The Lapita culture is the name given to a Neolithic Austronesian people and their distinct material culture, who settled Island Melanesia via a seaborne migration at around 1600 to 500 BCE. The Lapita people are believed to have originated from the northern Philippines, either directly, via the Mariana Islands, or both. They were notable for their distinctive geometric designs on dentate-stamped pottery, which closely resemble the pottery recovered from the Nagsabaran archaeological site in northern Luzon. The Lapita intermarried with the Papuan populations to various degrees, and are the direct ancestors of the Austronesian peoples of Polynesia, eastern Micronesia, and Island Melanesia.
An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of types of artifacts, buildings and monuments from a specific period and region that may constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between these types is an empirical observation. Their interpretation in terms of ethnic or political groups is based on archaeologists' understanding. However, this is often subject to long-unresolved debates. The concept of the archaeological culture is fundamental to culture-historical archaeology.
Michael Parker Pearson, is an English archaeologist specialising in the study of the Neolithic British Isles, Madagascar and the archaeology of death and burial. A professor at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, he previously worked for 25 years as a professor at the University of Sheffield in England, and was the director of the Stonehenge Riverside Project. A prolific author, he has also written a variety of books on the subject.
Spirit Cave is an archaeological site in Pang Mapha district, Mae Hong Son Province, northwestern Thailand. It was occupied 12,000 to 7,000 uncalibrated radiocarbon years ago by prehistoric humans of the Hoabinhian culture.
Ing'ombe Ilede is an archaeological site located on a hill near the confluence of the Zambezi and Lusitu rivers, near the town of Siavonga, in Zambia. Ing'ombe Ilede, meaning "a sleeping cow", received its name from a local baobab tree that is partially lying on the ground and resembles a sleeping cow from a distance. The site is thought to have been a small commercial state around the 16th century whose chief item of trade was salt. Ing'ombe Ilede received various goods from the hinterland of south-central Africa, such as, copper, slaves, gold and ivory. These items were exchanged with glass beads, cloth, cowrie shells from the Indian Ocean trade. The status of Ing'ombe Ilede as a trading center that connected different places in south-central Africa has made it a very important archaeological site in the region.
Peter Stafford Bellwood is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. He is well known for his Out of Taiwan model regarding the spread of Austronesian languages.
Tutuala is a village and suco in the subdistrict of Tutuala. It is situated at the extreme eastern end of Timor. Its population at the 2004 census was 3,707. The subdistrict of Tutuala comprises two sucos, including Mehara and Tutuala with the subdistrict administrator residing in Tutuala. The suco of Tutuala comprised four hamlets (aldeia): Ioro, Pitileti, Tchailoro, and Vero. The main Fataluku language areas of the country are in Tutuala, as well as Lautem and Fuiloro.
The Lena Hara cave is the main cave of a system of solutional caves in the Lautém District at the eastern tip of East Timor (Timor-Leste), close to the village of Tutuala. Others are Ile Kére Kére and Jerimalai. Lene Hara has provided evidence that Timor has been occupied by humans since at least 35,000 years Before Present and thus is evidence that humans crossed the waters of Wallacea between the Pleistocene continents of Sunda and Sahul.
Paul S.C. Taçon is an anthropologist and archaeologist based in Australia. He has conducted field work in Australia, Botswana, Cambodia, Canada, China, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, South Africa and the United States. In 2011, he was appointed the first chair in Rock Art research at Griffith University on the Gold Coast, Australia. Taçon has made several key archaeological discoveries in Australia, most notably in western Arnhem Land (NT) and Wollemi National Park (NSW). These include the earliest rock art evidence of warfare in the world, the origins of the Rainbow Serpent, significant new Arnhem Land rock art sites, rock art discoveries in Wollemi National Park and the oldest rock paintings of Southeast Asian watercraft in Australia.
Timothy Insoll is a British archaeologist and Africanist and Islamic Studies scholar. Since 2016 he has been Al-Qasimi Professor of African and Islamic Archaeology at the University of Exeter. He is also founder and director of the Centre for Islamic Archaeology. Previously he was at the Department of Archaeology at the University of Manchester (1999–2016).
Swaga Swaga Game Reserve is a Tanzanian game reserve located in northwest Dodoma Region, that gives refuge to elephants and other vulnerable animals. It is located 50.6 miles from the city of Babati.
Jerimalai is a limestone cave southeast of Tutuala, on the eastern tip of East Timor. Fish remains and fish hooks excavated in Jerimalai provide evidence for advanced fishing technique by inhabitants of Timor 42,000 years ago.
Laili is a limestone cave located near the town of Laleia, Manatuto District, East Timor. Archeological findings in Laili provide evidence that the cave was occupied by modern humans 44,600 years ago, making it the second oldest known such habitation in Wallacea aside from Madjedbebe in mainland Northern Australia.
Mán Bạc is a Neolithic archaeological site located in Yên Mô District, Ninh Bình Province, Vietnam, dated from around 1,850–1,650 BC. Mán Bạc is associated with the Phùng Nguyên culture. With 95 burials found at the site, Mán Bạc is the largest and most intact site associated with the Phùng Nguyên culture, surpassing the site at Lung Hoa.
Jane Balme is a Professor of Archaeology at the University of Western Australia. She is an expert on early Indigenous groups and Australian archaeology.
The Hyde Park pet cemetery is a disused burial ground for animals in Hyde Park, London. It was established in 1880 or 1881 in the garden of Victoria Lodge, home of one of the park keepers. The cemetery became popular after the burial of a dog belonging to Sarah Fairbrother, wife of Prince George, Duke of Cambridge. Some 1,000 burials were carried out before the cemetery was generally closed in 1903; sporadic burials were carried out thereafter until 1976. Most of the animals are dogs, though some cats, monkeys and birds were also buried. The site is owned by the charity The Royal Parks and not open to the public except as part of occasional tours.
The Toalean people were hunter-gatherers who inhabited the Indonesian island of Sulawesi during the Mid- to Late-Holocene period prior to the spread of Austronesian Neolithic farmers some 3,500 years ago from mainland Asia.
Besséʼ is the prehistoric fossil of a young woman over 7,200 years old found in the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Discovered at Leang Panninge at the Maros Regency by archaeologists from the University of Hasanuddin in 2015, its formal description including genome sequencing was published in Nature in 2021. As the first human remain discovered belonging to the Toalean people, it provides critical understanding to human culture and migration during the Holocene period of Asia. The nickname is adopted from the Bugis's custom of affectionately calling their newborn baby girls.
Ronika K. Power is an Australian archaeologist who is a Professor of Bioarchaeology in the Department of History and Archaeology and Director of the Centre for Ancient Cultural Heritage and Environment at Macquarie University. Power is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and the Royal Society of New South Wales.
In the archaeology of Maritime Southeast Asia, the Metal Age is the period between roughly 2000 and 500 years ago. The internal chronology of the period is still debated, but it is often divided into 'early', 'developed' and 'proto-historic' phases. Unlike in the conventional three-age system used in other parts of Eurasia, archaeologists do not divide the Metal Age into a Bronze Age and Iron Age, because bronze and iron metallurgy arrived in Maritime Southeast Asia at roughly the same time.
