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A new 44,000-year sequence from Asitau Kuru (Jerimalai), Timor-Leste, indicates long-term continuity in human behaviour

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Abstract

In this paper, we look at a situation of long-term continuity to understand the circumstances that mediate against behavioural change. Using newly excavated material from Asitau Kuru, Timor-Leste, we assess continuity in stone tool technology, as well as pigment and bead use over a span of 44,000 years. The sequence is divided into three occupation phases: a Pleistocene occupation from ~ 44,000 to 15,000 years ago, an early to middle Holocene occupation from ~ 10,000 to 5000 years ago and a Neolithic occupation from ~ 3800 years ago to the recent past. Across these three phases, there are distinct continuities in the way stone tools are made, and the use of red ochre and Oliva beads. We suggest that the unusually high relief topography of the Wallacean Archipelago ensured continuity in several parameters of potential behavioural change, including available environments, proximity to the sea and island size. Given the long-term continuity, the similarities with stone artefacts elsewhere in Wallacea and the early dates for human occupation in Wallacea from this excavation, we suggest that the stone tool technology documented here was introduced by an early dispersing population of Homo sapiens.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Ms. Cecilia Assis and the staff of the State Secretariat of Arts and Culture, Timor-Leste, and the staff of Forestry, in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Timor-Leste, for the permission to carry out the research in the Nino Konis Santana National Park. We thank the local custodians of Asitau Kuru for the permission to carry out the excavations at the site. The comments of two anonymous reviewers improved the originally submitted version of this manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded through an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship to Professor Sue O’Connor (FL120100156) and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CE170100015).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    C. Shipton, S. O’Connor & C. Boulanger

  2. College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    C. Shipton, S. O’Connor, J. O’Connor-Veth & S. Kealy

  3. ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia

    N. Jankowski

  4. Place, Evolution and Rock Art Heritage Unit, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia

    T. Maloney

  5. Département Homme et Environnement, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France

    C. Boulanger

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  1. C. Shipton
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Shipton, C., O’Connor, S., Jankowski, N. et al. A new 44,000-year sequence from Asitau Kuru (Jerimalai), Timor-Leste, indicates long-term continuity in human behaviour. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 11, 5717–5741 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-019-00840-5

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