Isotopic and technological variation in prehistoric Southeast Asian primary copper production

The ‘Southeast Asian Lead Isotope Project’ (SEALIP) is intended to provide reliable geochemical proxies for late prehistoric through early historic (2nd/1st millennium BCE and 1st millennium CE) local, regional, and inter-regional social interactions, in an archaeological arena lacking established ceramic typologies with which to cross modern national boundaries. We present lead isotope characterisations of the three currently known Southeast Asian prehistoric primary (mining/smelting) copper production centres: Phu Lon and the Khao Wong Prachan Valley in Thailand, and the recently discovered Xepon complex in Laos. Kernel Density Estimation shows that these production centres can be clearly distinguished isotopically, as such fulfilling the core tenet of the ‘Provenance Hypothesis’ (Wilson and Pollard, 2001: 508) and permitting SEALIP to proceed as a research programme tracing regional copper/bronze/lead exchange and provenance patterning. In addition we provide a provisional technological reconstruction of copper smelting processes at Phu Lon to complement our more established understanding of the Khao Wong Prachan Valley. Combined lead isotope and technological datasets allow us to tentatively identify trends in the evolution of Southeast Asian metal technologies and of regional social perceptions of metal exchange.     

Stone technology at the Middle Pleistocene site of Mata Menge,Flores, Indonesia

The stone technology from Mata Menge on Flores, Indonesia, is described, providing the first detailed analysis of the largest stone artefact assemblage from a stratified and securely dated Middle Pleistocene site in Southeast Asia. Technological analysis indicates a reduction sequence based on the centripetal, or “radial”, reduction of transported blanks. The implications for early hominin behaviour on Flores are considered.     

Spatializing the ecological Leviathan: Territorial strategies and the production of regional natures

This paper explores a dual absence — the absence of the state within contemporary geographical analyses of nature; and the absence of nature within contemporary explorations of state power. We argue that the modern state continues to play a crucial role in framing social interactions with nature, while nature is still vital to states within their realization of different forms of material and ideological power. In order to reconnect analyses of the state and nature, this paper combines work on the production of nature and state strategy with Lefebvre's recently translated writings on state space and territory. By focusing on the production of territory (or state space), we explore the interaction of the state and nature in the context of the political management of social and ecological space. We unravel the spatial entanglements of the state and nature through an analysis of the British state's territorial strategies within the West Midlands region. By considering three key historical periods within the history of the West Midlands we reveal how the emergence of the regional space called the West Midlands is a product of the ongoing spatial dialectics of state and nature therein.     

Agricultural potential and actualized development in Hawai’i: an airborne LiDAR survey of the leeward Kohala field system (Hawai’i Island)

Archaeological investigations of Hawaiian agriculture have relied on relatively coarse-grained data to investigate archipelago-wide processes, or on fine-grained data to examine patterning within localized zones of agricultural production. These trade-offs between spatial coverage and data resolution have inhibited understanding of both spatial patterns and temporal trends. Our analysis of 173 km² of high-resolution airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data for leeward Kohala, Hawai’i Island identifies spatial and temporal patterning in regional agricultural development. Differential densities of alignments suggest variable levels of agricultural intensity. Agricultural processes of expansion, segmentation, and intensification can also be discriminated, with distinct zones of the field system having undergone different mixes of development. Areas within the field system with moderate to high levels of both average production and variability in production (determined using a climate-driven productivity model) were utilized relatively early in a highly intensified manner; these areas often underwent processes of segmentation and intensification. Less productive areas were developed later and exhibit evidence of expansion with lower amounts of segmentation and intensification, at set levels of intensity. The spatial and temporal variability in agricultural activities was influenced by the diverse environmental conditions across the landscape as well as variation in cultivars and cultivation techniques. Combining the high-resolution LiDAR data from a large area with potential productivity modeling allows for a more fine-grained understanding of agricultural development in this region of the Hawaiian archipelago.