Prehistoric Maritime Cultures and Seafaring in East Asia

Description

This book focuses on prehistoric East Asian maritime cultures that pre-dated the Maritime Silk Road, the "Four Seas" and "Four Oceans" navigation system recorded in historical documents of ancient China. Origins of the Maritime Silk Road can be traced to prosperous Neolithic and Metal Age maritime-oriented cultures dispersed along the coastlines of prehistoric China and Southeast Asia. The topics explored here include Neolithisation and the development of prehistoric maritime cultures during the Neolithic and early Metal Age; the expansion and interaction of these cultures along coastlines and across straits; the "two-layer" hypothesis for explaining genetic and cultural diversity in south China and Southeast Asia; prehistoric seafaring and early sea routes; the paleogeography and vegetation history of coastal regions; Neolithic maritime livelihoods based on hunting/fishing/foraging adaptations; rice and millet cultivation and their dispersal along the coast and across the open sea; and interaction between farmers and maritime-oriented hunter/fisher/foragers. In addition, a series of case studies enhances understanding of the development of prehistoric navigation and the origin of the Maritime Silk Road in the Asia-Pacific region. Front Matter ....Pages i-xxxix Front Matter ....Pages 1-1 A Synthetic Analysis of the Neolithic Origins of Eastern and Southeastern Asia’s Maritime Silk Road (Chunming Wu)....Pages 3-40 A Maritime Route Brought First Farmers to Mainland Southeast Asia (Charles F. W. Higham)....Pages 41-52 The Origins, Expansion and Decline of Early Hunter-Gatherers Along the South China Coast (Hsiao-chun Hung, Chi Zhang)....Pages 53-79 Pollen Evidence for Human-Induced Landscape Change Reveals the History of Agricultural Development in Southeastern China (Ting Ma, Zhuo Zheng)....Pages 81-88 Subsistence Patterns Associated with Shell Middens from the Pre-Qin Period in the Coastal Region of China (Luo Zhao)....Pages 89-101 A Preliminary Analysis of the Development of Neolithic Culture in Coastal Region of Guangdong (Yan Li)....Pages 103-126 Early Maritime Subsistence and Adaptive Ocean Cultures Along the Beibu Gulf Coast (Zhen Li)....Pages 127-139 The Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age on the Northeastern Coast of Vietnam (Kim Dung Nguyen)....Pages 141-157 Why Rice Farmers Don’t Sail: Coastal Subsistence Traditions and Maritime Trends in Early China (Ling Qin, Dorian Q. Fuller)....Pages 159-191 Front Matter ....Pages 193-193 Social Reciprocity Facilitated Overseas Exchange in Early Austronesian Cultures (Barry Vladimir Rolett)....Pages 195-205 Perspectives on Early Holocene Maritime Ethnic Groups of the Taiwan Strait Based on the “Liangdao Man” Skeletons (Chun-Yu Chen)....Pages 207-215 Coast to Coast: The Spread of Cereal Cultivation in the Taiwan Strait Region Before 3500 BP (Tuukka Kaikkonen)....Pages 217-233 A Study of Geometric Stamped Pattern Pottery and Early Maritime Cultural Interactions Between Mainland China and Taiwan (Lin Fu)....Pages 235-249 Tapa Beaters from 5000 to 4200 BP in Taiwan (Su-Chiu Kuo)....Pages 251-268 Double-Shouldered Barkcloth Beaters and Prehistoric Seafaring in South China and Southeast Asia (Maya Hayashi Tang, Kim Dung Nguyen, Mana Hayashi Tang, Chung Tang)....Pages 269-291 Prehistoric Migration and Cultural Change in the Philippine Archipelago (Eusebio Z. Dizon)....Pages 293-314 Prehistoric Ryūkyūan Seafaring: A Cultural and Environmental Perspective (Naoko Kinoshita)....Pages 315-332