The First New Zealanders: Patterns of Diet and Mobility Revealed through Isotope Analysis

Direct evidence of the environmental impact of human colonization and subsequent human adaptational responses to new environments is extremely rare anywhere in the world. New Zealand was the last Polynesian island group to be settled by humans, who arrived around the end of the 13th century AD. Little is known about the nature of human adaptation and mobility during the initial phase of colonization. We report the results of the isotopic analysis (carbon, nitrogen and strontium) of the oldest prehistoric skeletons discovered in New Zealand to assess diet and migration patterns. The isotope data show that the culturally distinctive burials, Group 1, had similar diets and childhood origins, supporting the assertion that this group was distinct from Group 2/3 and may have been part of the initial colonizing population at the site. The Group 2/3 individuals displayed highly variable diets and likely lived in different regions of the country before their burial at Wairau Bar, supporting the archaeological evidence that people were highly mobile in New Zealand since the initial phase of human settlement.: University of Otago Research Grant (http://www.otago.ac.nz/research/otago004140.html); A grant-in-aid by the School of Medical Sciences, University of Otago (http://osms.otago.ac.nz/); The Mason Foundation (http://research-hub.griffith.edu.au/display/fosc_MASONG); Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund (http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/programmes/funds/marsden/) grant number UOO0711. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Infant Death in Late Prehistoric Southeast Asia

Important infortnation on demography, epidemiology, inter-population differences in growth, infant burial practices, and social aspects of the community can be gleaned from the study of perinatal bones. The increasing number of perinates unearthed from prehistoric sites in Southeast Asia provides a rare opportunity to investigate these issues. The high number offull-term infants represented at the site of Khok Phanom Di in Central Thailand (4000-3500 B.P.) remains an enigma. This is an important issue for bioarchaeologists as infant mortality patterns are sensitive barometers of the health and fertility of a population. This study investigated the perinatal age distributions of several chronologically spread sites in prehistoric Southeast Asia with differing subsistence modes and evidence of social complexity. Results show that the age distribution in the collection from Khok Phanom Di is different from the other skeletal samples, with a comparatively higher number of full-term perinates represented. Explanations including infanticide, issues of health and disease, and infant burial practices are considered. It seems likely that the age distribution results from different burial rites of pre-term infants as a consequence of social and cultural differences between Khok Phanom Di and the other sites. This study emphasizes the important contribution bioarchaeological research and the comparative study of infant burial rites can make in understanding aspects of social change in prehistoric communities. KEYWORDS: bioarchaeology, infant burial practices, perinatal age at death distributions, prehistoric mainland Southeast Asia, social organization

Population health from the Bronze to the Iron Age in the Mun River Valley, Northeastern Thailand

During the second half of the second millennium BP, a significant statelike civilization\ud arose in Southeast Asia. This included the establishment of the Khmer\ud kingdom, centered on Angkor in Cambodia and including the Mun River valley\ud in northeastern Thailand. Prior to this occurrence, communities were undergoing\ud significant change as they became more centralized politically and\ud able to support increasing population numbers (Higham 2002; O'Reilly 2000).\ud Using two skeletal samples from sites dated between 3400 BP and 1600 BP,\ud in this chapter we examine population health during the period prior to the\ud development of the Angkorian state

Human biology from the bronze age to the iron age in the Mun River valley of northeast Thailand

Recent excavations of 1 wo sites in [he Mun River valley in Northeast Thailand (Fig. t.l, p. 5) as part of The Origins of Angkor Project have uncovered two large cemeteries. The site of Ban Lum Khao includes a bronze age cemetery in use between approximately 3400 and 2500 BP (Higham 2002), A IOm>< 14m square was excavated to a maximum depth of 1.7 m on the edge of this mounded site as other areas of the site\ud had been subjected to looting (Higham 2002). The cemetery site of Noen U-Loke, only a few kilometres to the west, is dated to the iron age, approximately 2300-2200 BP to 1700-1600 BP (Higham 2002), This iron age site was considerably more extensive than earlier sites and covered up to l2ha (Higham 2002). A total of220m2 were excavated to a depth of 5 m (Higham 2002). Given the size of these sites, neither was excavated to their full extent. These two sites present an opportunity to compare health changes through time with the significant advantage that the populations lived in similar natural environments

Field anthropology: application to burial contexts in prehistoric Southeast Asia

The context of burials in archaeological sites, that is whether the body was inhumed, wrapped, or in a coffin, is an aspect of mortuary ritual that has been missing from English-language publications on the subject. This is despite the development and use in France over at least the last two decades of methods of determining the context under the rubric 'l'Anthropologie de Terrain', or Field Anthropology. This paper briefly reviews the methods and applies them to prehistoric burial samples from two sites in Southeast Asia. This shows that burials at the Bronze Age site of Ban Lum Khao were either in coffins or wrapped. The practice of coffin burial appears to have been abandoned later, as all burials at the nearby Iron Age site of Noen U-Loke were wrapped

Can dental caries be interpreted as evidence of farming?: the Asian experience

The seminal development of control of food production\ud and its social and biological effects on human populations\ud has for a long time been one of the foci of prehistoric\ud research. The relationship between diet and oral\ud pathology is well recognised and accepted to the point\ud where rates of dental caries in particular have been seen\ud as indicative of subsistence mode. This is despite the\ud complex aetiology of caries, with both genetic and environmental\ud factors other than diet contributing to lesion\ud frequency. Most publications considering prehistoric\ud diet and caries acknowledge the contribution of non-dietary\ud variables but provide a more comfortable dietary\ud explanation, with the role of domesticated starchy staples\ud paramount. This widespread acceptance of a simple\ud relationship between dental pathology and starchy carbohydrates\ud needs to be challenged, as there is no reason\ud why one dietary component would be solely responsible\ud for the development of caries or why all carbohydrates\ud should have the same effect. Some years ago, on the basis\ud of evidence from prehistoric rice farming communities\ud in Southeast Asia, we questioned the relationship\ud between dental caries and the presumptive increased\ud carbohydrate consumption consequent to the adoption\ud of agriculture. This paper reviews recent literature on the\ud topic and presents evidence that there is still no simple or\ud universally applicable explanation for patterns of changes\ud in caries frequencies during human prehistory