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Early Holocene shell fish hooks from Lene Hara Cave, East Timor establish complex fishing technology was in use in Island South East Asia five thousand years before Austronesian settlement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2015

Sue O’Connor  and
Peter Veth
Sue O’Connor
Affiliation:
The Division of Archaeology and Natural History, Research School of Asian and Pacific Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia. (Email: soconnor@coombs.anu.edu.au)
Peter Veth
Affiliation:
Research Program, The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Acton Peninsula, Lawson Crescent, Acton, ACT 2601, Australia. (Email: peter.veth@aiatsis.gov.au)
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Abstract

Discovery of a well-stratified fish hook from a cave sequence on East Timor shows a fishing technology developed at least 5000 years before the Austronesian expansion through Island South East Asia and into the Pacific. The fish hook is fashioned from shell and has been radiocarbon dated to 9741 ± 60 b.p.

Keywords

East TimorIsland South-East Asiaearly Holocenefishing
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 79 , Issue 304 , June 2005 , pp. 249 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2005

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