Tooth Ablation in Prehistoric Southeast Asia

A sample of skeletons excavated from an undisturbed prehistoric (4000–3500 years BP) burial site in Thailand included a high proportion of individuals with anterior teeth missing in distinctive, mostly symmetrical, patterns. The patterns, types and numbers of teeth missing have been compared between males and females, with age at death, with depth of burial and among spatially distinct groups within the cemetery. The patterns of missing teeth changed over time. In early burials, lateral maxillary incisors were most commonly missing. Two-thirds of the adults had missing teeth. There were no significant differences between the sexes or with age. In later burials, central maxillary incisors and mandibular incisors were most commonly missing. All adults and some children as young as 11 years had missing teeth. There were no significant changes with age but females had more missing teeth than males. Loss as a result of extreme wear inflicted through the use of teeth as tools, congenital absence and ritual ablation are discussed as explanations for the absence of the teeth. The evidence suggests that ritual ablation is the most likely explanation, although the loss of mandibular incisors in some early burials may be as a result of industrial use of the teeth. The ablation of maxillary lateral incisors, found in the early burials, has been recorded at another prehistoric site in the west of Thailand and at sites in southern China.     

东南亚的非传统安全问题

后冷战时期,东南亚地区面临着非常严峻的恐怖主义、海盗、毒品生产与贩运等非传统安全问题的困扰。尽管表现形式各异,但是东南亚地区各类非传统安全问题的形成与贫困都有着密不可分的关系。各类非传统安全问题无论对东南亚各国的经济发展和社会稳定,还是对东南亚国家之间的关系以及东南亚国家与区域外部大国的关系都产生了重大影响。为了有效应对非传统安全问题的挑战,东南亚国家在调整自己的安全观念的同时,还从不同层面出发采取了很多切实有效的举措．     

经济全球化与东南亚华人

经济全球化已成为世界经济发展的趋势。 2 0世纪 90年代以来 ,经济因素在国际关系中的地位日益显著 ,各国经济联系愈加密切 ,东南亚华人卷入全球化进程加快。经济全球化对华人经济的发展带来良好的机遇和严峻的挑战。展望未来 ,东南亚华人在经济全球化的进程中将发挥重要作用。中国加入WTO后 ,给东南亚华人来中国创业带来商机 ,东南亚华人与中国的合作与交往会更加密切 ,华人经济作为当地民族经济的重要组成部分 ,将在参与东盟、亚太的跨国公司之间的合作中发挥积极作用     

Teaching Southeast Asia through fiction and memoirs

Since few undergraduates intend to major in anthropology, let alone go on to professional careers as anthropologists, I ask students to read materials that I think will most compellingly address the curiosity they have about Southeast Asians' lives. This means drawing on the increasingly rich store of Southeast Asian fiction and memoirs available in English. These materials can be used to illuminate important topics in the study of Southeast Asia. Although my own field is anthropology, a similar strategy could be used to teach courses in other fields, such as history and sociology.     

An ongoing Austronesian expansion in Island Southeast Asia

The Austronesian expansion into Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific was the last and most far-reaching prehistoric human migration. Austronesian languages replaced indigenous languages over nearly half the globe, yet the absolute number of Austronesian colonists was small. Recently, geneticists have identified large geographic disparities in the relative proportions of Asian ancestry across different genetic systems (NRY, mitochondrial DNA, autosomes and X chromosomes) in Austronesian-speaking societies of Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Surprisingly, a substantial genetic discontinuity occurs in the middle of a continuous chain of islands that form the southern arc of the Indonesian archipelago, near the geographic center of the Austronesian world. In the absence of geographic barriers to migration, this genetic boundary and swathe of Austronesian language replacement must have emerged from social behavior. Drawing on decades of comparative ethnological research inspired by F.A.E. van Wouden’s structural model of Austronesian social organization, later codified by Claude Lévi-Strauss as “House societies” (“sociétés à maison”), we propose a two-stage ethnographic model in which the appearance of matrilocal “House societies” during the initial phase of the Austronesian expansion, and the subsequent disappearance of “House societies” in lowland rice-growing regions, accounts for the observed linguistic, genetic and cultural patterns.     

A review of archaeology in mainland Southeast Asia

This article outlines recent advances in establishing and understanding the prehistoric sequence in mainland Southeast Asia. Research has been unevenly distributed, varying from virtually none in Cambodia to a marked intensity in Hong Kong and the adjoining mainland. A new pattern is becoming apparent, due in no small part to the new findings in southern China. It is argued that despite its long history of occupation, beginning withHomo erectus almost a million years ago, tropical Southeast Asia was occupied by scattered inland groups and larger, possibly sedentary coastal foragers until exposed to intrusive agricultural societies during the third millennium BC. These communities, which originated ultimately in the Yangzi Valley, brought with them rice cultivation and were responsible for the wide distribution of Austroasiatic languages. The three divisions of this language superfamily are now distributed from eastern India to southern China. Following a relatively brief Neolithic period, small and autonomous communities, particularly in Lingnan and Bac Bo (Guangdong and Guangxi provinces of China and the area of the Red River Delta), were exposed to exchange contact with the Shang state of the Chinese Central Plains, and this brought exotic jades and bronzes. Within this context, a local bronze industry was established between 1500 and 1000 BC over much of Southeast Asia, but without any obvious social developments until the middle of the first millennium BC, when several major changes occurred. These incorporated iron smelting and forging and exposure in the southern parts of the region to Indian mercantile contact and along the northern margins to the expanding Chinese empire. Adaptations varied regionally, from the establishment of warrior chiefdoms to counter the Chinese to the construction of water control systems in the arid heart of Southeast Asia to alleviate environmental unpredictability. It is within these regional changes that we can identify trends toward the establishment of states, some of which persisted in an unbroken lineage to the present.     

郑和下西洋与东南亚华侨华人

根据笔者实地考察,东南亚至少有15个郑和寺庙和近30个有关郑和的传说。它们反映了早期南洋中国移民的生活状况、他们与当地妇女的通婚、华侨宗教信仰的特点以及华侨华人在中外文化交流中所发挥的重要的桥梁作用。东南亚华人纪念郑和活动的特点是“四个结合”,即将纪念郑和与继承中华传统文化、吸收定居国文化相结合,与宣扬祖籍国和定居国的友好关系相结合,与发扬华人创业精神相结合以及与争取华族正当权益、促进族群和睦、繁荣当地经济相结合。虽然郑和在东南亚影响很大,但海外对郑和的了解仍十分有限,因此,在海外全面、深入地介绍郑和任重而道远。     

The later prehistory of mainland Southeast Asia

Until the recent expansion of research into the prehistory of mainland Southeast Asia, the development of civilizations employing Indian religious and political concepts had been seen as a major fulcrum in the area's history. The prehistoric sequence in the area is reviewed, with particular attention being paid to evidence for ritual, display, exchange, and ranking behavior within lowland sedentary communities. These date to the two or three millennia preceding Indian contact. It is argued that already by the end of the prehistoric period, there were complex centralized societies with a long tradition of recognizing status differentials among individuals, affiliated groups, and communities. The sequence incorporates the exploitation of rice, and bronze and iron working. The chronology of these innovations is compared with that in China. It is not possible at present to argue for single or multiple origins, but the area of southern China is suggested as a crucial one in further research to resolve these issues.     

20世纪50年代以来东南亚闽籍华人数量的估算

海外华侨华人数量的不确定一直是学术研究中的难题,东南亚地区由于各国复杂的情况这一问题更为明显。多种因素导致东南亚闽籍华侨华人规模估算的困难。论文在参考国内统计数据的基础上,汇总东南亚各国的人口普查数据、年鉴、统计公报和华社会刊等一手资料,并在此基础上参考相关机构和学者研究的二手资料,梳理和分析了东南亚闽籍华人数量的历史变迁与地区分布,并对东南亚地区的新加坡、马来西亚、菲律宾、印度尼西亚、泰国、柬埔寨、越南、缅甸,以及老挝、文莱、东帝汶等国家的闽籍华人数量分别进行了统计和估算。据保守估计,东南亚闽籍华人的总体规模超过1200万。