Human Adaptation to Coastal Evolution: Late Quaternary evidence from Southeast Asia (SUNDASIA)

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Human Adaptation to Coastal Evolution: Late Quaternary evidence from Southeast Asia (SUNDASIA)RESEARCH SUMMARYChanging sea-levels have had a significant impact on human evolution and history in Southeast Asia, and continue to affect the lives of people living there today. Under glacial conditions the continent of Asia extended into the Southern Hemisphere, but up to 75% of that additional landmass ('Sundaland') becomes submerged during interglacials, making this the world's largest single area of land lost cyclically to the sea. The 3.5-year SUNDASIA project, which has already attracted £300,000 worth of corporate backing towards its projected c. £1m cost, explores how prehistoric foraging communities adapted to cycles of coastal inundation in Southeast Asia and how understanding of those processes can inform on modern responses to climate-induced rising seas. Until now, no archaeological record was sufficiently detailed for these linked topics to be researched comprehensively at a landscape scale in this region. The Tràng An limestone massif on the southwest margin of the Red River delta, Vietnam, is the first area in the region to provide such a record and as a result has recently (2014) achieved World Heritage status. The current project synthesizes archaeological and palaeoenvironmental evidence from the last three marine transgressions: those occurring between 59,000 and c. 1500 years ago. Through its work in Tràng An SUNDASIA will demonstrate the impact that changing sea-levels had on early socio-economic systems in the region. This is a body of data that is also highly relevant today: more than 23% of the world's population currently reside on the coast or low-lying islands. These communities face the urgent threat of climate-driven sea-level rise which is particularly acute in Southeast Asia where sea-levels are rising at a rate three times the global average. Although scientists and policy-makers are now incorporating long-term palaeo-climate records into predictive models of climate change, almost no attention has been paid to considering how people coped with these changes in the past. Incorporating adaptive measures that permit a diverse repertoire of responses to climate-change is seen as key to the accuracy and practicality of these models, yet these measures remain poorly understood. Sea-level change and environmental diversity have been powerful drivers behind culture-economic systems for tens of millennia in Southeast Asia; its archaeological record and particularly that from Tràng An offer enormous potential to help bridge this knowledge gap.