scholarly journals Emergence of a Neolithic in highland New Guinea by 5000 to 4000 years ago

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (13) ◽  
pp. eaay4573 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Shaw ◽  
Judith H. Field ◽  
Glenn R. Summerhayes ◽  
Simon Coxe ◽  
Adelle C. F. Coster ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Behavioral Change ◽  
Agricultural Intensification ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Human History ◽  
Wetland Agriculture ◽  
Stone Carving ◽  
Behavioral Transformations

The emergence of agriculture was one of the most notable behavioral transformations in human history, driving innovations in technologies and settlement globally, referred to as the Neolithic. Wetland agriculture originated in the New Guinea highlands during the mid-Holocene (8000 to 4000 years ago), yet it is unclear if there was associated behavioral change. Here, we report the earliest figurative stone carving and formally manufactured pestles in Oceania, dating to 5050 to 4200 years ago. These discoveries, at the highland site of Waim, occur with the earliest planilateral axe-adzes in New Guinea, the first evidence for fibercraft, and interisland obsidian transfer. The combination of symbolic social systems, complex technologies, and highland agricultural intensification supports an independent emergence of a Neolithic ~1000 years before the arrival of Neolithic migrants (Lapita) from Southeast Asia.

Bones of Contention: China’s World War II Military Graves in India, Burma, and Papua New Guinea

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linh D. Vu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Chinese State ◽  
International Status

Abstract Exploring the construction and maintenance of Nationalist Chinese soldiers’ graves overseas, this article sheds light on post-World War II commemorative politics. After having fought for the Allies against Japanese aggression in the China-Burma-India Theater, the Chinese expeditionary troops sporadically received posthumous care from Chinese veterans and diaspora groups. In the Southeast Asia Theater, the Chinese soldiers imprisoned in the Japanese-run camps in Rabaul were denied burial in the Allied war cemetery and recognition as military heroes. Analyzing archival documents from China, Taiwan, Britain, Australia, and the United States, I demonstrate how the afterlife of Chinese servicemen under foreign sovereignties mattered in the making of the modern Chinese state and its international status.

Time Out of Mind: Anthropological Reflections on Temporality

KronoScope ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-137
Author(s):  
Robin Fox
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Basic Feature ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Human History ◽  
Time Out

AbstractOur conception of historical time is biased towards the present and the immediate. We relegate ninety-nine percent of human history to 'pre-history.'This temporal obsession with the present emerged, along with consciousness, in social systems inherently cyclical. Kinship systems evolved from those with alternating generation terms through those with linear terms. Conceptions of time likewise altered from the cyclical to the linear.Time eventually came to be seen as progressive and cumulative. Theories of historical time however remain stubbornly cyclical, biased towards the post-Neolithic, and determined to set limits to time. This hierarchy of preferences in temporal thinking seems a basic feature of human nature.

Nine new species of Enithares (Heteroptera: Notonectidae) from New Guinea, with distributional notes on other species and an updated world checklist

Zootaxa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4772 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-182
Author(s):  
DAN A. POLHEMUS
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Species Concept ◽  
Solomon Islands ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
First Record ◽  
Distribution Maps ◽  
Number Of Species ◽  
Key Characters

Nine new species of Enithares are described from New Guinea and immediately adjacent islands: E. peninsularis from the Owen Stanley Mountains of the Papuan Peninsula, E. bosavi and E. papua from southern Papua New Guinea, E. orsaki from northern Papua New Guinea, E. insularis from the D’Entrecasteaux Islands, E. tagula from the Louisiade Archipelago, E. ziwa from the central mountains of western New Guinea, E. arfak from the Arfak Mountains of the eastern Vogelkop Peninsula, and E. kasim from the western Vogelkop Peninsula. Enithares bakeri is newly recorded from New Guinea, and in combination with the new species described above brings the total number of species of Enithares in New Guinea to 16, and the regional total to 19 when including nearby islands of Waigeo, Biak, the D’Entrecasteaux group, and the Louisiade Archipelago. The species concept of E. atra is clarified and geographically restricted to southeastern New Guinea; specimens previously recorded under this name from northern New Guinea are shown to represent the new species E. orsaki. Additional distribution records for 15 previously described Enithares species are provided for many localities in the Malay Archipelago and mainland Southeast Asia, including the first records of E. bakeri from Lombok, Flores, Timor, Halmahera, and Obi; the first record of E. paramegalops from Ambon; the first records of E. gibbera from Kolombangara and Malaita in the Solomon Islands; the first record of E. intricata from Bali; the first records of E. lombokensis from Flores and Sumba; the first records of E. ripleyana from Halmahera, Ternate and Tidore; and the first record of E. ciliata from Borneo. Photomicrographs of key characters and distribution maps are provided for all new species described, accompanied by an updated world checklist for the genus with distributional notes and associated references. 

New species of pinnotherid crabs from Southeast Asia and Papua New Guinea (Crustacea: Decapoda: Brachyura)

Zootaxa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4816 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHANE T. AHYONG ◽  
PETER K.L. NG
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Eastern India ◽  
West Pacific ◽  
First Time ◽  
Pacific Species

Three new Indo-West Pacific species of pinnotherid crabs are described, one each of Arcotheres, Buergeres and Nepinnotheres. Arcotheres pollus, described from Paway Island, Mergui Archipelago, is most similar to A. boninensis (Stimpson, 1858), A. pernicola (Bürger, 1895) and A. purpureus (Alcock, 1900), sharing a transversely ovate carapace and long, slender, almost styliform dactyli of P4 and 5 that are about twice the length of those of P2 and 3. Buergeres choprai, described from Papua New Guinea, is most similar to B. deccanesis (Chopra, 1931) from eastern India but differentiated by segment proportions and setation of the walking legs. Buergeres tenuipes (Bürger, 1895) is synonymised with B. ortmanni (Bürger, 1895), which is also reported for the first time from Indonesia. A male of an undetermined species of Buergeres from the Philippines, possibly B. ortmanni, is figured and described, documenting the gonopod morphology in Buergeres for the first time. A key to the species of Buergeres based on females is provided. Nepinnotheres fulvia sp. nov. is also described from Papua New Guinea, and resembles N. cardii (Bürger, 1895) from the Philippines and Malaysia but can be distinguished by features of the chelipeds and maxilliped 3. 

scholarly journals The Human Wallace Line: Racial Science and Political Afterlife

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 314-329
Author(s):  
Fenneke Sysling
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Human Body ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
The West ◽  
Alfred Russel Wallace ◽  
Racial Science ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
The Difference

This paper examines racial science and its political uses in Southeast Asia. It follows several anthropologists who travelled to east Nusa Tenggara (the Timor Archipelago, including the islands of Timor, Flores and Sumba), where Alfred Russel Wallace had drawn a dividing line between the races of the east and the west of the archipelago. These medically trained anthropologists aimed to find out if the Wallace Line could be more precisely defined with measurements of the human body. The paper shows how anthropologists failed to find definite markers to quantify the difference between Malay and Papuan/Melanesian. This, however, did not diminish the conceptual power of the Wallace Line, as the idea of a boundary between Malays and Papuans was taken up in the political arena during the West New Guinea dispute and was employed as a political tool by all parties involved. It shows how colonial and racial concepts can be appropriated by local actors and dismissed or emphasised depending on political perspectives.

Taxonomy, distribution and host specificity of the termitophile tribe Trichopseniini (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae) in New Guinea and adjacent islands

2007 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 405-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacques Pasteels ◽  
Yves Roisin ◽  
Thomas Bourguignon
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Host Specificity ◽  
New Genus ◽  
Competitive Exclusion ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Genus Level ◽  
Host Relationships

AbstractOnly one species of the termitophile staphylinid tribe Trichopseniini, Prorhinopsenius neotermitis, associated with Neotermes spp. (Kalotermitidae), was previously known from New Guinea and adjacent islands. Further collections from colonies of the Rhinotermitidae genera Schedorhinotermes and Parrhinotermes yielded 11 species, all new to science, in the genera Schizelythron (1), Schedolimulus (5), Parrhinopsenius (4), and Papuapsenius, new genus (1). The guest-host relationships are probably specific at the genus level. The New Guinean fauna appears in continuity with that of southeast Asia, where these Rhinotermitidae were already known to be hosts of many Trichopseniini. Our results however contrast with the absence of records of Trichopseniini from Australian Schedorhinotermes, while the tribe is represented there by two species associated with Mastotermes (Mastotermitidae). Multiple host transfer events are hypothesized to explain the occurrence of Trichopseniini with unrelated termite lineages. Although the absence of Trichopseniini from Australian Rhinotermitidae might be the result of insufficient sampling, we suggest that it might also be genuine and result from competitive exclusion by other termitophiles.

scholarly journals Flights of fancy: The bird of paradise and its cultural impact

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard Y. Andaya
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Cultural Impact ◽  
Bilateral Exchange ◽  
Complex Series ◽  
World Markets ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Era

The aim of this essay is to show through just one greatly valued trade item — in this case, the bird of paradise — how even the most distant and apparently isolated areas of the world could be linked to the major metropoles through trade. Yet this trade was anything but a simple bilateral exchange. It involved a complex series of networks that extended from the collectors to various levels of intermediaries and secondary ports, and then to foreign shippers bringing the desired product to its ultimate destination in various world markets. There is, however, another aspect of this essay which focuses not on the economic but the cultural value of trade. Most studies of the bird of paradise have commented on the cultural impact of its feathers on Western fashion, yet few have examined other cultural interpretations of the feathers that are closely associated with authority, fertility, and even invulnerability. These attitudes found in eastern Indonesia and New Guinea continue a tradition that has its roots in Southeast Asia in the early centuries of the Common Era.

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