The Maluku (Moluccas) region of eastern Indonesia was historically famous as the Spice Islands. Its role as the source for cloves and nutmeg was recorded in Chinese documents as early as the 2nd century CE. Trade in other exotic commodities such as Bird of Paradise feathers connected other islands in the region to global markets. Contact and interaction with European traders in the 15th century established the role of Maluku as an important intersection for various linguistic groups, religions and political interests.
Geographically situated at the southwest corner of the Pacific Ocean, the Maluku archipelago incorporates the majority of Wallacea, the biogeographic region between the Pleistocene continents Sunda and Sahul and the likely path of early humans migrating between these areas 40-60 kya. A number of Dongson kettledrum scattered in this region indicate possible interaction with the outside world during the late prehistoric period. New rock art sites have been identified and connected Maluku with ancient art in the wider region. Research in the last decade has revealed traces of Neolithic culture that provide insights into the introduction of domestic plants and animals to the region, and provided new ways of understanding how Maluku peoples adapted to new religions and colonial forces.
This positive progress has brought new insights for our understanding of these islands, although compared to its colossal potential, our knowledge of the past of Maluku remains vague. Early human occupation in relation to mobility and interaction with the surrounding areas is still a main question. Likewise, we still have a poor understanding of issues of adaptation in islands environments and early economies. Knowledge of environmental changes in the past and their social impacts has not yet been widely researched. The unique responses of Maluku social groups to outside trade and colonial forces still need the input of archaeological data to counter documentary biases. Many of the thousands of islands in the region have yet to be surveyed by archaeologists.
For over a decade beginning in 1998, violent social conflict in Maluku affected academic research and to some extent, reset the role of the past in the present of the region. Fortunately, following a positive recovery, Maluku has restored its role in global academic interest. A number of international collaborative projects have been conducted to understand culture history of the region from interdisciplinary perspectives. Contemporary residents of Maluku have been increasingly interested in exploring their unique identity by reflecting on their history, culture and archaeological heritage.
This session will discuss these recent developments from the perspectives of archaeology, anthropology, history, linguistics and related studies.
Reasoning correctly involves representing the constituent elements of a argument with premises, intermediate conclusions, and final conclusions. There are two fundamentally different analytical strategies – Top to Bottom and Bottom to Top. An analytical approach is the use of a process to logically arrange a problem down to multilevel elements. It is necessary to solve each element. The structured approach enables a researcher with an open mind to examine each element of the decision or problem separately and systematically and leaves scope that all alternatives can be considered. The outcome is almost always more comprehensive and more effective than with the instinctive approach. The analytical approach is indeed a proper use of reason to solve problems.
Models that simultaneously simplify and amplify the power of the original more resonant to our minds as the models make the original more present.
The rise of cognitive studies has brought about a new understanding of the hominine mind and also has brought together the social and natural sciences leading to breakthroughs in many fields. For example, the progress in the prehistoric lithic tools has been seen not only as technological innovations and improvisation, but also as a process of cognitive advancement in the prehistoric communities. Similarly, other aspects of human actions/ activities have been generally categorized and periodised on subsistence economy. However, attempt (s) to piece together tangible elements with intangible aspects of hominines like believes, customs, religion, burial practices, art and most importantly the idea and reasoning behind such aspects have not been adequately addressed.
Hence, cognitive resonant based on comprehensive analytical approaches and strategies under the domain of cognitive archaeology is the call of the hour. Applications of science and technology without rationale of its use or structured methodology may not lead to cognitive resonant and ultimately to understand cognitive ecosystem. This session welcomes papers on the use of analytical strategies and approaches for cogitating hominine cognition in archaeological landscape or at site (s). This can be true for both the pre-historical and historical archaeology.
Professor Prakash Sinha
Department of Ancient History,
Culture & Archaeology,
University of Allahabad-211002
India.
Email ID: passinha@yahoo.com
&
Dr Sukanya Sharma
Department of Humanities & Social Sciences
IIT-Guwahati,
Assam
India
Roger Blench, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge
Frank Muyard, EFEO (French School of Asian Studies) / National Central University, Taiwan
The archaeology of coastal China, Taiwan and the Northern Philippines has developed very fast in the last few years. It is probably time to move on from the Austronesian origins debate to a more nuanced picture of interaction in this region, encompassing trade and back movements rather than the progressivist model which has dominated recent discussion. In addition, linguistic debate linking the Austronesian languages to Tai-Kadai is now more advanced, also suggesting a complex series of interactions. The session seeks papers covering this area, and in particular trying to model the Neolithic and Metal Age diversity of Taiwan archaeology.
Roger Blench is in Ijebu-Ode
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge
Dept of History, University of Jos
Kay Williamson Educational Foundation
Website http://www.rogerblench.info/ RBOP.htm
Nigeria mobile 00(234)-816-2905133
UK Mobile no. 0044-7847-495590 [switched off]
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1Department of Archaeology & Classical Studies/Osteological Research Laboratory, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
2Archaeological Studies Program & UP Pampanga, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines
In the four years since the previous IPPA, awareness and exposure of the antiquities trade from, and within, Southeast Asia, has only increased. As Southeast Asian and Western countries continue to adjust legislation and new smuggling cases are investigated, trafficking networks continue to evolve. More qualitative and quantitative information is needed to understand current manifestations of cultural heritage destruction region-wide, the extent that each country’s current legislation prevents or allows for domestic collecting, and how Southeast Asian artefacts move on global markets. This panel seeks presentations that discuss new field or museum based research in source or demand countries, including new online market analyses of sales data on e-commerce or social media platforms. Presentations can focus on terrestrial and underwater cultural property, human remains, new threats to monuments, detecting forgeries, efforts to disrupt the market, or how archaeological data is (or is not, or can be) used to change or enforce country or regional legislation. We’d be especially interested in presentations that connect new data with community outreach and heritage education efforts.
Papers will be presented by:
- Eka Asih Putrina Taim
- Agustijanto Indrajaja
Affiliation:
National Research Center of Archaeology
Jln. Raya Condet Pejaten no.4
Jakarta Selatan 12510, Indonesia
Email: ekaasih_taim@yahoo.com
ajordan2@uw.edu; meusebio@ufl.
For over 50 years, archaeologists have been using the “hard” sciences to identify and interpret past human behaviors. This is, of course, a rather difficult endeavor full of false starts, ambiguous results, and many a series of unfortunate events. Since Binford called for a new, scientifically driven archaeology, archaeologists have been using experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology as ways to make inferences about past human behavior. Experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology are sources of modern analogs; data from the analyses of these reference materials are used to aid in interpreting data from similar analyses of archaeological materials. As new scientific processes-such as organic residue analysis or DNA analysis- were developed, archaeologists added these to their toolkits in their study of, for example, past dietary behavior, subsistence and culinary practices, as well as domestication and spread of different foods. Subsistence has long been a focus of archaeology and these “hard” science methods have been able to yield significant results, such as identifying what people ate with stable isotope analysis, identifying what was cooked in pots with chromatographic and mass spectrometric techniques, or what was killed with blood protein analysis on stone tools. However, the ability to infer past human behavior from these experiments and scientific analyses requires that the analogy or the scientific analyses will work with the available archaeological materials. For various reasons, this is not always true and the realization that one’s research goals cannot be achieved with the available material, or equipment, or humans involved often occurs long after it’s too late to turn back and start over. Archaeologists often gloss over these problems in published papers or presentations. However, it has been said that “crisis is another word for opportunity.” We would like to encourage knowledgeable scholars to share their experiences of how they turned their crisis into an opportunity. We also welcome any papers that are related to methodological process of using experimental and ethnoarchaeological work on past foodway practices. The papers in this session use a variety of analytical techniques to identify dietary, subsistence, and culinary, or behavioral choices of peoples during the past with a focus on how the processes of science can elucidate culture, including self-reflexive reviews of success and failure in the various processes archaeologists undergo to procure the final publishable results.
Session Conveners: Fredeliza Z. Campos & Edwin C. Duero
This session looks beyond archaeology’s scientific confines by exploring theatre, music and performance narrative of the Indo-Pacific region. It hopes to include both lectures and live performances to emphasize how the importance of modern visual, theatrical and musical materials can inform on the past. The heritage and diversity of the performative arts in the region is unquestionable. They are also almost often tied to cultural indigenous communitie
In collaboration with the Saranggani Provincial Government, home of the famous Maitum jars, this session is proposing to bring members of the B’laan community, a prominent indigenous group from Southern Mindanao in the Philippines to demonstrate their traditional music and dance.
Dear IPPA Community,
This is a second and final call for sessions and papers. The Congress will open on Sunday 23 September and sessions will run on Monday 24, Tuesday 25, Thursday 27 and Friday 28 September. Following IPPA tradition, we will keep Wednesday 25 September free for rest and local tours in and around the World Heritage city of Hue, where there is plenty to do and see. There is a good range of accommodation, from very inexpensive to higher-cost. Vietnam has an excellent tourist industry, so all tours (including pre- and post-Congress tours) will be the responsibility of individual IPPA delegates, not the conference organisers.
Program space is still available. There will be four 90-minute session blocks each day, with parallel sessions running in each time-block as required. A standard single session will be 90 minutes, ending in a coffee or lunch break. Sessions may take up more than one 90 block as required, but only in whole blocks. The session format is up to session organisers (ie standard group of presentations, discussion panel, forum etc). Individual papers that are not part of an organised session will be aggregated in unthemed general sessions.
Individual delegates may have their name on any number of sessions or papers but to keep the organisation of the program manageable each delegate will be limited to two (2) presenting/speaking roles only (such as presenter/speaker, discussant, panel member, forum member, facilitator, moderator, chair).
Please have your suggestions to me by no later than 31 March 2018. Acceptance of late submissions cannot be guaranteed.
Formal letters of invitation will be provided by the Vietnamese conference hosts as required after sessions and papers have been accepted. Funding assistance will be very limited, with priority given to currently-enrolled students.