Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Roger Blench
(McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research)
Cristina Castillo (UCL, Institute of Archaeology)
- Location:
- 2. Salle de cours rez-de-jardin MAE
- Start time:
- 9 July, 2015 at
Time zone: Europe/Paris
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
The panel will bring together nterdisciplinary approaches to the early history of plants and animals in Southeast Asia
Long Abstract:
The study of the evolution of subsistence systems in Southeast Asia has lagged far behind more established fields such as art history. Although significant advances have been made in archaeobotany in recent years we are still a long way from developing comprehensive approaches to dating and locating the origins of agriculture and livestock production. It is becoming more evident that a multidisciplinary approach to the study of plants and animals is yielding more robust information. The panel proposes to begin the process of integrating data from different disciplines to produce a more comprehensive account of the early history of plants and animals in SE Asia, including domestication centres, transfers, agricultural systems and land use. The focus is on useful plants and animals but these need not be domesticated; for example, contributions on tree management would be welcome. We therefore call for multidisciplinary contributions that combine archaeobotany, archaeozoology, genetics, linguistics, ethnography and/or iconography in developing a regional expanded synthesis.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
The paper discusses the methods available to reconstruct the history of plants and animals in the SE Asian region, apart from archaeobotany and archaeozoology. It focuses on primary data in the fields of iconography and comparative lexicography.
Paper long abstract:
The study of the early history of plants and animals in Southeast Asia has focused on archaeobotany and has thus been dominated by salient macro-remains, particularly rice. However, ethnographic studies of plant production show farmers growing and exploiting a wide range of crops, including vegetative crops such as bananas and taro, and tree-crops, particularly fruits and oil-plants. The paper explores what techniques are to hand to reconstruct the history of these plants and the subsistence matrices in which they are embedded. It suggests that the major sources of information are;
a) Synchronic ethnography; detailed description of present agricultural systems
b) Historic data; written, archival and epigraphic sources
c) Iconography; representations of plants and animals in manuscripts, paintings and friezes
d) Lexicography; the compilation and analysis of vernacular names
e) Genetics; the analysis of DNA and consequent hypotheses about phylogenetic relationships
f) Phenotypic description; botanical description of the characters of plants and cultigens, zoological characters of livestock
These areas remain significantly under-researched and under-exploited in comparison to archaeobotany, which is itself not well known for the SE Asian region.
The paper will focus on two areas, iconography and lexicography, where the author has compiled significant amounts of primary data and show how these can contribute to our understanding of plant histories. A comparison is made with the Pacific where this type of approach is much better developed, based on lexical analysis, ethnography and the analysis of starches and phytoliths.
Paper short abstract:
Some Asian elephant feeding behavior are interpreted by local people in Chumphon province as self-medication behavior. Among the plants involved some are also used by humans for medicinal purpose, raising the question of TMK input from the observation of animals.
Paper long abstract:
In the course of an ethnobotanic survey carried out in Chumphon province - Thailand, species of plants eaten by domestic Asian elephants were collected in forest and identified. The mahouts with whom we worked distinguish plant intake from elephants feeding themselves in the forest according to two categories: feed intake and medicinal intake. Some of the species identified as elephant medicinal plants are also used by humans as tonics or for other medicinal purpose, which raises the question of possible TMK input from the observation of animals.
Paper short abstract:
This paper presents collaborative work undertaken by geneticists and archaeologists in the field of archaeogenetics. Ancient DNA was successfully extracted from carbonised rice grains from six archaeological sites, in India and Thailand.
Paper long abstract:
In this collaborative paper, we report successful extraction and sequencing of ancient DNA from carbonised rice grains (Oryza sativa) from six archaeological sites, including two from India (Ter and Balathal) and four from Thailand (Ban Non Wat, Khao Sam Kaeo, Noen U-Loke and Phu Khao Thong), ranging in age from ca. 2500 to 1500 BP. PCR amplification was the technique used and include chloroplast and nuclear genetic markers. aDNA success rates and morphometric analysis will also be discussed.
Paper short abstract:
Genetic research suggests that a non-domesticated lineage of taro has hybridised with other Colocasia species in North Vietnam. There is no evidence yet of hybridisation with cultivated taro. This implies a relatively recent arrival of cultivated taro, or constraints on breeding by cultivated taro.
Paper long abstract:
During recent surveys in northern Vietnam, we found breeding populations of wild taro (Colocasia esculenta) in and around human settlements (commensal wild taro) and also in apparently natural habitats. From lower to higher altitudes, and across diverse ecological zones, we encountered at least five different Colocasia species, and diverse pollinating flies in the genus Colocasiomyia.
Previous genetic research suggests that C. esculenta has hybridised with other Colocasia species multiple times. It is likely that human introduction of cultivated taro, and human creation of open habitats suitable for wild and cultivated taro, has led to greater sympatry between taro and other Colocasia species, and among their associated insect pollinators. However, introgressed lineages of the taro chloroplast genome belong to a wild superclade that is not known to have been domesticated. There is no evidence yet of hybridisation between cultivated taro and the other wild Colocasia species.
Our findings imply a relatively recent spread of cultivated taro into the region, or biological constraints on cross-breeding, despite sympatry. The biological limits on cross-breeding between Colocasia species are not yet known. If hybridisation and introgression were natural processes that predated human introduction of taro, they may reflect long-term changes in climate and plant distributions, over millions of years.
If breeding by naturalised forms of cultivated taro is widespread, it may have helped generate diversity among cultivated taros in Vietnam. Cross-breeding among cultivars is inherently more likely to generate new cultivars than cross-breeding with natural wild populations of taro or with other Colocasia species.