Somewhere beyond the sea: Human cranial remains from the Lesser Sunda Islands (Alor Island, Indonesia) provide insights on Late Pleistocene peopling of Island Southeast Asia

Carro, Sofía C. Samper; Gilbert, Felicity; Bulbeck, David; O’Connor, Sue; Louys, Julien; Spooner, Nigel A.; Questiaux, Danièle G.; Arnold, Lee J.; Price, Gilbert J.; Wood, Rachel; Mahirta,

doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2019.07.002

Cited by 15 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…Presently, however, the earliest archaeological evidence for our species in Wallacea dates to at least 45.5 kya for figurative art in Sulawesi 11 , and 47–43 kyr cal bp for a behavioural shift at Liang Bua (Flores, Indonesia) 12 . The oldest Homo sapiens skeletal remains date to 13 kya 13 . The route modern humans used to enter Sahul is not known 14 .…”

Section: Mainmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genome of a middle Holocene hunter-gatherer from Wallacea

Carlhoff

Duli

Nägele

et al. 2021

Nature

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Much remains unknown about the population history of early modern humans in southeast Asia, where the archaeological record is sparse and the tropical climate is inimical to the preservation of ancient human DNA1. So far, only two low-coverage pre-Neolithic human genomes have been sequenced from this region. Both are from mainland Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherer sites: Pha Faen in Laos, dated to 7939–7751 calibrated years before present (yr cal bp; present taken as ad 1950), and Gua Cha in Malaysia (4.4–4.2 kyr cal bp)1. Here we report, to our knowledge, the first ancient human genome from Wallacea, the oceanic island zone between the Sunda Shelf (comprising mainland southeast Asia and the continental islands of western Indonesia) and Pleistocene Sahul (Australia–New Guinea). We extracted DNA from the petrous bone of a young female hunter-gatherer buried 7.3–7.2 kyr cal bp at the limestone cave of Leang Panninge2 in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Genetic analyses show that this pre-Neolithic forager, who is associated with the ‘Toalean’ technocomplex3,4, shares most genetic drift and morphological similarities with present-day Papuan and Indigenous Australian groups, yet represents a previously unknown divergent human lineage that branched off around the time of the split between these populations approximately 37,000 years ago5. We also describe Denisovan and deep Asian-related ancestries in the Leang Panninge genome, and infer their large-scale displacement from the region today.

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Section: Mainmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genome of a middle Holocene hunter-gatherer from Wallacea

Carlhoff

Duli

Nägele

et al. 2021

Nature

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“…On Alor island at Tron Bon Lei, burials occur from the Pleistocene–Holocene transition (O'Connor et al 2017), while in Makpan there is a burial in the early Holocene (Samper Carro et al in press). These burials share similaritites in interment practice such as the selective removal of skeletal elements prior to interment and the use of cobbles to cover the body (Samper Carro et al 2019; in press). Unlike Makpan, the only fishhooks known from Tron Bon Lei were interred as grave goods with a single burial (O'Connor et al 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Faces in the Stone: Further Finds of Anthropomorphic Engravings Suggest a Discrete Artistic Tradition Flourished in Timor-Leste in the Terminal Pleistocene

O’Connor

Oliveira²,

Standish

et al. 2020

CAJ

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Engraving sites are rare in mainland and Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) where painted art dominates the prehistoric artistic record. Here we report two new engraving sites from the Tutuala region of Timor-Leste comprising mostly humanoid forms carved into speleothem columns in rock-shelters. Engraved face motifs have previously been reported from Lene Hara Cave in this same region, and one was dated to the Pleistocene–Holocene transition using the Uranium–Thorium method. We discuss the engravings in relation to changes in technology and material culture that took place in the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene archaeological records in this region of Timor as well as neighbouring islands. We suggest that the engravings may have been produced as markers of territorial and social identity within the context of population expansion and greater inter-group contacts at this time.

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“…We assume that individuals represented by the recently reported late Pleistocene human skeletal remains from Alor (Samper Carro et al . ) were descendants of one or the other of these incoming groups.…”

Section: Was Sahul Isolated From the Rest Of The World During The Lgm?mentioning

confidence: 99%

A different paradigm for the initial colonisation of Sahul

Allen

O’Connell

2020

Archaeology in Oceania

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The questions of when and how humans reached Sahul, the Pleistocene continent of Australia and New Guinea, has remained a central issue of Australian archaeology since its development as an academic discipline in the mid-twentieth century. Modelling this event has persistently appealed to minimal assumptions -the simplest watercraft, the shortest routes, the smallest viable colonising groups. This paper argues that Australian archaeology can no longer ignore the way our understanding of this initial colonisation is being reshaped by current genomic research. It reviews this evidence and concludes that a colonising wave of hundreds or perhaps low thousands of people was involved. If correct, it suggests that we need to rethink our models, modify or discard the minimalist assumptions that have so far driven them and consider how this different paradigm affects our understanding of early settlement in Sahul. RÉSUMÉ La question de savoir quand et comment les hommes ont atteint Sahul, le continent pléistocène regroupant l'Australie et laNouvelle-Guinée, persiste comme une problématique centrale de l'archéologie australienne depuis son essor en tant que discipline universitaire au milieu du vingtième siècle. La modélisation de cetévénement s'est appuyée de façon récurrente sur des présupposés minimalistes, impliquant les moyens de navigation les plus simples, les routes les plus courtes, les groupes de colonisation viable les plus restreints. Ce papier soutient que l'archéologie australienne ne peut plus ignorer combien notre compréhension de ce peuplement initial se trouve aujourd'hui redéfinie par la recherche génomique en cours. Il passe en revue les données et conclue que plusieurs centaines ou quelques milliers de personnes ont participéà cette vague de peuplement. Si cette hypothèse est correcte, elle implique que nous repensions nos modèles, que nous modifiions ou abandonnions les présupposés minimalistes qui ont jusqu'à présent défini ceux-ci et que nous analysions comment ce nouveau paradigme influence notre compréhension du premier peuplement de Sahul.

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Somewhere beyond the sea: Human cranial remains from the Lesser Sunda Islands (Alor Island, Indonesia) provide insights on Late Pleistocene peopling of Island Southeast Asia

Cited by 15 publications

References 68 publications

Genome of a middle Holocene hunter-gatherer from Wallacea

Genome of a middle Holocene hunter-gatherer from Wallacea

Faces in the Stone: Further Finds of Anthropomorphic Engravings Suggest a Discrete Artistic Tradition Flourished in Timor-Leste in the Terminal Pleistocene

A different paradigm for the initial colonisation of Sahul

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