Doctoral Dissertation Research: Mainland Southeast Asia in the Longue Duree: a test of the "Broad Spectrum Revolution" in Northern Thailand

University Of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM

Investigators

Abstract

University of New Mexico Ph.D. student Cyler Conrad, under the supervision of Dr. Emily Lena Jones, will investigate how Thai hunter-gatherers responded to environmental shifts and the introduction of domesticated plants and animals over the past 12,000 years. Previous archaeological research indicates that hunter-gatherers often broaden their diets to include previously ignored animal resources due to changes in environmental conditions, increases in human population densities or both. In some cases, these activities lead to increased human-animal interaction and eventually domestication, while in others they facilitate the continued long-term exploitation of wild animals by hunter-gatherer groups. Given the documented changes to human societies that follow domestication, research on the archaeological record of hunter-gatherers who lived through the transition to agriculture provides a means to examine how and why these shifts occurred, as well as providing information on how hunter-gatherer populations impacted the adoption of domesticated animals and plants in a region where they continue to forage alongside agriculturalists today. In a globalized world with complex indigenous rights issues as well as a loss of traditional knowledge and subsistence practices, this project will examine how long-term archaeological record of hunting and animal exploitation articulates with modern hunter-gatherer lifeways and wild animal conservation issues. In this project, Conrad will test the "Broad Spectrum Revolution" hypothesis at a suite of sites from northern Thailand, a region in which this hypothesis has never been formally tested. Northern Thailand was 1) the first region in Thailand where these domesticates were introduced and 2) a region where the extant wild progenitors of these domesticated animals originally lived and were (and continue to be) exploited by hunter-gatherers. Using both analysis of animal bone from these sites and biochemical testing of animal teeth and mollusk shell, Conrad will explore how hunter-gatherers altered (or not) their exploitation of wild animals in response to changes in environmental conditions and to the introduction of domesticated plants and animals. This multi-faceted approach will provide fine-grained data on wild animal hunting before, during, and after the period when domestic plants and animals were first introduced. The data produced by this project will be an important proxy for understanding how future environmental changes in the Southeast Asian tropics may impact traditional subsistence strategies and domesticated animal husbandry. In addition, this project will support professional collaborations between American and Thai scholars and will result in the creation of a bilingual museum exhibit presenting project results at the Natural History Museum of the National Science Museum, Thailand.