Kim- Peopoling of the Americas

Tam Pa Ling Site (Cave)

What, why is it important?

Jawbones, shall fragments, toe bone

•suspected age between 68,000 -86,000 BP Supports Out of Africa

- Coastal travel, but also inland

- Varied terrains and environments

- Migrants left coast for diverse habitats?

SE Asian mainland: crossroads

 Ancestors of first groups into Australia?

Tam Pa Ling- National Pride

Contributes to larger understanding of human evolution and earliest migrations

Gives an extended history and sense of pride

Sunda, Sahul and the Wallace Line

And the implication

Sunda: Super-peninsula -Mainland SE Asia & Sumatra, Borneo, Java

Sahul: Super-continent: Australia, New Guinea, Tasmania

Wallace Line: ecozone boundary

 Distinct species

plants/animals

— Implies boat travel?

Painting portrays images of Sulawesi warty pig (Sus celebensis), wild boar endemic to the island

Key implications:

1) humans producing rock art by 45 kyr ago in different

regions of world (origins likely Africa)

2)Sulawesi never connected via land bridge → boats?

3)Connected to story of migrations to Australia

Cave art- changing understanding

Until recently: thought to be made by Neolithic farmers (c. 4000 BP)

Now: we know made by hunter-gatherers in Pleistocene, c. 45,000 BP

Peopling of Australia

When and How?

How do we know?

People into Australia by 50,000 BP, maybe earlier then, rapid settlement

Crossing Wallace Line: open water voyaging

 Likely both Intentional and

accidental

- viable colonizing group (~20 men/women)

Computer sim. “Island Hopping”

Two Lake Mungo burials

Mungo Lady: cremated remains of young adult female (c. 20-26 kya)

Earliest cremation burial found in world?

Mungo Man: oldest Indigenous human remains of Australian continent, c. 43 kya

Sprinkled w/ powdered red ochre

How can we date rock art?

Nests under or over paintings or stencils provide chronological

window for the artwork

The Dreaming

• Creation myths and beliefs for many Aboriginal societies: landscape features created by ancestral beings during the Dreaming

• Hills, rivers, water sources are named, storied and

inscribed into fabric of societies and histories

• Many Aboriginal cultures have strong oral histories of

ancestral beings arriving from the north

• Potentially goes back to earliest peopling of the continent

Evidence for validity in oral tradition

• Pleistocene material data reinforce long-term Aboriginal connection to traditional lands

• Enriches/supports oral histories

Travel into the pacific ocean

How, How do we know?

• Found small inhabited islands using wayfinding techniques

• Knowledge passed by oral tradition, often in form of song

• Proto-Polynesian languages (part of Austronesian language family): vocabulary terms for canoe/canoe parts is vast

Peopling of the Pacific

Where, When, Where

Near to Remote Oceania

 Colonized w/in last 3500 years

 Dramatic migration

 Islands of Remote Oceania known as Polynesia

 Ongoing fieldwork (routes, dates, lifeways)

The Lapita Culture

What is it?

• Archaeological materials for communities considered ancestors of peoples in Polynesia, eastern Micronesia, and Island Melanesia

• stamped red pottery, obsidian tools, and

  shell ornaments

Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

 2000 km W of Chile, one most isolated inhabited islands

 First settlers arrive c. 1200 CE(?) – island was covered in palm forests (164 sq km)

 Monumental statues: moai

 Nearly 900

 Avg size: 13 ft. tall, 14 tons

 Stood on platforms (ahu)

Easter Island Ecoside?

Traditional explanation: as population grew, resources depleted-partially due to the movement of the statues

 Ensuing competition and warfare

 Led to population bottleneck/drop AND “collapse“

New hypotheses proposed & tested →challenging “ecocide” argument

 Hints found in Rapanui folklore

 Moai animated by “mana” (spiritual force)

 Commanded to walk across landscapes

Study done on Ecoside at Easter island

Platform, DNA analysis

• ahu construction began soon after first Polynesian settlers arrived and continued even after European contact in 1722

• Communities were thriving and did not “collapse” before

European contact- population was in fact increasing when Europeans arrived, not collapsing as reported by some accounts

• Possible that Rapa Nui people may have suffered from European arrival and exploitation (slave raiding, disease, others)

• Interactions between Rapa Nui islanders and those of South America long before the arrival of Europeans

Hoa Hakananai’a (translated as 'lost or stolen friend‘)

Moai statue on display at British Museum

• Chilean Government requested its return back in 2018

• Rapa Nui people consider it to be an actual living entity

• the Polynesian island the Moai are at risk (2018)… “falling apart because they are made of a volcanic stone, because of the wind and the rain. We need global technology for their conservation.”

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Reflects the many complexities, stakeholders, and voices of cultural heritage