Between foraging and farming: strategic rseponses to the Holocene Thermal Maximum in Southeast Asia

Journal Publication ResearchOnline@JCU
Oxenham, Marc F.;Trinh, Hiep Hoang;Willis, Anna;Jones, Rebecca K.;Domett, Kathryn;Castillo, Cristina;Wood, Rachel;Bellwood, Peter;Tromp, Monica;Kells, Ainslee;Piper, Philip;Pham, Son Thanh;Matsumura, Hirofumi;Buckley, Hallie
Anna Willis
Abstract

Large, 'complex' pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer communities thrived in southern China and northern Vietnam, contemporaneous with the expansion of farming. Research at Con Co Ngua in Vietnam suggests that such hunter-gatherer populations shared characteristics with early farming communities: high disease loads, pottery, complex mortuary practices and access to stable sources of carbohydrates and protein. The substantive difference was in the use of domesticated plants and animals—effectively representing alternative responses to optimal climatic conditions. The work here suggests that the supposed correlation between farming and a decline in health may need to be reassessed.

Journal

Antiquity

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Volume

92

ISBN/ISSN

1745-1744

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Issue

364

Pages Count

18

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Publisher

Cambridge University Press

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Publisher Location

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Url

N/A

Date

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EISSN

N/A

DOI

10.15184/aqy.2018.69