Timing is everything: Dating key events in Southeast Asia’s prehistory

Some of the most important – and difficult– pieces of knowledge for prehistorians to acquire are accurate measures of exactly when things happened.  This difficulty can arise from the imprecision of using only one dating technique, trying to make sense of multiple dating techniques and age estimates with varying minimum and maximum age limitations, finding suitable dating materials, the fact that dates produced rarely reflect the actual event being studied, or defining the small time-window of a rapid event. This session will examine the timings for major events in the Southeast Asian prehistoric record, including (but not limited to) the first arrival of modern humans, the first use of marine resources, the first occupation of rainforest environments, the extinction window of megafaunal species, and the timing of major faunal turnovers. Complexities involved in constructing robust chronologies and the best age approximation for major events in Southeast Asia will be reviewed. We particularly welcome papers that explore the use of diverse dating techniques in the greater Indo-Pacific region.

 

Chris Clarkson

Graeme Barker

Bert Roberts

Gilbert Price 

Gert van den Bergh 

Renaud Joannes-Boyau

Janine Ochoa

Sue O’Connor

Thomas Ingicco 

Alfred Pawlick

Ben Marwick

Michael Westaway 

Shimona Kealy

Rainer Grun

Kira Westaway

Julien Louys