Fishing in life and death: Pleistocene fish-hooks from a burial context on Alor Island, Indonesia

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
File version

Version of Record (VoR)

Author(s)
O'Connor, Sue
Mahirta
Carro, Sofia C Samper
Hawkins, Stuart
Kealy, Shimona
Louys, Julien
Wood, Rachel
Griffith University Author(s)
Primary Supervisor
Other Supervisors
Editor(s)
Date
2017
Size
File type(s)
Location
Abstract

Fish-hooks discovered among grave goods associated with an adult female burial at the Tron Bon Lei rockshelter on the island of Alor in Indonesia are the first of their kind from a Pleistocene mortuary context in Southeast Asia. Many of the hooks are of a circular rotating design. Parallels found in various other prehistoric contexts around the globe indicate widespread cultural convergence. The association of the fish-hooks with a human burial, combined with the lack of alternative protein sources on the island, suggest that fishing was an important part of the cosmology of this community. The Tron Bon Lei burial represents the earliest-known example of a culture for whom fishing was clearly an important activity among both the living and the dead.

Journal Title

Antiquity

Conference Title
Book Title
Edition
Volume

91

Issue

360

Thesis Type
Degree Program
School
Publisher link
Patent number
Funder(s)
Grant identifier(s)
Rights Statement
Rights Statement

© Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2017. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Item Access Status
Note
Access the data
Related item(s)
Subject

Archaeology

Science & Technology

Social Sciences

Life Sciences & Biomedicine

Anthropology

Persistent link to this record
Citation

O'Connor, S; Mahirta; Carro, SCS; Hawkins, S; Kealy, S; Louys, J; Wood, R, Fishing in life and death: Pleistocene fish-hooks from a burial context on Alor Island, Indonesia, Antiquity, 2017, 91 (360), pp. 1451-1468

Collections