Transformations and Persistence in the Holocene in East Timor: Unpacking the Island Southeast Asian Neolithic and Metal Age Cultural Packages

This project will examine the structure and nature of the Island Southeast Asian Neolithic and the Metal Age in East Timor, and, particularly, the extent to which these phenomena form coherent or discrete cultural packages. It will enhance our understanding of archaeological sequence(s)in East Timor, test the validity of the Neolithic package or the Metal Age package in Southeast Asian archaeology and lay new theoretical and baseline archaeological ground for the potential reinterpretation of the nature and derivation of the Lapita Cultural Complex of the Western Pacific.