Tràng An, Vietnam
Hunter-gatherer adaptation to coastal evolution and climate change
Hunter-gatherer adaptation to coastal evolution and climate change
Archaeological and paleoenvironmental archives from the Tràng An UNESCO Cultural/Natural World Heritage site indicate that people have been living in this landscape for at least 36,000 years. This period of time includes several global-scale climatic events, including the Last Glacial Maximum, Heinrich Events, and the Bølling-Allerød Interstadial. By exploring the localized environmental impacts of global climate change throughout Tràng An, our research is revealing how prehistoric hunter-gatherers adapted to profound changes in geography and seasonality. Karstic landscapes like Tràng An are known to be biodiversity hotspots with extremely high degrees of endemism. Furthermore, paleoenvironmental research suggests that the types of plants and animals that live in Tràng An remained relatively stable over the past ~30,000 years. This is in contrast to paleoenvironmental and archaeological evidence from nearby Con Moong cave, which indicated that global climatic events had profound effects on human settlement patterns around that site. This might indicate that Tràng An served as a key place of relative resource stability amidst shifting geography and resource landscapes.
Significant archaeological finds from Tràng An include:
The recovery and analysis of a ~12,000-year-old skeleton from Thung Binh 1, a cave site on the margins of the landscape complex. This represents the oldest nearly complete skeleton and the oldest mitochondrial DNA evidence from mainland Southeast Asia. A quartz micropoint was also recovered in association with an accessory (cervical) rib with a significant lesion and bone remodeling. This is the first quartz micropoint, and potentially the first case of interpersonal violence recorded from Southeast Asia.
Geochemical sourcing analysis of Pleistocene stone tools from three cave sites throughout the landscape complex. This was the first geochemical sourcing analysis of Pleistocene lithics from mainland Southeast Asia, and established that 1) "Hoabinhian" stone tool assemblages, while technologically expedient, can shed light on complex mobility patterns and 2) a baseline 35-80 kilometer mobility/exchange network in Pleistocene Vietnam
Identification of Giant Muntjac (Muntiacus gigas) and Water Deer (Hydropotes inermis), extending the known range of these species in the Pleistocene and Holocene