Bioarchaeology of Southeast Asia

About this book

Bioarchaeology of Southeast Asia is the first book to examine the biology and lives of the pre-historic people of this region. Bringing together the most active researchers in late Pleistocene/Holocene Southeast Asian human osteology, the book deals with major approaches to studying human skeletal remains. Using analysis of the physical appearance of the region's past peoples, the first section explores issues such as the first inhabitants of the region, the evidence for subsequent migratory patterns (particularly between Southeast and Northeast Asia) and counter arguments centering on in situ microevolutionary change. The second section reconstructs the health of these people, in the context of major economic and demographic changes over time, including those caused by the adoption or intensification of agriculture.

Contents

Preface; Foreword; 1. Introduction: Southeast Asian bioarchaeology: past and present Nancy Tayles and Marc Oxenham; 2. The population history of Southeast Asia viewed from morphometric analyses of human skeletal and dental remains Hirofumi Matsumura; 3. A multivariate craniometric study of the prehistoric and modern inhabitants of Southeast Asia, East Asia and surrounding regions: a human kaleidoscope Michael Pietrusewsky; 4. Interpretation of craniofacial variation and diversification of East and Southeast Asians Tsunehiko Hanihara; 5. New perspectives on the human peopling of Southeast and East Asia during the late upper Pleistocene Fabrice Demeter; 6. Human variation and evolution in Holocene Peninsular Malaysia David Bulbeck and Adam Lauer; 7. Batak dentition, Palawan Island, Philippines: Southeast Asian Negrito origins Christy G. Turner II and James F. Eder; 8. Non Nok Tha people: an assessment of dental pathological conditions Michele Toomay Douglas; 9. Human biology from the bronze age to the iron age in the Mun River Valley of Northeast Thailand Kate Domett and Nancy Tayles; 10. Paleodietary change among pre-state metal-age societies in Northeast Thailand: a study using bone stable isotopes Christopher King and Lynette Norr; 11. The oral health consequences of the adoption and intensification of agriculture in Southeast Asia Marc Oxenham, Nguyen Lan Cuong and Nguyen Kim Thuy; 12. Cranial lesions on the late Pleistocene Indonesian Homo erectus Ngandong 7 Etty Indriati; 13. 'The predators within': investigating the relationship between malaria and health in the prehistoric Pacific Islands Hallie Buckley; 14. Conclusions: synthesising Southeast Asian population history and paleohealth Marc Oxenham and Nancy Tayles.

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Biography

MARC OXENHAM is a Lecturer in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra. For the last 10 years, he has been involved in bioarchaeological research in northern Vietnam, particularly in Vietnamese tropical and subtropical health during the Holocene, but has recently extended his interests into the palaeohealth of sub-arctic foragers in Northeast Asia. NANCY TAYLES is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology at the University of Otago, New Zealand. She has been working as the bioarchaeologist in a multidisciplinary international team working on a series of prehistoric sites in Southeast and Northeast Thailand, but has also worked in Burma/Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam. Her research interests focus on issues of Quality of Life in prehistory, using indicators of health measured from human skeletal remains as evidence.