P Bellwood
Biographic Data
| ID | 15642 |
|---|---|
| NAME | P Bellwood |
| GIVEN NAMES | P |
| FAMILY NAME | Bellwood |
| SIGNATURE | BELLWOOD P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Australian National University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6033-9629 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 107 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 833 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 105 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1970 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 16 |
A 2,200-Year Logboat Sequence (700 BCE–1500 CE) from the Northern Red River Delta, Vietnam
Embodying identity: Tooth ablation and agricultural mobility in prehistoric China within a broader Asian context
Deliberately patterned tooth ablation provides visible archaeological evidence for regulated sociocultural behavior. Widespread across East Asia, with varying combinations of the intentionally removed teeth from the Neolithic onward, the practice endured there for more than six millennia and, in some regions, persisted into the 1930s. Drawing on a newly compiled dataset of 66 sites in China and a broader comparative framework of over 100 sites ac…
Thạch Lạc and the Neolithic transition in north-central Vietnam, 3000–2000 BCE
Battery waste-derived magnetic Fe–Mn–Zn/C composites as an electro-Fenton-like catalyst for the degradation of sodium dodecyl sulfate surfactant
A batch-scale electro-Fenton (EF) process was performed using graphite anode and waste battery-based Fe -Mn -Zn/C electrocatalyst coated on low-cost graphite felt cathode. The effectiveness of the EF's performance was evident with around 83.9 + 4.1% removal of 20 mg/L of sodium-dodecyl sulfate surfactant (SDS) at an optimum current density (CD) of 5.0 mA/cm2, Na2SO4 of 0.05 M, initial pH of 7.2, and electrolysis time of 180 min. Moreover, nearly …
Understanding settlement construction and chronology at Đền Đồi, Nghệ An province, Central Vietnam
Southeast Asia: From Prehistory to History
Đầu Rằm: A nephrite ring manufacturing settlement in the northern Red River Delta
Archaeological excavations at the site of Đầu Rằm in northern Việt Nam provided new insights into the chronology of Tràng Kênh settlement sites that emerged in the Red River delta during first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. The investigations produced evidence for the production of nephrite/jade rings. This study confirms that Đầu Rằm was a settlement associated with the Tràng Kênh culture that specialised in the manufacture of nephrite jeweller…
The Five-Million-Year Odyssey: The Human Journey from Ape to Agriculture
The Expansion of Farmers into Island Southeast Asia
This chapter discusses the spread by migration of Neolithic farmers from southern China and Taiwan into and through the islands of Southeast Asia between 4000 and 3000 years ago. Data are drawn from archaeology, genetics, and the comparative study of the Austronesian languages. Also discussed are counterarguments that favor indigenous development of Island Southeast Asian agriculture and Neolithic material culture. This chapter supports the conce…
Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago
Diverse Ceramic Technologies in Neolithic Southern Vietnam: The Case of Rach Nui
The initial appearance of fine, incised, and impressed ceramics dating to the Neolithic period (4200–3000 b.p.) in southern Vietnam was associated with the emergence and spread of sedentary settlements, cereal agriculture, and new forms of material culture. However, differences existed in contemporary ceramic technologies between sites. This article presents a preliminary characterization of the pottery found at Rach Nui, a habitation site with a…
Diverse Ceramic Technologies in Neolithic Southern Vietnam: The Case of Rach Nui
Microstratigraphy reveals cycles of occupation and abandonment at the mid Holocene coastal site of Thach Lac, northern-central Vietnam
Preceramic riverside hunter-gatherers and the arrival of Neolithic farmers in northern Luzon
The most westerly Pacific island chain, running from Taiwan southwards through the Philippines, has long been central in debates about the origins and early migrations of Austronesian-speaking peoples from the Asian mainland into the islands of Southeast Asia and Oceania. Focusing on the Cagayan Valley of northern Luzon in the Philippines, the authors combine new and published radiocarbon dates to underpin a revised culture-historical synthesis. …
Early settlement construction in Southeast Asia: Lime mortar floor sequences at Loc Giang, southern Vietnam
Research on prehistoric mainland Southeast Asia is dominated by mortuary contexts, leaving processes such as the transition to sedentism relatively understudied. Recent excavations in southern Vietnam, however, have recovered new evidence for settlement. The authors report on investigations at the neolithic site of Loc Giang (3980-3270 cal BP) in southern Vietnam, where excavation revealed a vertical sequence of more than 30 surfaces. Microarchae…
Prehistoric bone artefacts from the northern Moluccas, Indonesia
The abundance of bipointed bone artefacts in Golo Cave makes it likely that all stages in the manufacture, use and discard of these artefacts were carried out at this site. The Golo Cave spatulae were almost certainly used in variety of ways, although probably not in any way that generated high-pressure loading of the tip itself. Shaving appears to have been dominant method for shaping bone artefacts in the Golo Cave assemblage with 85% of cortic…
Response to Letter to the Editor by Sally Babidge
Not peer-reviewed
Ru Diep and the Quynh Van culture of central Vietnam
Some observations on the transeurasian language family, from the perspective of the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis
During my attendance at the ‘Transeurasian Millets and Beans, Words and Genes’ conference in Jena (January 2019), Martine Robbeets invited me to comment on the articles that are published in this Special Collection in the journal Evolutionary Human Sciences . My comments are focused on the seven articles that deal with the ‘Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis’, one of the key theoretical constructs discussed during the conference. I consider ho…
Sherds as archaeobotanical assemblages: Gua Sireh reconsidered
The earliest claim for domesticated rice in Island Southeast Asia (4960-3565 cal BP) derives from a single grain embedded in a ceramic sherd from Gua Sireh Cave, Borneo. In a first assessment of spikelet-base assemblages within pottery sherds using quantitative microCT analysis, the authors found no additional rice remains within this sherd to support the early date of rice farming; analysis of a more recent Gua Sireh sherd (1990-830 cal BP), how…
Trans-Asiatic exchange of glass, gold and bronze: Analysis of finds from the late prehistoric Pangkung Paruk site, Bali
The Spice Islands in Prehistory: Archaeology in the Northern Moluccas, Indonesia
This monograph reports the results of archaeological investigations undertaken in the Northern Moluccas Islands (the Indonesian Province of Maluku Utara) by Indonesian, New Zealand and Australian archaeologists between 1989 and 1996. Excavations were undertaken in caves and open sites on four islands (Halmahera, Morotai, Kayoa and Gebe).
Agricultural Origins
Agriculture (or, more generally, food production) developed with plant and animal domestication in several regions of the world during the past 10,000 years, following the post‐ice age establishment of encouraging Holocene climates, mostly in seasonal temperate and tropical latitudes. The entry reviews the various archaeological and biological records that apply to some of the major regions, and discusses some possible causal factors, both enviro…
Listening in on the conversations of early farmers
Observations on the Northern Moluccan excavated animal bone and shell collections
This study deals with all the animal bones from seven sites: Tanjung Pinang with Daeo Caves 1 and 2 (Morotai Island), Uattamdi (Kayoa Island), Um Kapat Papo and Golo (Gebe Island), and Siti Nafisah (Halmahera Island
New evidence for a 67,000-year-old human presence at Callao Cave, Luzon, Philippines
Shell Artefact Production at 32,000-28,000 BP in Island Southeast Asia: Thinking across Media
The evolution of anatomical and behavioural modernity in Homo sapiens has been one of the key focus areas in both archaeology and palaeoanthropology since their inception. Traditionally, interpretations have drawn mainly on evidence from the many large and well-known sites in Europe, but archaeological research in Africa and the Levant is increasingly altering and elaborating upon our understanding of later human evolution. Despite the presence o…
Symbiosis, Instability, and the Origins and Spread of Agriculture: A New Model [and Comments and Reply]
Section 1 presents evidence that domestication and agriculture are evolutionary phenomena. They may be found in the relationships of many animals with plants. Domestication is the result of coevolved mutualisms between animals and plants. All domesticated plants show characteristics that are evidence of this mutualist relationship. Section 2 is a brief presentation of a model for the origin and spread of agriculture. Agricultural techniques trans…
The Austronesians: Historical and Comparative Perspectives
A majority of the papers in this volume were originally presented at a Conference of the Comparative Austronesian Project.We wish to thank all those associated with that Conference, in particular Annegret Schemberg who was in charge of the organization of the Conference and that of the Comparative Austronesian Project in general.The cover of this volume shows a single-outrigger travelling canoe from
Early Agriculturalist Population Diasporas? Farming, Languages, and Genes
The consequences of early agricultural development in several regions of the Old and New Worlds included population growth, the spread of new material cultures and of food-producing economies, the expansions of language families, and in many cases the geographical expansions of the early farming populations themselves into territories previously occupied by hunters and gatherers. This chapter discusses some of the different outcomes that can be e…
Holocene Population History in the Pacific Region as a Model for Worldwide Food Producer Dispersals
Pacific prehistory (excluding Australia) since 3000 BC reflects the impacts of two source regions for food production: China from the Yangzi southward (including Taiwan) and the western Pacific (especially the New Guinea Highlands). The linguistic (Austronesian, Trans-New Guinea), bioanthropological/human genetic, and Neolithic archaeological records each carry signals of expansion from these two source regions. A combined consideration of the mu…
Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago
More questions than answers: The Southeast Asian Lead Isotope Project 2009–2012
The first settlement of Remote Oceania: The Philippines to the Marianas
The authors compare pottery assemblages in the Marianas and the Philippines to claim endorsement for a first human expansion into the open Pacific around 1500 BC. The Marianas are separated from the Philippines by 2300km of open sea, so they are proposing an epic pioneering voyage of men and women, with presumably some cultivated plants but apparently no animals. How did they manage this unprecedented journey
Emergence and Diversification of the Neolithic in Southern Vietnam: Insights From Coastal Rach Nui
We examine the southern Vietnamese site of Rach Nui, dated to between 3390 and 3850 cal BP, in the context of three major aspects of the Neolithic in Mainland Southeast Asia: mound formation and chronology, construction techniques, and subsistence economy. Results indicate that this ca. 75 m in diameter, 5 m high mound, comprising over a dozen phases of earthen platforms, upon which were raised sophisticated wooden structures, was built in <200 y…
The Prehistory of Oceania [and Comments and Reply]
The prehistory of Oceania is best approached through the cooperation of a number of disciplines, including archaeology, physical anthropology, linguistics, ethnology, and ethnobotany, to name perhaps the major five. As a result of intensified cooperation over the past decade, it is now possible to write a prehistory of Oceania with which other scholars might agree at least in general terms. This paper is such an attempt, and refers particularly t…
Sembiran: The beginnings of Indian contact with Bali
In Classical times, the Indian continent was central to a trading network that ran west to the Mediterranean world revolving round Rome: despite its name, the Mediterranean was not the centre of the known world. Another world opened eastwards from India, and there are many obscure references to its eastern fringes, Now a series of finds from Bali, in the Indonesian archipelago, gives the elusive direct connection of Indian traders to that farther…
Lapita colonists leave boats unburned!' The question of Lapita links with Island Southeast Asia
Not another trendy and incomprehensible title,' some will sigh. No, the title means what it states, albeit with metaphorical flourish. The Lapita cultural complex of Melanesia and western Polynesia, an entity beloved of a generation of Pacific prehistorians and ever a hot source of debate, can now be shown to have retained at least some links with contemporary populations far to the west of its known distribution. This is significant, not least b…
Coastal Connectivity: Long-Term Trading Networks Across the South China Sea
Long-distance coastal interactions have shaped much of world history, most evident in social and economic ties through sea-lanes and trade-routes that connect to other regions and potentially throughout the world. In this way, separate coastal communities on distant shores of the same sea, lake, river, or ocean can share more in common with each other than with their adjacent inland neighbors. The South China Sea presents one case in point, where…
The Dispersals of Established Food-Producing Populations
This paper offers a perspective on the spread of early food-producing populations, with their crops, animals, other cultural attributes, languages, and genes. A multidisciplinary approach is taken in which perspectives from different disciplines (especially archaeology and comparative linguistics in this instance) are used for what L. Fogelin recently called "inference to the best explanation". It is suggested that once food production was firmly…
The Pottery Trail From Southeast Asia to Remote Oceania
A set of unique circumstances created a durable archaeological record of ancient human migration from Southeast Asia to Remote Oceania, useful as a global model of population dispersals. Finely made pottery with a very specific decorative signature is found in multiple locations in the Philippines and western Oceania, constituting a shared cultural trait that can be traced, both geographically and chronologically, to a specific homeland. Especial…
Sembiran and Pacung on the north coast of Bali: A strategic crossroads for early trans-Asiatic exchange
Predicting Similarity in Material Culture among New Guinea Villages from Propinquity and Language: A Log-linear Approach [and Comments and Reply]
A 4000 year-old introduction of domestic pigs into the Philippine Archipelago: Implications for understanding routes of human migration through Island Southeast Asia and Wallacea
New research into the Neolithic of Island Southeast Asia is broadening the old models and making them more diverse, more human - more like history: people and animals can move through the islands in a multitude of ways. The domestic pig is an important tracker of Neolithic people and practice into the Pacific, and the authors address the controversial matter of whether domestic pigs first reached the islands of Southeast Asia from China via Taiwa…
The first discovery of Neolithic rice remains in eastern Taiwan: Phytolith evidence from the Chaolaiqiao site
Phylogenyvsreticulation in prehistory
Two pure and opposing models exist to give historical account of the structure in modern cultural patterns. A phylogenetic account explores divergence from some shared commonality (the word 'phylogenetic' is from the Greek words for 'tribal origins'). A reticulate account concentrates on a network of interactions (the word 'reticulate' comes via French from the Latin for 'small net'). It follows that neither model may tell all the story. These co…
Between foraging and farming: Strategic responses to the Holocene Thermal Maximum in Southeast Asia
Large, ‘complex’ pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer communities thrived in southern China and northern Vietnam, contemporaneous with the expansion of farming. Research at Con Co Ngua in Vietnam suggests that such hunter-gatherer populations shared characteristics with early farming communities: high disease loads, pottery, complex mortuary practices and access to stable sources of carbohydrates and protein. The substantive difference was in the use of…
Introduced Domestic Animals in the Neolithic and Metal Age of the Philippines: Evidence From Nagsabaran, Northern Luzon
The faunal remains recovered from the Neolithic and Metal Age Nagsabaran shellmidden site in Cagayan, Northern Luzon Philippines were analyzed to gain insights into the arrival of managed animal populations, subsistence patterns, and animal processing dur
Ancient Boats, Boat Timbers, and Locked Mortise‐and‐Tenon Joints from Bronze/Iron‐Age Northern Vietnam
This paper describes two nautical discoveries buried c.2000 years ago in the Red River alluvial plain, northern Vietnam. One is part of a logboat with a series of empty mortise and locking-peg holes for plank attachment using loose rectangular tenons. The other, from an infant mortuary house, is a series of re-used 4-m-long timbers with exactly the same locked mortise-and-tenon technology. Both finds are interpreted as having belonged to river-bo…
Structural Patterns of Sibling Classification in Island Oceania: Implications for Culture History [and Comments and Replies]
The underlying structure of discriminations in the classification of siblings has received considerable attention. Prior research has demonstrated the tendency of patterns of sibling classification to persist, often for thousands of years, in groups of societies that speak related languages. In this paper it is shown that a sample of 223 societies from Island Oceania exhibits 11 structural types of sibling classification linked in a developmental…
Neolithic Comments
I have done some varied seafaring in different kinds of odd craft and so have some idea of the difficulties involved in earlier days. In the summer of 1925 I was at sea in a Fleetwood trawler, which was fishing the Ioo-fathom line from St Kilda to the Blaskets. On I July, we were off Galway Bay; it was a fairly calm day with a big Atlantic swell running. A three-man curragh from Inishmore (one of the Aran Islands) came alongside and the crew begg…
Fortifications and Economy in Prehistoric New Zealand
The purpose of this paper is to give an account of the prehistoric fortifications ( pa ) of New Zealand, firstly by describing the cultural background as it is reconstructed by ethnographers for the period immediately preceding European contact, and then by presenting new information from two excavations which have yielded valuable results on the form and function of these sites. The New Zealand fortifications, which are mainly of the earthwork t…
The Settlement of Polynesia: A Computer Simulation
The Prehistory of Oceania [and Comments and Reply]
The prehistory of Oceania is best approached through the cooperation of a number of disciplines, including archaeology, physical anthropology, linguistics, ethnology, and ethnobotany, to name perhaps the major five. As a result of intensified cooperation over the past decade, it is now possible to write a prehistory of Oceania with which other scholars might agree at least in general terms. This paper is such an attempt, and refers particularly t…
Man's Conquest of the Pacific. The Prehistory of Southeast Asia and Oceania
Indonesia, the Philippines and Oceanic Prehistory
A cultural and chronological scheme is presented for the islands of Taiwan, the Philippines and eastern Indonesia during the last 10,000 years. Four archaeological periods are suggested for the region, namely Preceramic (8000-3000 B.C.), Neolithic (3000- 500 B.C.), Early Metal (500 B.C - A.D. 1000) and Late (A.D. 1000 to ethnographic present). Where possible, developments in these four periods are related to aspects of physical anthropology and l…
Symbiosis, Instability, and the Origins and Spread of Agriculture: A New Model [and Comments and Reply]
Section 1 presents evidence that domestication and agriculture are evolutionary phenomena. They may be found in the relationships of many animals with plants. Domestication is the result of coevolved mutualisms between animals and plants. All domesticated plants show characteristics that are evidence of this mutualist relationship. Section 2 is a brief presentation of a model for the origin and spread of agriculture. Agricultural techniques trans…
New perspectives on Indo-Malaysian prehistory
Archaeological reconnaissance in the Sanjai Valley, Singhbhum District, Bihar
Archaeological research in the Madai-Baturong region, Sabah
Structural Patterns of Sibling Classification in Island Oceania: Implications for Culture History [and Comments and Replies]
The underlying structure of discriminations in the classification of siblings has received considerable attention. Prior research has demonstrated the tendency of patterns of sibling classification to persist, often for thousands of years, in groups of societies that speak related languages. In this paper it is shown that a sample of 223 societies from Island Oceania exhibits 11 structural types of sibling classification linked in a developmental…
On R. W. Brockway's “Origin and dispersal of the polynesians”
On Melanesians and Polynesians
Peer-reviewed
History, Phylogeny, and Evolution in Polynesia [and Comments and Reply]
The prehistory of Island Southeast Asia: A multidisciplinary review of recent research
The impact of sea level changes on pacific prehistory
Peer-reviewed
Archaeological investigations at Bukit Tengkorak and Segarong, Southeastern Sabah
Lapita colonists leave boats unburned!' The question of Lapita links with Island Southeast Asia
Not another trendy and incomprehensible title,' some will sigh. No, the title means what it states, albeit with metaphorical flourish. The Lapita cultural complex of Melanesia and western Polynesia, an entity beloved of a generation of Pacific prehistorians and ever a hot source of debate, can now be shown to have retained at least some links with contemporary populations far to the west of its known distribution. This is significant, not least b…
Archaeology of the Lapita Cultural Complex: Critical Review
The Austronesian Dispersal and the Origin of Languages
The possibility of independent foraging in the rain forest of Peninsular Malaysia
[Later Prehistory in Southeast Asia and Earliest Contacts With India] Recent Research at Gua Sireh (Serian) and Lubang Angin (Gunung Mulu National Park), Sarawak
The 14th Congress of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association
Sembiran: The beginnings of Indian contact with Bali
In Classical times, the Indian continent was central to a trading network that ran west to the Mediterranean world revolving round Rome: despite its name, the Mediterranean was not the centre of the known world. Another world opened eastwards from India, and there are many obscure references to its eastern fringes, Now a series of finds from Bali, in the Indonesian archipelago, gives the elusive direct connection of Indian traders to that farther…
The Polynesians: Prehistory of an Island People
Describes what is known or surmised through archaeological records about the prehistoric culture of Polynesian peoples, their languages, navigational skills, arts and customs
Geography (84 works) · Archaeology (79 works) · History (76 works) · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies (71 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (44 works) · Ancient history (39 works) · History (33 works) · Prehistory (33 works) · Sociology (27 works) · Biology (24 works)