Asian Perspectives, 2006 - Volume 45, Number 1 (Spring)
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Asian Perspectives is the leading peer-reviewed archaeological journal devoted to the prehistory of Asia and the Pacific region. In addition to archaeology, it features articles and book reviews on ethnoarchaeology, palaeoanthropology, physical anthropology, and ethnography of interest and use to the prehistorian. International specialists contribute regional reports summarizing current research and fieldwork, and present topical reports of significant sites. Occasional special issues focus on single topics.
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Recent Submissions
Item Review of William Gowland: The Father of Japanese Archaeology, by Victor Harris and Kazuo Goto (eds.); Jade Dragon, by Sarah Milledge Nelson; The Excavation of Khok Phanom Di: A Prehistoric Site in Central Thailand, Volume VII: Summary and Conclusions, by C. F. W. Higham, R. Thosarat, B. F. J. Manly, and R. A. Bentley; And through Flows the River: Archaeology and the Pasts of Lao Pako, by Anna Kallen; Fishbones and Glittering Emblems: Southeast Asian Archaeology 2002, by Anna Karlstrom and Anna Kallen (eds.); Southeast Asian Archaeology: Wilhelm G. Solheim II Festschrift, by Victor Paz (ed.); After Captain Cook: The Archaeology of the Recent Indigenous Past in Australia, by R. Harrison and C. Williamson (eds.); Agriculture and Pastoralism in the Late Bronze and Iron Age, North West Frontier Province, Pakistan, by Ruth Young; Kohika: The Archaeology of a Late Maori Lake Village in the Ngati Awa Rohe, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, by Geoffrey Irwin (ed.); Walpole: Ha Colo, une Ile de l'Extreme, Archeologies et Histoires, by Christophe Sand (ed.); KIBO--Le serment grave: Essai de synthese sur les petroglyphes caledoniens, by Jean Monnin and Christophe Sand (eds.); Sailing in the Wake of the Ancestors: Reviving Polynesian Voyaging, by Ben Finney.(University of Hawai'i Press (Honolulu), 2006) Hudson, Mark; Praetzellis, Adrian; Kallen, Anna; White, Joyce C.; Miksic, John N.; Lape, Peter; Lilley, Ian; Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark; Allen, Harry; Carson, Mike T.; Montelle, Yann-Pierre; Anderson, AthollItem No Pig Atoll: Island Biogeography and the Extirpation of a Polynesian Domesticate(University of Hawai'i Press (Honolulu), 2006) Giovas, Christina M.The significance of the domestic pig, Sus scrofa, to prehistoric Polynesians is hinted at by its inclusion among the species that they transported with them as they colonized Oceania. However, archaeological data reveal a pattern of pig distribution far more extensive in prehistory than at historic contact. Domestic mammal extirpation is a phenomenon apparently unique to prehistoric Polynesia. Although well recognized, the local extinction of domestic pigs in Polynesia prior to European contact has yet to be satisfactorily explained. Earlier accounts attributed the patchy distribution of pigs across the Island South Pacific to intentional extermination by their Polynesian keepers. More recent approaches seek to understand the disappearance of these animals within a biogeographic and ecological framework. Here, I test the hypothesis that the success of pig husbandry is correlated with ecological variables and demonstrate that the likelihood of pig extinction increases with decreasing island size. KEYWORDS: Polynesia, domestic animals, pigs, island biogeography, extinction.Item Late Holocene Landscape Evolution and Land-Use Expansion in Tutuila, American Samoa(University of Hawai'i Press (Honolulu), 2006) Pearl, Frederic B.Archaeological excavations at the coast of A'asu, in Tutuila Island of American Samoa, exposed a depositional sequence spanning the past circa 700 years. With the period represented, sedimentation rates exceeded 10.15 cm per century in the valley floor and 16.34 cm per century along the valley margin. The occupational history may correlate with changes in climate, sea level, and coastal geomorphology. Although the evidence accords with the expected responses to the Little Climatic Optimum (circa 1050 to 690 B.P.) and Little Ice Age (circa 575 to 150 B.P.), the most plausible explanation for the A'asu case is that environmental change accompanied expansion of upland land use. Based on evidence here and elsewhere in Tutuila, it is proposed that the establishment of fortifications, monuments and permanent settlements in the uplands was part of a broader pattern of land-use expansion beginning in the fourteenth century A.D. KEYWORDS: American Samoa, Polynesia, landscape evolution, prehistoric human impacts, geochronology.Item Type X Pottery, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea: Petrography and Possible Micronesian Relationships(University of Hawai'i Press (Honolulu), 2006) Specht, Jim; Lilley, Ian; Dickinson, William R.Type X is one of four Post-Lapita pottery styles reported from Huon Peninsula and the Siassi Islands of Papua New Guinea. Previous petrographic work was inconclusive about its likely area of origin but indicated a possible Huon Peninsula source. Renewed analysis of a larger sample supports this conclusion and confirms the use of grog temper. This kind of temper is otherwise not recorded in the New Guinea region, and its use in the production of Type X was probably culturally driven. Comparisons between Type X and grog-tempered pottery from Palau, Yap, and Pohnpei in Micronesia lead to the suggestion that Type X probably derived from an otherwise unrecorded contact between Huon Peninsula and Palau about 1000 years ago. The article reviews other evidence for interaction between the New Guinea-Bismarck Archipelago region and various parts of Micronesia and concludes that the proposed Type X connection with Palau is but one of several prehistoric contacts between different parts of the regions. Recognition of such contacts, which could have been unintentional and on a small scale, may contribute to explaining the complex ethnolinguistic situation of Huon Peninsula.Item Embodying Okhotsk Ethnicity: Human Skeletal Remains from the Aonae Dune Site, Okushiri Island, Hokkaido(University of Hawai'i Press (Honolulu), 2006) Matsumura, Hirofumi; Hudson, Mark J.; Koshida, Kenichiro; Minakawa, YoichiThis article describes human skeletal remains from the Aonae Dune site, Okushiri Island, Hokkaido, Japan. Skeletal remains of an adult female and two sub adults were excavated in 2002. Although these remains derived from Okhotsk culture contexts, analyses of cranial and tooth crown measurements demonstrated that Aonae Dune No.1 (the adult female), Aonae Dune No.2 (a child of about 11 years), and Aonae Dune No.3 (a child of about 6 years) are morphologically closer to Epi-Jomon or Jomon and Ainu populations and significantly different from other Okhotsk samples in Hokkaido. It is argued that these three skeletons probably represent individuals from a different culture who were adopted into Okhotsk society. KEYWORDS: Hokkaido, Okhotsk culture, Aonae Dune site, osteological analyses, ethnicity.Item 45:1 Table of Contents - Asian Perspectives(University of Hawai'i Press (Honolulu), 2006)