Prehistoric Mongoloid Dispersals

Prehistoric Mongoloid Dispersals PDF Author: Takeru Akazawa
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Book Description
Of all human migrations, the most significant was that of the Mongoloid during the last Glacial period. Unrelated groups spread from their homeland in Asia through Siberia to the Americas, or across the Pacific, ultimately covering two-thirds of the earth's surface. This book takes a unique multi-disciplinary and international approach to the study of these migrations. By bringing to this model as many disciplines as possible--from molecular genetics and linguistics to archaeology and paleontology--a comprehensive picture is drawn which will not only shed light on this specific period of migration, but also help answer one of the greatest puzzles of evolutionary anthropology--the origin of Homo sapiens and the subsequent formation of different races and ethnic groups.

The Archaeology of Lapita Dispersal in Oceania

The Archaeology of Lapita Dispersal in Oceania PDF Author: Geoffrey Richard Clark
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

Book Description
Papers from the Fourth Lapita Conference held in Canberra. Lapita archaeology is of fundamental importance to understanding the Pacific since it unearths information about the first people to establish themselves beyond the Solomon Islands to as far east as Samoa around 3000 years ago.

The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Oceania

The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Oceania PDF Author: Terry L. Hunt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190875658
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 720

Book Description
Oceania was the last region on earth to be permanently inhabited, with the final settlers reaching Aotearoa/New Zealand approximately AD 1300. This is about the same time that related Polynesian populations began erecting Easter Island's gigantic statues, farming the valley slopes of Tahiti and similar islands, and moving finely made basalt tools over several thousand kilometers of open ocean between Hawai'i, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, and archipelagos in between. The remarkable prehistory of Polynesia is one chapter of Oceania's human story. Almost 50,000 years prior, people entered Oceania for the first time, arriving in New Guinea and its northern offshore islands shortly thereafter, a biogeographic region labelled Near Oceania and including parts of Melanesia. Near Oceania saw the independent development of agriculture and has a complex history resulting in the greatest linguistic diversity in the world. Beginning 1000 BC, after millennia of gradually accelerating cultural change in Near Oceania, some groups sailed east from this space of inter-visible islands and entered Remote Oceania, rapidly colonizing the widely separated separated archipelagos from Vanuatu to S?moa with purposeful, return voyages, and carrying an intricately decorated pottery called Lapita. From this common cultural foundation these populations developed separate, but occasionally connected, cultural traditions over the next 3000 years. Western Micronesia, the archipelagos of Palau, Guam and the Marianas, was also colonized around 1500 BC by canoes arriving from the west, beginning equally long sequences of increasingly complex social formations, exchange relationships and monumental constructions. All of these topics and others are presented in The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Oceania written by Oceania's leading archaeologists and allied researchers. Chapters describe the cultural sequences of the region's major island groups, provide the most recent explanations for diversity and change in Oceanic prehistory, and lay the foundation for the next generation of research.

Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago

Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago PDF Author: Peter Bellwood
Publisher: ANU E Press
ISBN: 1921313129
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 443

Book Description
Since its publication in 1985, Peter Bellwood's Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago has been hailed as the sole authoritative work on the subject by the leading expert in the field. Now that work has been fully revised and includes a complete up-to-date summary of the archaeology of the region (and relevant neighboring areas of China and Oceania), as well as a comprehensive discussion of new and important issues (such as the "Eve-Garden of Eden" hypothesis and its relevance to the Indo-Malaysian region) and recent advances in macrofamily linguistic classification. Moving north to south from northern Peninsular Malaysia to Timor and west to east from Sumatra to the Moluccas, Bellwood describes human prehistory from initial hominid settlement more than one million years ago to the eve of historical Hindu-Buddhist and Islamic cultures of the region. The archaeological record provides the central focus, but chapters also incorporate essential information from the paleoenvironmental sciences, biological anthropology, linguistics, and social anthropology. Bellwood approaches questions about past cultural and biological developments in the region from a multidisciplinary perspective. Historical issues given extended treatment include the significance of the Homo erectus populations of Java, the dispersal of the present Austronesian-speaking peoples of the region within the past 4,000 years, and the spread of metallurgy since 500 B.C. Bellwood also discusses relationships between the prehistoric populations of the archipelago and those of neighboring regions such as Australia, New Guinea, and mainland Asia.

The Early Prehistory of Fiji

The Early Prehistory of Fiji PDF Author: Geoffrey Richard Clark
Publisher: ANU E Press
ISBN: 1921666072
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 444

Book Description
I enjoyed reading this volume. It is rare to see such a comprehensive report on hard data published these days, especially one so insightfully contextualised by the editors' introductory and concluding chapters. These scholars and the others involved in the work really know their stuff, and it shows. The editors connect the preoccupations of Pacific archaeologists with those of their colleagues working in other island regions and on "big questions" of colonisation, migration, interaction and patterns and processes of cultural change in hitherto-uninhabited environments. These sorts of outward-looking, big-picture contextual studies are invaluable, but all too often are missing from locally- and regionally-oriented writing, very much to its detriment. In sum, the work strongly advances our understanding of the early prehistory of Fiji through its well-integrated combination of original research and the reinterpretation of existing knowledge in the context of wider theoretical and historical concerns. In doing so The Early Prehistory of Fiji makes a truly substantial contribution to Pacific and archaeological scholarship. Professor Ian Lilley, The University of Queensland

Genes, Language, & Culture History in the Southwest Pacific

Genes, Language, & Culture History in the Southwest Pacific PDF Author: Jonathan S. Friedlaender
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190293675
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
The broad arc of islands north of Australia that extends from Indonesia east towards the central Pacific is home to a set of human populations whose concentration of diversity is unequaled elsewhere. Approximately 20% of the worlds languages are spoken here, and the biological and genetic heterogeneity among the groups is extraordinary. Anthropologist W.W. Howells once declared diversity in the region so Protean as to defy analysis. However, this book can now claim considerable success in describing and understanding the origins of the genetic and linguistic variation there. In order to cut through this biological knot, the authors have applied a comprehensive battery of genetic analyses to an intensively sampled set of populations, and have subjected these and complementary linguistic data to a variety of phylogenetic analyses. This has revealed a number of heretofore unknown ancient Pleistocene genetic variants that are only found in these island populations, and has also identified the genetic footprints of more recent migrants from Southeast Asia who were the ancestors of the Polynesians. The book lays out the very complex structure of the variation within and among the islands in this relatively small region, and a number of explanatory models are tested to see which best account for the observed pattern of genetic variation here. The results suggest that a number of commonly used models of evolutionary divergence are overly simple in their assumptions, and that often human diversity has accumulated in very complex ways.

Islands as Crossroads

Islands as Crossroads PDF Author: Tim Curtis
Publisher: UNESCO
ISBN: 9231041819
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
This book brings together information on various disciplines from the three main island regions of the world - the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean - to explore the ways in which the peoples of small islands have lived, and continue to live, in their culturally diverse societies. Leading anthropologists, historians, economists, archaeologists and others provide information on the complexity and dynamics of societies in small island developing states. It reflects the outcomes of a UNESCO symposium held in the Seychelles in 2007.--Publisher's description.

Handbook of East and Southeast Asian Archaeology

Handbook of East and Southeast Asian Archaeology PDF Author: Junko Habu
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1493965212
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 771

Book Description
The Handbook of East and Southeast Asian Archaeology focuses on the material culture and lifeways of the peoples of prehistoric and early historic East and Southeast Asia; their origins, behavior and identities as well as their biological, linguistic and cultural differences and commonalities. Emphasis is placed upon the interpretation of material culture to illuminate and explain social processes and relationships as well as behavior, technology, patterns and mechanisms of long-term change and chronology, in addition to the intellectual history of archaeology as a discipline in this diverse region. The Handbook augments archaeologically-focused chapters contributed by regional scholars by providing histories of research and intellectual traditions, and by maintaining a broadly comparative perspective. Archaeologically-derived data are emphasized with text-based documentary information, provided to complement interpretations of material culture. The Handbook is not restricted to art historical or purely descriptive perspectives; its geographical coverage includes the modern nation-states of China, Mongolia, Far Eastern Russia, North and South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and East Timor.

Origins And Past Of Modern Humans, The: Towards Reconciliation

Origins And Past Of Modern Humans, The: Towards Reconciliation PDF Author: Keiichi Omoto
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814545856
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 282

Book Description
In this volume, because the differences in methodological approaches are so great, the focus is switched to the major issues in the hope of achieving a 'reconciliation', if not a perfect agreement, among the scholars of different disciplines. The keyword for the meeting was 'balance' — a balanced view over the results from different disciplines.

Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance

Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance PDF Author: Aleksandra I︠U︡rʹevna Aĭkhenvalʹd
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780199283088
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 476

Book Description
This book considers how and why forms and meanings of different languages at different times may resemble each other. Its distinguished authors investigate the relationship between areal diffusion and the genetic development of languages, and reveal the means of distinguishing what may cause one language to share the characteristics of another. The chapters cover Ancient Anatolia, Modern Anatolia, Australia, Amazonia, Oceania, Southeast and East Asia, and Sub-Saharan. Africa. - ;Two languages can resemble each other in the categories, constructions, and types of meaning they use; and in the fo.