Physical Anthropology in Thailand

The collecting of physical anthropological data of people in the past, by physical anthropologists, physicians, archaeologists, including academics in related fields, from studying skeletal remains at archaeological sites in Thailand and to publish knowledge in any form.

BIOARCHAEOLOGY OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

Title
BIOARCHAEOLOGY OF SOUTHEAST ASIA
Author
OXENHAM, MARC & NANCY TAYLES (EDITORS)
Paper type
Book
Language
English
Location
Year
2006
Date report
Published
Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom
Subjects
Abstract

This book includes articles on the physical anthropology and bioarchaeology investigation based on the human remains from the late Pleistocene to Holocene archaeological sites in Southeast Asia by using a variety of methods like as macroscopy, metric and non-metric traits, and stable isotope analysis etc. This content is divided into two sections and each section consists of six articles, the first section reconstructs the issues about human evolution, the first peopling of Southeast Asia, the human migration and the relationship between the populations, and the second section consists of the articles about health, disease, quality of life, and subsistence change. Sample of some interesting articles there are;

The population history of Southeast Asia viewed from morphometric analyses of human skeletal and dental remains by Hirofumi Matsumura, aims to investigate the immigration or Two-layer hypothesis based on the study of the cranial and dental morphology of Preneolithic human remains. This result hypothesized that the late Pleistocene specimens both from Tabon cave, the Philippines, Niah cave from Malaysia, Moh Kiew rockshelter from Krabi Province, including the other specimens from Malaysia and Vietnam were morphologically linked with the Australo-Melanesian lineage and probably were the ancestors of the modern Melanesian and Australian aboriginal peoples.

The second article, Subsistence change and dental health in the people of Non Nok Tha, northeast Thailand by Michele Toomay Douglas, aims to study the relationship between the subsistence change and the oral healh of the Neolithic – Iron Age populations at Non Nok Tha archaeological site, Khon Kaen Province, northeast Thailand. The skeletal sample consisted of a a total of 82 adult individuals divided into 40 males and 42 females. The oral health indicators such as carious lesions, calculus, advance wear with pulp exposure, antemortem tooth loss, alveolar resorption and periapical cavities were assessed and used for a comparative study between sexes. This result suggested that the female sample have significantly better dental health more than the male sample during the Neolithic to the Iron Age, however female dental health declined in the Metal Age that probably related with a sexual division of labour, consumption behavior, and the level of accessibility to food resources and also the oral hygiene.