A new 44,000-year sequence from Asitau Kuru (Jerimalai), Timor-Leste, indicates long-term continuity in human behaviour
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ORIGINAL PAPER
A new 44,000-year sequence from Asitau Kuru (Jerimalai), Timor-Leste, indicates long-term continuity in human behaviour C. Shipton 1,2 & S. O’Connor 1,2 & N. Jankowski 3 & J. O’Connor-Veth 2 & T. Maloney 4 & S. Kealy 2 & C. Boulanger 1,5 Received: 18 September 2018 / Accepted: 18 March 2019 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract In this paper, we look at a situation of long-term continuity to understand the circumstances that mediate against behavioural change. Using newly excavated material from Asitau Kuru, Timor-Leste, we assess continuity in stone tool technology, as well as pigment and bead use over a span of 44,000 years. The sequence is divided into three occupation phases: a Pleistocene occupation from ~ 44,000 to 15,000 years ago, an early to middle Holocene occupation from ~ 10,000 to 5000 years ago and a Neolithic occupation from ~ 3800 years ago to the recent past. Across these three phases, there are distinct continuities in the way stone tools are made, and the use of red ochre and Oliva beads. We suggest that the unusually high relief topography of the Wallacean Archipelago ensured continuity in several parameters of potential behavioural change, including available environments, proximity to the sea and island size. Given the long-term continuity, the similarities with stone artefacts elsewhere in Wallacea and the early dates for human occupation in Wallacea from this excavation, we suggest that the stone tool technology documented here was introduced by an early dispersing population of Homo sapiens. Keywords Cultural transmission . Lithic technology . Ochre . Shell beads . High relief topography . Human dispersal
Introduction General explanations of behavioural change in prehistory understandably tend to focus on periods of change, looking for causal factors (e.g. Clark 1994; Munoz et al. 2010; Petraglia et al. 2009; Powell et al. 2009; Renfrew 1973; Shennan et al. 2000; Ziegler et al. 2013). Only rarely is the obverse situation Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-019-00840-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * C. Shipton [email protected] 1
ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
2
College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
3
ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia
4
Place, Evolution and Rock Art Heritage Unit, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia
5
Département Homme et Environnement, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France
examined, where long-term behavioural continuity is assessed against potential parameters of stability. When it comes to continuity into the ethnographic present, some archaeologists are opposed to the notion, in case it is used to create a negative value judgement of a people as ‘backward’ (Pargeter
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