Breaking down barriers: Prehistoric species dispersals across Island Southeast Asia, New Guinea and Australia

Tim Denham*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

    8 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The Holocene histories of Island Southeast Asia, New Guinea and Australia have often been portrayed in terms of clear regional distinctions. Each region had a distinctive character or signature: the maritime landscapes of Island Southeast Asia were widely inhabited by hunter-gatherer-fisher communities prior to colonisation by Austronesian language-speaking farmer-voyagers ultimately derived from Taiwan, the island of New Guinea was a place of early and independent agricultural development and plant domestication, whereas Australia was the continent of hunter-gatherers until settlement by Europeans within the last 250 years. A consideration of new multidisciplinary data challenges these regional (mis)conceptions, which are heavily based on isolationist and essentialist characterisations of long-term history. Humanaided dispersals of animal and plant species shed an increasing light on the socio-spatial inter-connections between the people who inhabited these regions.

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationHuman Dispersal and Species Movement
    Subtitle of host publicationFrom Prehistory to the Present
    PublisherCambridge University Press
    Pages164-193
    Number of pages30
    ISBN (Electronic)9781316686942
    ISBN (Print)9781107164147
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2017

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