Continuities in Southeast Asian evolution since the late Pleistocene : some new material described and some old questions reviewed
Abstract
Southeast Asia of the historical present is a
region of immense anthropological interest, a "human
kaleidoscope" (Bowles 1977:189) where hunting and
gathering tribes, settled horticulturalists and centralised
states, and all shades of societal organisation in between,
coexist in a mosaic network. The physical anthropology of
the indigines also is diverse, and earlier scholars
posited a number of 'types' to account for the variability
evident. A classic in this vein is the brother Sarasins
(1905-1906) "Versuch einer Anthropologie der Insel Celebes"
where they synthesised the information then available to
describe four types, a Negrito, Veddoid, proto-Malay and
deutero-Malay type. However the past has not been silent:
just as archaeological discoveries have remodelled the way
in which scholars now view historical and contemporary
southeast Asia, so prehistoric skeletal discoveries have
remodelled the approach to recent southeast Asian variation.