Seminar: Pei-Lin YU
02 MARCH 23
IHP-EFEO Talk
Organized by the EFEO Taipei Center and the Research Center for Taiwan and Southeast Asia Archaeology, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica
Speaker:
Prof. Pei-Lin YU (Affiliate Professor, Fulbright Senior Research FellowBoise State University, Department of Anthropology)
Topic:
Can Human Behavioral Ecology Models Contribute toUnderstanding the Neolithization of Taiwan?
Date:
Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 2:30 pm
Venue:
2F Conference Room, Research Building, IHP, Academia Sinica
Abstract:
The Neolithization of Taiwan involved adaptive responses of immigrating
cultivators and territory-holding hunter gatherers, as well as
subsequent adjustments to subsistence and settlement on both sides. The
Two Layer Model describes Taiwan hunter-gatherers as marginalized and
then completely displaced within a few centuries. This has been advanced
on the basis of the lack of archaeological and bioarchaeological
evidence for persistence. Yet ethnographic information about
farmer/hunter-gatherer interactions, as well as the archaeological
record of Southeast China, suggest that the process may have been more
complex and gradual, with variations arising in different habitats. This
opens an opportunity to consider evolutionary theory. Human behavioral
ecology (HBE) aims to predict decision-making by individuals who seek to
maximize the ratio of energy capture to energy output (as a proxy to
reproductive success). HBE models are increasingly used by
archaeologists as heuristic tools to derive working hypotheses regarding
past behaviors that relate to the origins of food production,
migrations, inter-cultural encounters, and more. This paper evaluates
the strengths and limitations of the 'Ideal Free Distribution' and 'the
Despotic Variant’ of populations movements in varied landscapes for
archaeological hypothesis building about hunter gatherer/cultivator
encounters during the early Neolithic. I conclude with considerations of
the role of Taiwan's unique physiographic characteristics in the
process.
The talk will be chaired by Dr. Peiyu CHEN, Assistant Research Fellow, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, and Prof. Frank MUYARD, EFEO Taipei Center.
The talk will be given in English. Registration is not required.
lecture
Organized by the EFEO Taipei Center and the Research Center for Taiwan and Southeast Asia Archaeology, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica
Speaker:
Prof. Pei-Lin YU (Affiliate Professor, Fulbright Senior Research FellowBoise State University, Department of Anthropology)
Topic:
Can Human Behavioral Ecology Models Contribute toUnderstanding the Neolithization of Taiwan?
Date:
Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 2:30 pm
Venue:
2F Conference Room, Research Building, IHP, Academia Sinica
Abstract:
The Neolithization of Taiwan involved adaptive responses of immigrating
cultivators and territory-holding hunter gatherers, as well as
subsequent adjustments to subsistence and settlement on both sides. The
Two Layer Model describes Taiwan hunter-gatherers as marginalized and
then completely displaced within a few centuries. This has been advanced
on the basis of the lack of archaeological and bioarchaeological
evidence for persistence. Yet ethnographic information about
farmer/hunter-gatherer interactions, as well as the archaeological
record of Southeast China, suggest that the process may have been more
complex and gradual, with variations arising in different habitats. This
opens an opportunity to consider evolutionary theory. Human behavioral
ecology (HBE) aims to predict decision-making by individuals who seek to
maximize the ratio of energy capture to energy output (as a proxy to
reproductive success). HBE models are increasingly used by
archaeologists as heuristic tools to derive working hypotheses regarding
past behaviors that relate to the origins of food production,
migrations, inter-cultural encounters, and more. This paper evaluates
the strengths and limitations of the 'Ideal Free Distribution' and 'the
Despotic Variant’ of populations movements in varied landscapes for
archaeological hypothesis building about hunter gatherer/cultivator
encounters during the early Neolithic. I conclude with considerations of
the role of Taiwan's unique physiographic characteristics in the
process.
The talk will be chaired by Dr. Peiyu CHEN, Assistant Research Fellow, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, and Prof. Frank MUYARD, EFEO Taipei Center.
The talk will be given in English. Registration is not required.
lecture