty, C., Gilbertson, D., Glover, I., Hunt, C., Manser, J., Mclaren, S., Paz, V., Pyatt, B., Reynolds, T., Roseg Rushworth, J. & Stephens, M.. 2001. The Niah Cave project: the second season of fieldwork. Sarawak Museum Journal 56: 37–119.Google Scholar
Bellwood, P. 1997. Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago. Revised edition. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bellwood, P. 1998. Human dispersals and colonizations in prehistory - the Southeast Asian data and their implications, in Omoto, K. & Tobias, P. V. (ed.) The Origins and Past of Modern Humans - Towards Reconciliation (Recent Advances in Human Biology 3): 188–205. Singapore: World Scientific.Google Scholar
Bellwood, P., Nitihaminoto, G., Irwin, G., Gunadi, G., Waluyo & Tanudirjo, D.. 1998. 35,000 years of prehistory in the northern Moluccas, in Bartstra, G.-J. (ed.) Bird's Head Approaches: Irian Jaya Studies, a program for interdisciplinary research (Modern Quaternary Research in Southeast Asia 15): 233–75. Rotterdam: Balkema.Google Scholar
Bird, M. I., Ayliffe, L. K., Fifield, L. K., Turney, C.S.M., Cresswell, R. G., Burrows, T. T. & David, B.. 1999. Radiocarbon dating of ‘old’ charcoal using a wet oxidation, stepped combustion procedure. Radiocarbon 41: 127–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bird, M. I., Taylor, I. D. & Hunt, C.. 2005. Palaeoenvironments of insular Southeast Asia during the Last Glacial Period: a savannah corridor in Sundaland? Quaternary Science Reviews 24: 2228–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birdsell, J. B. 1977. The recalibration of a paradigm for the first peopling of greater Australia, in Allen, J., Golson, J. & Jones, R. (ed.) Sunda and Sahul: Prehistoric Studies in Southeast Asia, Melanesia and Australia: 113–67. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Brown, P., Sutikna, T., Morwood, M. J., Soejono, R. P., Jatmiko, , Wahyu Saptomo, E. & Due, Rokus Awe. 2004. A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia. Nature 431: 1055–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brumm, A. & Moore, M. W.. 2005. Symbolic revolutions and the Australian archaeological record. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 15 (2): 157–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brumm, A., Aziz, F., Van den bergh, G. D., Morwood, M. J., Moore, M. W., Kurniawan, I., Hobbs, D. R. & Fullagar, R.. 2006. Early stone technology on Flores and its implications for Homo floresiensis . Nature 441: 624–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Butlin, N. G. 1993. Economics and the Dreamtime A hypothetical history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, I. & Noble, W.. 1992. Why the first colonization of the Australian region is the earliest evidence of modern human behaviour. Archaeology in Oceania 27: 113–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Falk, D., Hildebolt, C., Smith, K., Morwood, M. J., Sutikna, T., Brown, P., Jatmiko, , Wayhu Saptomo, E., Brunsden, B. & Prior, F.. 2005. The Brain of LB1, Homo floresiensis . Science 308: 242–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Foley, R. 1987. Hominid species and stone-tool assemblages: how are they related? Antiquity 61: 380–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foley, R. & Lahr, M. M.. 1997. Mode 3 technologies and the evolution of modern humans. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7 (1): 3–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedlaender, J., Schurr, T., Gentz, R., Koki, G., Friedlaender, F., Horvat, G., Babb, P., Cerchio, S., Kaestle, F., Schanfield, M., Deka, R., Yanagihara, R. & Merriwether, D. A.. 2005. Expanding southwest Pacific mitochondrial Haplogroups P and Q. Molecular Biology and Evolution 45: 1506–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillespie, R. 1998. Alternative timescales: a critical review of Willandra Lakes dating. Archaeology in Oceania 33: 169–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillespie, R. & Temple, R. B.. 1977. Radiocarbon dating of shell middens. Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Oceania 12: 26–37.Google Scholar
Glover, I. 1981. Leang Burung 2: an Upper Palaeolithic rock shelter in south Sulawesi, Indonesia. Modern Quaternary Research in Southeast Asia 6: 1–38.Google Scholar
Glover, I. 1986. Archaeology in Eastern Timor, 1966-67. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
Henshilwood, C. S. & Marean, C. W.. 2003. The origin of modern human behaviour, critique of the models and their test implications. Current Anthropology 44 (5): 627–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooijer, D. A. 1971. A giant land tortoise, Geochelone Atlas (Falconer & Caytley), from the Pleistocene of Timor I and II. Proceedings Koninklijk Nederlandsch Akadamie van Wetenschappen Series B, 74 (5): 504–25.Google Scholar
Hooijer, D. A. 1965. Note on Coryphomys Buhleri Schaub, a gigantic murine rodent from Timor. Israel Journal of Zoology 14: 128–33.Google Scholar
Lahr, M. M. & Foley, R.. 2004. Human evolution writ small. Nature 431: 1043–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leavesley, M. G. & Chappell, J.. 2004. Buang Merabak: additional early radiocarbon evidence of the colonisation of the Bismarck Archipelago, Papua New Guinea. Antiquity 78 (301): http://antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/leavesley/index.html Google Scholar
Mahirta, . 2003. Human occupation on Roti and Sawu Islands, Nusa Tenggara Timur. Unpublished PhD thesis, Australian National University.Google Scholar
McBrearty, S. & Brooks, A. S.. 2000. The revolution that wasn't: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behaviour. Journal of Human Evolution 39: 453–563.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mellars, P. 2006. A new radiocarbon revolution and the dispersal of modern humans in Eurasia. Nature 439: 931–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moore, M. W. 2005. The design space of lithic technology. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of New England.Google Scholar
Morwood, M. J., Seojono, R. P., Roberts, R. G., Sutikna, T., Turney, C.S.M., Westaway, K. E., Rink, W. J., Zhao, J.-X., Van Den Bergh, G. D., Due, R. A., Hobbs, D. R., Moore, M. W., Bird, M. I. & Fifield, L. K.. 2004. Archaeology and age of a new hominin from Flores in Eastern Indonesia. Nature 431: 1087–91.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morwood, M. J., Brown, P., Jatmiko, , Sutikna, T., Saptomo, E. W., Westaway, K. E., Due, R. A., Roberts, R. G., Maeda, T., Wasisto, S. & Djubiantono, T.. 2005. Further evidence for small-bodied hominins from the late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia. Nature 437: 1012–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O'Connor, S. 2002. Pleistocene Timor: further corrections, a reply to Bednarik. Australian Archaeology 54: 46–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Connor, S. 2006. Unpacking the Island Southeast Asian Neolithic cultural package, and finding local complexity, in Bacus, E. A., Glover, I. C. & Pigott, V. C. (ed.) Uncovering Southeast Asia's Past - Selected papers from the Tenth Biennial Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists, London, 14th-17th September 2004: 74–87. Singapore: National University Press.Google Scholar
O'Connor, S. & Chappell, J.. 2003. Colonisation and coastal subsistence in Australia and Papua New Guinea: different timing, different modes, in Sand, C. (ed.) Pacific Archaeology: Assessments and Prospects. Proceedings of the International Conference for the 50th Anniversary of the First Lapita Excavation (July 1952), Koné-Nouméa 2002 (Les Cahiers de l'Archéologie en Nouvelle-Calédonie 11.): 15–32. Nouméa: Département d'Archéologie, Service des Musées et du Patrimoine.Google Scholar
O'Connor, S. & Fankhauser, B.. 2001. Art at 40,000 BP.? One step closer, an ochre covered rock from Carpenter's Gap Shelter 1, Kimberley region, W. A., , in Anderson, A., Lilley, I. & O'Connor, S. (ed.) Histories of Old Ages: Essays in Honour of Rhys Jones: 287–300. Canberra: Pandanus.Google Scholar
O'Connor, S., Spriggs, M. & Veth, P.. 2002. Excavation at Lene Hara establishes occupation in East Timor at least 30 000-35 000 years on: results of recent fieldwork. Antiquity 76: 45–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Connor, S. 2005. On the cultural history of the Aru Islands, in O'Connor, S., Spriggs, M. & Veth, P. (ed.) The Archaeology of the Aru Islands, Eastern Indonesia (Terra Australis 23): 307–14. Canberra: Pandanus Press.Google Scholar
O'Connor, S. & Veth, P.. 2005. Early Holocene shell fish hooks from Lene Hara Cave, East Timor establish complex fishing technology was in use in Island Southeast Asia 5000 years before Austronesian settlement. Antiquity 79: 1–8.Google Scholar
Reimer, P. & Reimer, R.. 2000. Marine reservoir correction database. http://calib.org.marine.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, R. G., Jones, R. & Smith, M. A.. 1990. Thermoluminescence dating of a 50,000 year-old human occupation site in northern Australia. Nature 345: 153–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, R. G., Jones, R., Spooner, N. A., Head, M. J., Murray, A. S. & Smith, M. A.. 1994. The human colonisation of Australia: optical dates of 53,000 and 60,000 years bracket human arrival at Deaf Adder Gorge, Northern Territory. Quaternary Geochronology 13: 575–83.Google Scholar
Roberts, R. G., Morwood, M. J. & Westaway, K. E.. 2005. Illuminating Southeast Asian prehistory: new archaeological and paleoanthropological frontiers for luminescence dating. Asian Perspectives 44 (2): 293–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, R. G., Yoshida, H., Galbraith, R., Lasteff, G., Jones, R. & Smith, M. A.. 1998. Single-aliquot and single-grain optical dating confirm thermoluminescence age estimates at Malakunanja II Rock Shelter in Northern Australia. Ancient TL 16 (1): 19–24.Google Scholar
Thorne, A., Grün, R., Mortimer, G., Spooner, N. A., Simpson, J. J., Mcculloch, M., Taylor, L. & Curnoe, D.. 1999. Australia's oldest human remains: age of the Lake Mungo 3 skeleton. Journal of Human Evolution 36: 591–612.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Turney, C., Bird, M., Fifield, L., Roberts, R., Smith, M., Dortch, C., Grun, R., Lawson, E., Ayliffe, L., Miller, G., Dortch, J. & Cresswell, R.. 2001. Early Human Occupation at Devil's Lair, Southwestern Australia 50,000 Years Ago. Quaternary Research 55: 3–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar