Written for researchers, university lecturers and advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students in all fields of archaeological and anthropological study, this collection features new research from different excavation sites around Indonesia together with pioneering expert analysis. Groundbreaking new theories on early colonization feature alongside a thorough and up-to-date examination of field methods and techniques, and valuable insight into human development in Indonesia and beyond.

Focused on Java and Sulawesi, these research findings highlight important recent advances in quaternary research. Results from a cave excavation in Southern Java provide a much-needed long-term palaeoclimatic record, based on a lowland pollen sequence from Central Java, while the contributions from South Sulawesi include a pioneering archaeobotanical analysis, a new hypothesis on the earliest human colonisation of this island, and an attempt to reconstruct preceramic human biological population affinities. In addition, the little-known archaeology of the tiny island of Roti is presented and discussed here, with particular attention on prehistoric survival in an impoverished island environment.

These twelve papers, taken from a symposium held by the Society for American Archaeology in Philadelphia in 2000, provide an overview of recent developments in our understanding of the Chinese Palaeolithic. Papers include a retrospective of the last fifty years of Palaeolithic archaeology and studies of the role of Davidson Black, the palaeoenvironment, diet and behaviour of hominids, faunal evidence and dating methods. The sites of Xiaochangliang and Panxian Dadong receive particular attention. All papers are in English.