New Developments in the Pleistocene Occupation of Insular Southeast Asia

Organisers: A/Prof Darren Curnoe, University of New South Wales, and Dr Mei Hsiao Goh, Universiti Sains Malaysia
  
In recent years archaeologists have begun to push the timescale for the earliest occupation of insular Southeast Asia by anatomically modern humans back beyond 70,000 years ago. Yet, this date contrasts with widely accepted ages from the molecular clock using DNA from contemporary populations of closer to 50,000 years ago. All of this potentially raises many questions about the sources, timing, population affinities, behavioural complexity and ecology of the earliest people to inhabit the region. However, the Pleistocene human fossil and archaeological records continue to be sparse across insular Southeast Asia with scarcely few discoveries published internationally for many decades. Suggestions of an early arrival also put into sharp focus the increasing complexities of using dating methodsat existing sites and the old spectre of site stratigraphic complexity and difficulties associated with reconstructing provenience. This symposium will explore recent developments in archaeology, palaeoanthropology, genetics and geochronology about the timing, settlement, ecology and behaviour of Pleistocene modern humans in insular Southeast Asia. Presentations outlining new Middle or Late Pleistocene human fossil or archaeological discoveries, no matter how preliminary, reanalyses of existing sites or fossils, or ancient or contemporary DNA studies,will be most welcome.