This article employs the research paradigm of historical ecology to investigate the spread and development of early Buddhism in the Khorat Plateau during the Dvaravati period. The movement of this religion into the region was largely determined by preexisting settlement patterns, with moated sites being particularly important. The arrival of Buddhism also introduced monumental architecture and a definable art style. These moated settlements were dependent on large-scale river systems such as the Mun and Chi, particularly in regard to water management, agriculture, transport, and communication. A study of the distribution of sema stones also provides evidence for the spread of Buddhism, while Buddha images carved into rock faces on mountaintops and evidence for rock shelters illustrate that the tradition of forest monks was functioning alongside the more established urban monasticism. The relationship between Buddhism and society is explored, illustrating how the arrival of this religion resulted in new cognitive and physical conceptions of the landscape best demonstrated by changes in settlement planning. Finally, it is shown that Buddhism did not function outside of society but existed in an interdependent relationship with both the lay community and local rulers, with patronage being granted in return for not only spiritual guidance but political legitimization.

Located on the east coast of peninsular Siam, an isthmian tract between the South China Sea and the Bay of Bengal, Tambralinga had the cosmopolitan openness associated with islands to trade and cultural influences. It was involved in maritime exchange since the late centuries b.c. , and its heartland had the highest densities of bronze drums, early Visnu images, lingas , Hindu shrines, and stone inscriptions in peninsular Siam. During its peak in the early centuries of the second millennium a.d. , according to historical documents, it sent a series of envoys to China and sent an army across the ocean to occupy the northern part of Sri Lanka. However, its early development and landscape have been less studied. This article explores the relationships between land and life in Tambralinga’s heartland, today’s Nakhon Si Thammarat Province, during the fifth to thirteenth centuries a.d. As a pioneering work on this topic in peninsular Siam, this article discusses the distributions of late prehistoric sites and early Hindu shrines in relation to geography using data from GIS-based studies, archaeological surveys and excavations, and ethnographic interviews. The results demonstrate that the landscape of Tambralinga was vital to its development. Its heartland opened out to the South China Sea, where an intensive maritime trade took place, and it had mountains in its backyard that were the source of forest products and tin, valued highly by foreign merchants. The floodplain between the shores and the mountains produced rice and cattle for the population of the kingdom. Tambralinga had beach ridges, running in the north–south direction, as the core of its landscape, which facilitated communications among clusters of communities. Rivers and walking trails provided passageways between various ecological zones and connected the kingdom to the west coast of the isthmus as well.

Archaeologists have recently suggested that the practice of daily and social life is the prime aspect by which social rules, meanings, and relations of power are embedded for social control. A high degree of system (either political or economic) integration indicates a strong, centralizing, and coordinating control and constraint on practice of mundane life and the flow of resources that eventually will shape the development of settlement patterns as well as house structure and size, and the flow of resources. This study focuses on analyzing evidence, such as the settlement configuration, house shape and size, and distribution of imported or prestige goods, to detect the existence of social differentiation in aboriginal settlements of Taiwan during the Protohistoric period.

The 1982 discovery of the “Narmada Man” middle Pleistocene fossil cranial remains by geologist Arun Sonakia in the Narmada valley of India raised a number of questions about the crania’s antiquity, stratigraphic context, and nature of associated lithic cultural materials. Although archaeological research had been carried out in 1964–1965 in the region by a research team led by Theodore McCown from the University of California at Berkley, Dr. McCown’s untimely death left the results of the his team’s investigations unpublished and difficult to access by other scholars. Recently recovered field notes from this archaeological project, reporting on the locations of investigated sites, some specifics of the tools recovered and their probable cultural chronologies, and other observations significant to understanding the Palaeolithic prehistory of the Narmada valley, are presented by the authors along with commentary about significance of these field notes for future research in the region.

Environmental archaeology in northeastern China has reached a critical period of development, although the state of progress varies across this large geographical region. The lack of collaboration between archaeologists and associated scientists remains the main obstacle in current research. Almost exclusively conducted by dedicated scientists, research in the field is often ignored by archaeologists because it is not presented within an archaeological context. Furthermore, the research is not of a high spatial and temporal resolution: there is the tendency to make broad generalizations about large regions over long periods of time and to disregard areas that do not fit their general climatic models. Another problem is the misguided borrowing of concepts developed in other parts of the world, for example, the Holocene Climate Optimum (HCO), which is well defined in prehistoric Europe but is still being developed in China. Many researchers have simply applied this term to the same period in China and assumed that the climate around that period resembled that of prehistoric Europe, despite the fact that this is currently unsupported by local palaeo-environmental evidence. Other obstacles to the development of environmental archaeology include deterministic approaches and oversimplistic research procedures. To address these problems, a conversion of qualitative data to quantitative data on temperature and precipitation is required. Future research should be conducted by teams of scientists and archaeologists working collaboratively on both natural and archaeological deposits, in order to establish a strong foundation for further environmental reconstruction research.

In this article, I attempt to reconstruct the lithic reduction sequence of the microblade assemblage from the Okushirataki-1 site, Hokkaido, northern Japan, and to discuss the relationship between the technological variability of lithic reduction sequences and the morphological features of lithic raw materials, through with the assessment of numerous refitted materials. In terms of results, the refitted materials from this assemblage show that the detaching of microblades inevitably connects with the removal of blades in the course of the reduction sequence. Additionally, the presence and content of core preparations or rejuvenations on the flaked surfaces may have a significant role in the formation of variety among the blade and microblade reduction sequences. Therefore, it is not appropriate to compare the lithic assemblages and examine inter-site variability only through the analysis of morphological attributes reflected in the reduction sequence, which has been the focus of previous techno-typological approaches.

This article presents the results of a study to determine whether the obsidian artifacts found in Gua Pawon, Dago, and Bukit Karsamanik in Bandung came from the well-known sources of Gunung Kendan in Nagreg, Kampung Rejeng in Garut, or elsewhere. Obsidian artifacts for this study were obtained from earlier archaeological excavations at Gua Pawon and from chance finds at the sites of Dago and Bukit Karsamanik in Bandung. Samples of obsidian were also collected from the known obsidian sources in Gunung Kendan in Nagreg and Kampung Rejeng in Garut for comparative purposes. Analyses of these samples were done on a scanning electron microscope using the energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer at the University of Science Malaysia, Penang, and the electron microprobe at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. Multi-element analysis was undertaken, and statistical procedures were performed on data obtained from the artifacts and the sources. The results of the study thus far suggest that the obsidian artifacts from Gua Pawon were made using obsidian obtained from both Gunung Kendan and Kampung Rejeng sources, while those from Dago and Bukit Karsamanik have yet to be determined. More samples from all the known obsidian sources are needed to determine the variability within and between all the different sources. Temporally, the study also revealed that prehistoric humans at Gua Pawon exploited the same obsidian resources over several thousands of years.

The late pre-contact political economies of Hawai'i and Maui Islands were supported in large part by intensified dryland field systems, focused on the cultivation of sweet potatoes. Three such systems have been well documented for Hawai'i Island, and one for Moloka'i Island, but none previously for Maui. We report here the results of remote sensing and GIS analysis, combined with ground survey, of such an intensive field system in Kaupō District, Maui. The field system is archaeologically manifested by a closely spaced grid of east-west trending embankments, delineating small field plots, bisected at right angles by longer north-south trending walls, which primarily appear to be territorial divisions. A range of smaller features such as enclosures, shelters, and platforms are found within the field system area indicating the presence of a complex social community integrated within the system. In aggregate the field system covered between 12.5 and 15 km2, and could readily have supported a population of 8000-10,000 persons. Hawaiian oral traditions indicate that Maui king Kekaulike made Kaupō his seat in the early eighteenth century. Two large temples, Lo'alo'a and Kou, are situated at the east and west extremes of the field system, and further indicate the significance of this highly productive landscape.

The purely typological approach to microblade technology often obscures the range of variability seen in the creative and flexible ways microblade cores were prepared and the reasons behind this variability. There is a real need to understand the situational context of microblade production and move the focus of investigation on to the microblades themselves, as these are the key components of an effective riskreduction strategy. Combining a typological and technological approach to study standardization in core preparation and the resulting microblades made from volcanic glass within a known geological context has shown that key characteristics of both are vital to the successful implementation of this technological approach.

The first part of this paper establishes in a general kind of way that the domain or seascape that Lapita sailors operated in was more demanding than that of Wallacea and Near Oceania, but markedly less so than that negotiated later by East Polynesians. The second part takes a look at the form and performance of canoes, the possible nature of Lapita craft, and suggests ways to improve modern estimates of prehistoric performance by mechanical and mathematical modeling. The third part considers the practicalities of sailing in the Lapita domain; it argues that the dispersal of Lapita was in a selected direction rather than a random one, and o¤ers a glimpse of how these ambitious but relatively cautious sailors learned to navigate. The final aim of the paper is to summarize three theories of migration, which support each other in some respects, but which di¤er in others—especially in their views of prehistoric canoe performance.