Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword: Emerging frontiers in the bioarchaeology of Southeast Asia
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: Southeast Asian bioarchaeology past and present
- Part I Morphological diversity, evolution and population relationships
- 2 The population history of Southeast Asia viewed from morphometric analyses of human skeletal and dental remains
- 3 A multivariate craniometric study of the prehistoric and modern inhabitants of Southeast Asia, East Asia and surrounding regions: a human kaleidoscope?
- 4 Interpretation of craniofacial variation and diversification of East and Southeast Asians
- 5 New perspectives on the peopling of Southeast and East Asia during the late upper Pleistocene
- 6 Human variation and evolution in Holocene Peninsular Malaysia
- 7 Dentition of the Batak people of Palawan Island, the Philippines: Southeast Asian Negrito origins
- Part II Health, disease and quality of life
- Part III Conclusions
- Index
- References
3 - A multivariate craniometric study of the prehistoric and modern inhabitants of Southeast Asia, East Asia and surrounding regions: a human kaleidoscope?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword: Emerging frontiers in the bioarchaeology of Southeast Asia
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: Southeast Asian bioarchaeology past and present
- Part I Morphological diversity, evolution and population relationships
- 2 The population history of Southeast Asia viewed from morphometric analyses of human skeletal and dental remains
- 3 A multivariate craniometric study of the prehistoric and modern inhabitants of Southeast Asia, East Asia and surrounding regions: a human kaleidoscope?
- 4 Interpretation of craniofacial variation and diversification of East and Southeast Asians
- 5 New perspectives on the peopling of Southeast and East Asia during the late upper Pleistocene
- 6 Human variation and evolution in Holocene Peninsular Malaysia
- 7 Dentition of the Batak people of Palawan Island, the Philippines: Southeast Asian Negrito origins
- Part II Health, disease and quality of life
- Part III Conclusions
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
The peoples and cultures of Southeast Asia, a region with boundaries that are more influenced by its past inhabitants than by today's geopolitical borders, have been described as representing a human kaleidoscope (Bowles 1977). Broadly defined, this region now includes present-day Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, former French Indochina (Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam), Malaysia and the islands of Indonesia and the Philippines. The people and the prehistory of this region are often portrayed as a southern division of eastern Asia (Bellwood 1997). While making sense of the biology of the modern-day inhabitants of this region has proved daunting, including its earlier inhabitants adds yet another dimension, one that lends itself to addressing issues including the origins of the people in the region, ancient and modern.
In recent years, new archaeological and linguistic perspectives on the evolution and prehistory of Southeast Asia and East Asia have emerged, positions that frequently centre on rice domestication, the development of agriculture and the dispersal of languages hypothesised as having most likely emanated from southern China. Archaeologists (e.g. Bellwood 1996, 2000, Glover and Higham 1996, Higham 1996, 2001) as well as historical linguists (e.g. Bayard 1996–97, Blust 1996) now argue against both in situ agricultural development and diffusion of agricultural technology to the indigenous hunter–gathering populations in late Holocene Southeast Asia, in favour of an agricultural colonisation model. Bellwood (1997) has argued most strenuously for a population displacement to account for the people who now inhabit Southeast Asia.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Bioarchaeology of Southeast Asia , pp. 59 - 90Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006
References
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