Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

Published in

Elsevier, Quaternary International, (416), p. 46-63, 2016

DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2015.09.072

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Subsistence strategies and environment in Late Pleistocene–Early Holocene Eastern Java: Evidence from Braholo Cave

This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Orange circle
Postprint: archiving restricted
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

The climatic shifts during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition in Island Southeast Asia resulted in dramatic changes in landscape configurations which are presumed to have had greatly impacted vertebrate community composition and in turn human subsistence economies. Zooarcheological investigations in the region have provided information on how ancient foraging communities responded to these changes. However the complete picture remains to be elucidated. In this paper we present preliminary results of an ongoing analysis of faunal remains recovered from Braholo Cave in Eastern Java. We observed an overwhelming predominance of arboreal and semi-arboreal fauna, most notably the Javan langur, in the Late Pleistocene and Early-Mid Holocene deposits of the cave. In contrast earlier cave deposits were dominated by animal taxa generally associated with open environments such as bovids and cervids. This reflects forest expansion at the onset of the Holocene, albeit it also suggests deliberate targeting of specific taxa. The wide range of terrestrial, arboreal and aquatic species from various ecological niches suggests that the humans that inhabited the site subsisted on a mosaic of environments. It also hints on their intimate knowledge of these environments and the presence of different hunting technologies. Zooarchaeological parameters such as mortality profiles and body part representation allowed us to describe certain aspects of these hunting technologies. Our results provide unique insights on subsistence strategies of prehistoric foraging communities and the environment they encountered in Java during a key period in human history.