Phytolith and Starch Research in the Australian-Pacific-Asian Regions
Phytolith and Starch Research in the Australian-Pacific-Asian Regions

Author: Diane M. Hart

Publisher: Pandanus Books

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13:

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This series reports the results of archaeologicaland related research within South-East Asia,but particularly in Australia, Papua New Guineaand island Melanesia.This issue brings together many of the papers andposters presented at a conference on phytolith andstarch research in the region held at The AustralianNational University in Canberra in August 2001.The conference attracted participants from withinAustralia as well as from New Zealand, China,Belgium, the United States and Argentina. Subjectsinclude a history of phytolith researchers in Australia,techniques for the use and analysis of phytolith andstarch research, taphonomy and phytolithapplications.The modern era of Australian phytolith researchbegan in the 1980s and, with increasing numbers ofuniversities adding elements of phytolith studies forstudents, and the high quality of research beingconducted now, phytolith research in Australia can beconsidered to have come of age.Such progress in the realms of archaeology,palaeoenvironmental studies and pedology is reflectedin this collection.

Phytoliths
Phytoliths

Author: Dolores R. Piperno

Publisher: Rowman Altamira

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9780759103856

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Introductory guide to the analysis of plant phytoliths in archaeology.

Ancient Starch Research
Ancient Starch Research

Author: Robin Torrence

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-09-16

Total Pages: 547

ISBN-13: 1315434873

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What role did plant resources have in the evolution of the human species? Why and how have plants been managed and transported to new environments? Where, how, and why were plants domesticated, and why do the patterns vary in different parts of the world? What is the relationship between the intensification of food production and the rise of complex societies? Numerous new studies are using starch granules discovered in archaeological contexts to answer these questions and improve our knowledge of past human behavior and environmental variation. Given the substantial body of successful research, the time has clearly come for a comprehensive description of ancient starch research and its potential for archaeologists. This book fills these roles by describing the fundamental principles underlying starch research, guiding researchers through the methodology, reviewing the results of significant case studies, and pointing the way to future avenues for research. The joint product of over two dozen archaeological scientists, Ancient Starch Research aims to bring the important new field of ancient starch analysis to the attention of a wider range of scholars and to provide them with the information needed to embark on their own research.

Plants, People and Places
Plants, People and Places

Author: Marco Madella

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2007-02-01

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 178297430X

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Phytoliths - rigid microscopic bodies that occur in most plant species - have gone a long way since that day when Darwin became curious about a fine powder deposited on the instruments of the HMS Beagle. This fascinating subject started because of curiosity, and in that respect it was a good start since curiosity is probably the most important drive behind first-rate research. Fortunately curiosity is still present in phytolith research; the articles in this book are full of curiosity and ingenuity. Phytolith research has grown since the times of Darwin and in the last three decades has bloomed. The papers in this collection span most of the application of phytolith analysis (from archaeology, palaeoenvironmental studies and botany, to name just some) and the majority of them were presented at the 4th International Meeting on Phytolith Research that was held in Cambridge (UK) in August 2002.

Degei’s Descendants
Degei’s Descendants

Author: Matthew Spriggs

Publisher: ANU E Press

Published: 2014-08-01

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 192502184X

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Dr Parke’s monograph examines how Fijians, especially in western areas of Fiji, currently understand and explain the origins and development of the social and political divisions of late pre-colonial traditional Fijian society. It assesses the reasoning, consistency and, where possible, the historical accuracy of such understandings. The oral history research which forms the backbone of the study was conducted in either standard Fijian or one or other of the western Fijian dialects with which Dr Parke was familiar. The period on which the monograph concentrates is the two centuries or so immediately prior to the Deed of Cession on 10 October 1874. A number of the major chiefs of Fiji had offered to cede Fiji to Queen Victoria; and after the offer had been accepted, Fiji became a British Crown Colony on that day. The volume will be of interest to all archaeologists, anthropologists and historians with an interest in Fiji. It will also be of wider interest to Pacific Studies scholars and those of British colonial history as well as historians with a wider interest in indigenous traditional histories and their role in governance today.

4000 Years of Migration and Cultural Exchange
4000 Years of Migration and Cultural Exchange

Author: Peter Bellwood

Publisher: ANU E Press

Published: 2013-12-20

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1925021289

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The project reported on in this monograph has been concerned with the archaeology of the Batanes Islands, an archipelago that must have been settled quite early in the process of Austronesian dispersal from Taiwan southwards into the Philippines. A multi-phase archaeological sequence covering the past 4000 years for the islands of Itbayat, Batan, Sabtang and Siayan is presented, extending from the Neolithic to the final phase of Batanes prehistory, just prior to the late 17th century arrivals of foreign navigators such as Jirobei (Japan) and William Dampier (England), followed by the first Spanish missionaries. So far, no traces of preceramic settlement have been found in Batanes, but the archaeological sequence there from the Neolithic onwards, like that in the Cagayan Valley in northern Luzon, is now one of the best-established in the Philippines.

An Archaeology of Early Christianity in Vanuatu
An Archaeology of Early Christianity in Vanuatu

Author: James L. Flexner

Publisher: ANU Press

Published: 2016-12-19

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 1760460753

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Religious change is at its core a material as much as a spiritual process. Beliefs related to intangible spirits, ghosts, or gods were enacted through material relationships between people, places, and objects. The archaeology of mission sites from Tanna and Erromango islands, southern Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides), offer an informative case study for understanding the material dimensions of religious change. One of the primary ways that cultural difference was thrown into relief in the Presbyterian New Hebrides missions was in the realm of objects. Christian Protestant missionaries believed that religious conversion had to be accompanied by changes in the material conditions of everyday life. Results of field archaeology and museum research on Tanna and Erromango, southern Vanuatu, show that the process of material transformation was not unidirectional. Just as Melanesian people changed religious beliefs and integrated some imported objects into everyday life, missionaries integrated local elements into their daily lives. Attempts to produce ‘civilised Christian natives’, or to change some elements of native life relating purely to ‘religion’ but not others, resulted instead in a proliferation of ‘hybrid’ forms. This is visible in the continuity of a variety of traditional practices subsumed under the umbrella term ‘kastom’ through to the present alongside Christianity. Melanesians didn’t become Christian, Christianity became Melanesian. The material basis of religious change was integral to this process.

Contextualising the Neolithic Occupation of Southern Vietnam
Contextualising the Neolithic Occupation of Southern Vietnam

Author: Carmen Sarjeant

Publisher: ANU Press

Published: 2014-11-17

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13: 1925021750

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Excavated in 2009, An Son, Long An Province, southern Vietnam has been dated to the second millennium BC, with evidence for neolithic occupation and burials. Very little is known about the neolithic period in southern Vietnam, and the routes and chronology for the appearance of cultivation, domestic animals, and ceramic and lithic technologies associated with sedentary settlements in mainland Southeast Asia are still debated. The ways in which the ceramic material culture at An Son conforms to the wider neolithic expression observed in Southeast Asia is investigated, and local and regional innovations are identified. The An Son ceramic assemblage is discussed in great detail to characterise the neolithic occupation, while considering the nature of craft production, manufacturing methods and the transference of traditions. Contextualising the neolithic in southern Vietnam is conducted through a comparative study of material culture between An Son and the sites of B?n Ðò, Bình ?a, Cù Lao Rùa, Cái V?n, C?u S?t, ?a Kai, ?ình Ông, L?c Giang, R?ch Lá, R?ch Núi and Su?i Linh, all in southern Vietnam. Another analysis is presented to contextualise An Son in the wider neolithic landscape of mainland Southeast Asia, between An Son and Ban Non Wat, early Ban Lum Khao, early Ban Chiang, early Non Nok Tha, Khok Charoen, Tha Kae, Khok Phanom Di, Nong Nor (phase 1), Samrong Sen, Laang Spean, Krek, Bàu Tró, Mán B?c and Xóm R?n. The aspects of material culture at An Son that appear to have ancestral links are considered in this research as well as local interaction spheres.

Archaeology of Oceania
Archaeology of Oceania

Author: Ian Lilley

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2008-04-15

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 140515229X

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This book is a state-of-the-art introduction to the archaeology of Oceania, covering both Australia and the Pacific Islands. The first text to provide integrated treatment of the archaeologies of Australia and the Pacific Islands Enables readers to form a coherent overview of cultural developments across the region as a whole Brings together contributions from some of the region’s leading scholars Focuses on new discoveries, conceptual innovations, and postcolonial realpolitik Challenges conventional thinking on major regional and global issues in archaeology

What's Changing: Population Size Or Land-use Patterns?
What's Changing: Population Size Or Land-use Patterns?

Author: Val Attenbrow

Publisher: ANU E Press

Published: 2007-02-01

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 1921313056

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The Upper Mangrove Creek catchment was an ideal locality in which to undertake field investigation into Aboriginal use of the coastal hinterland. The area, 101 square kilometres in size, is rich in sites that provided significant archaeological evidence of Aboriginal use of the coastal hinterland. The catchment became the focus of major archaeological salvage work in the late 1970s, prior to the construction of the Mangrove Creek Dam. Further research, undertaken by Val Attenbrow, on the total catchment expanded upon the results of earlier work. This monograph describes the later research project and summarises the salvage program results. This evidence is used by the author to explore current research issues relating to the interpretation of the mid- to late-Holocene archaeological record in Australia, particularly quantitative changes relating to population numbers and aspects of human behaviour, such as risk management, subsistence, mobility and land-use patterns.