Warfare rather than agriculture as a cause of fires in the Neolithic of northern Vietnam

PNAS doi:10.1073/pnas.0813258106

Warfare rather than agriculture as a critical influence on fires in the late Holocene, inferred from northern Vietnam

Zhen Li et al.

Fire has played an essential role in the development of human civilization. Most previous research suggests that frequent-fire regimes in the late Holocene were associated with intensification of human activities, especially agriculture development. Here, we analyze fire regimes recorded in the Song Hong delta area of Vietnam over the past 5,000 years. In the prehistoric period, 2 long-term, low-charcoal abundance periods have been linked to periods of low humidity and cool climate, and 5 short-term fire regimes of 100–150 years in duration occurred at regular intervals of ≈700 years. However, over the last 1,500 years, the number, frequency, and intensity of fire regimes clearly increased. Six intensified-fire regime periods in northern Vietnam during this time coincided with changes of Vietnamese dynasties and associated warfare and unrest. In contrast, agricultural development supported by rulers of stable societies at this time does not show a positive correlation with intensified-fire regime periods. Thus, warfare rather than agriculture appears to have been a critical factor contributing to fire regimes in northern Vietnam during the late Holocene.

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Paternal genetic affinity between western Austronesians and Daic populations

BMC Evol Biol. 2008 May 15;8(1):146.

Paternal genetic affinity between western Austronesians and Daic populations.

Li H, Wen B, Chen SJ, Su B, Pramoonjago P, Liu Y, Pan S, Qin Z, Liu W, Cheng X, Yang N, Li X, Tran D, Lu D, Hsu MT, Deka R, Marzuki S, Tan CC, Jin L.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Austronesian is a linguistic family spread in most areas of the Southeast Asia, the Pacific Ocean, and the Indian Ocean. Based on their linguistic similarity, this linguistic family included Malayo-Polynesians and Taiwan aborigines. The linguistic similarity also led to the controversial hypothesis that Taiwan is the homeland of all the Malayo-Polynesians, a hypothesis that has been debated by ethnologists, linguists, archaeologists, and geneticists. It is well accepted that the Eastern Austronesians (Micronesians and Polynesians) derived from the Western Austronesians (Island Southeast Asians and Taiwanese), and that the Daic populations on the mainland are supposed to be the headstream of all the Austronesian populations. RESULTS: In this report, we studied 20 SNPs and 7 STRs in the non-recombining region of the 1,509 Y chromosomes from 30 China Daic populations, 23 Indonesian and Vietnam Malayo-Polynesian populations, and 11 Taiwan aboriginal populations. These three groups show many resemblances in paternal lineages. Admixture analyses demonstrated that the Daic populations are hardly influenced by Han Chinese genetically, and that they make up the largest proportion of Indonesians. Most of the population samples contain a high frequency of haplogroup O1a-M119, which is nearly absent in other ethnic families. The STR network of haplogroup O1a* illustrated that Indonesian lineages did not derive from Taiwan aborigines as linguistic studies suggest, but from Daic populations. CONCLUSION: We show that, in contrast to the Taiwan homeland hypothesis, the Island Southeast Asians do not have a Taiwan origin based on their paternal lineages. Furthermore, we show that both Taiwan aborigines and Indonesians likely derived from the Daic populations based on their paternal lineages. These two populations seem to have evolved independently of each other. Our results indicate that a super-phylum, which includes Taiwan aborigines, Daic, and Malayo-Polynesians, is genetically educible.

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25,800-year old Australoid from Thailand

Excavations in the Moh Khiew Cave in Thailand have uncovered a 25,800-year old skeleton. An analysis of these remains has shown that it is unlike Mongoloids, but is similar to a Late Pleistocene Australoid sample from Australia. It is widely believed that southeast Asia was once inhabited by people similar to the Australo-Melanesians, but this early population has been overwhelmed by Mongoloids, especially during the Holocene and afterwards:

The closest sample to the Moh Khiew specimen is the Late Pleistocene Coobool Creek from Australia, and the next closest is the modern Australian Aborigines. The Early to Middle Holocene Southeast Asian samples such as Liang Toge from Flores, Mai Da Dieu from Vietnam and Ban Kao from Thailand are distant from the Moh Khiew specimen.

Interestingly, the sample's mtDNA is similar to that of the Semang:

Oota et al. (2001) analysed mtDNA recovered from the Moh Khiew specimen and found continuity with the Semang Negrito foragers living in the Malay Peninsula.

Homo (Article in Press)

A morphometric analysis of the Late Pleistocene Human Skeleton from the Moh Khiew Cave in Thailand

Hirofumi Matsumura and Surin Pookajorn

Abstract

Few Late Pleistocene human remains have been found in Southeast Asia and the morphological features of the people of that age are still largely unknown due to the virtual lack of human remains in the area. Recent excavations at the Moh Khiew Cave in Thailand resulted in the discovery of a Late Pleistocene human skeleton in a relatively good state of preservation. An AMS radiocarbon date on the charcoal sample gathered from the burial gave a result of 25,800±600 BP, implying that the inhabitants of Moh Khiew Cave resided in a part of Sundaland during the last glacial age. In debates on the population history of Southeast Asia, it has been repeatedly advocated that Southeast Asia was occupied by indigenous people akin to present-day Australo-Melanesians prior to an expansion of migrants from Northeast Asia into this area. Morphometric analyses were undertaken to test the validity of this hypothesis. In the present study, cranial and dental measurements recorded from the Moh Khiew remains are compared with those of early and modern samples from Southeast Asia and Australia. These comparisons demonstrate that the Moh Khiew specimen resembles the Late Pleistocene series from Coobool Creek, Australia in both cranial and dental measurements. These results suggest that the Moh Khiew skeleton, as well as other fossil remains from the Tabon, Niah and Gua Gunung sites, represents a member of the Sundaland population during the Late Pleistocene, who may share common ancestry with the present-day Australian Aborigines and Melanesians.

Link

Origin of Southeast Asians

The following article seems to confirm, on the basis of dental traits, the hybrid origin of Southeast Asians, with the earliest inhabitants being Australoids, to which Mongoloids were later added, starting probably with the Neolithic.

It seems to me that in South and Southeast Asia, and perhaps in South Arabia to the west, and stretching into Oceania in the east, the earlier inhabitants were of an old, pigmented subequatorial "Paleo-Asian" type. Over this Paleolithic stratum, the main Eurasiatic races were added: Caucasoids in Arabia and India, and Mongoloids in Southeast Asia.

American Journal of Physical Anthropology (Early View)

Dental perspectives on the population history of Southeast Asia

Hirofumi Matsumura et al.

ABSTRACT

This article uses metric and nonmetric dental data to test the two-layer or immigration hypothesis whereby Southeast Asia was initially occupied by an Australo-Melanesian population that later underwent substantial genetic admixture with East Asian immigrants associated with the spread of agriculture from the Neolithic period onwards. We examined teeth from 4,002 individuals comprising 42 prehistoric and historic samples from East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Melanesia. For the odontometric analysis, dental size proportions were compared using factor analysis and Q-mode correlation coefficients, and overall tooth size was also compared between population samples. Nonmetric population affinities were estimated by Smith's distances, using the frequencies of 16 tooth traits. The results of both the metric and nonmetric analyses demonstrate close affinities between recent Australo-Melanesian samples and samples representing early Southeast Asia, such as the Early to Middle Holocene series from Vietnam, Malaysia, and Flores. In contrast, the dental characteristics of most modern Southeast Asians exhibit a mixture of traits associated with East Asians and Australo-Melanesians, suggesting that these populations were genetically influenced by immigrants from East Asia. East Asian metric and/or nonmetric traits are also found in some prehistoric samples from Southeast Asia such as Ban Kao (Thailand), implying that immigration probably began in the early Neolithic. Much clearer influence of East Asian immigration was found in Early Metal Age Vietnamese and Sulawesi samples. Although the results of this study are consistent with the immigration hypothesis, analysis of additional Neolithic samples is needed to determine the exact timing of population dispersals into Southeast Asia.

Link

2004 World Sex Survey

The results of the 2004 World Sex Survey are in. Some results (top, bottom nation listed + Greeks):

• Age of first sex: Iceland 15.7, Greece 17.8, Vietnam 19.8 (years)
  
• Unprotected sex: India 20, Greece 45, Sweden 64 (%)
  
• Frequency of sex: Japan 46, Greece 133, France 137 (times per year)
• Frequency of orgasms: China 19, Greece 47, Italy 61 (%)
  
• Number of sexual partners: Vietnam 2.5, Greece 10.4, China 19.3

See also (from the 2003 survey) my previous posts on rates of homosexuality and favorite positions. While these surveys carried by condom maker Durex over the Internet have their shortcomings, they give some clues into global variation in sexual behavior.