Negritos in Taiwan and the wider prehistory of Southeast Asia: new discovery from the Xiaoma Caves
Negritos in Taiwan and the wider prehistory of Southeast Asia: new discovery from the Xiaoma Caves
复制标题
DOI：
10.1080/00438243.2022.2121315
复制
发表时间：
2022-03
影响因子：
1.3
通讯作者：
H. Hung;H. Matsumura;L. C. Nguyễn;T. Hanihara;Shih-Chiang Huang;M. Carson
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
H. Hung;H. Matsumura;L. C. Nguyễn;T. Hanihara;Shih-Chiang Huang;M. Carson
摘要台湾被称为南岛语族的故乡，但其他族群早在更新世就已在此定居。传统观念认为，旧石器时代的狩猎采集者被新石器时代的南岛语族农业社区取代或吸收。然而，一些证据表明，直到19世纪，仍有少数非南岛语族人继续生活在偏远的山区。台湾东部小马洞出土的人类骨骼遗骸的颅骨形态测量研究，首次证实了6000年前的小型狩猎采集者在前陶瓷阶段的存在。这位女性个体与东南亚土著人，特别是吕宋岛北方的黑人，有着显著的颅型相似性和身材矮小的特征。这项研究解决了数百年来台湾南岛语族部落中“小黑人”传说的谜团，并为东南亚更广泛的史前史带来了见解。
ABSTRACT Taiwan is known as the homeland of the Austronesian-speaking groups, yet other populations already had lived here since the Pleistocene. Conventional notions have postulated that the Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers were replaced or absorbed into the Neolithic Austronesian farming communities. Yet, some evidence has indicated that sparse numbers of non-Austronesian individuals continued to live in the remote mountains as late as the 1800s. The cranial morphometric study of human skeletal remains unearthed from the Xiaoma Caves in eastern Taiwan, for the first time, validates the prior existence of small stature hunter-gatherers 6000 years ago in the preceramic phase. This female individual shared remarkable cranial affinities and small stature characteristics with the Indigenous Southeast Asians, particularly the Negritos in northern Luzon. This study solves the several-hundred-years-old mysteries of ‘little black people’ legends in Formosan Austronesian tribes and brings insights into the broader prehistory of Southeast Asia.