School of Archaeology and Anthropology PhD candidate Rebecca Jones' Thesis Proposal Review presentation:

A study of the animal remains from the sites of Con Co Ngau and Man Bac: Identifying the Transition from hunting to Animal Management in the late Holocene of northern Vietnam

The transition from foraging to farming was one of the most important behavioural transformations in human history. While the processes underlying these changes have been studied in great detail in some parts of the world, it is still poorly understood within the context of Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA). This project aims to provide new interpretations of the transition from purely hunting to the management of livestock in MSEA through the in-depth research and analysis of the vertebrate remains recovered from two sites that potentially straddle the pre-Neolithic/Neolithic transition, Con Co Ngua and Man Bac. The study proposes to develop a better understanding of how and when human populations adopted a sedentary pattern of existence and integrated domestic animals into their subsistence strategies. Located in the north of Vietnam, where it is proposed the earliest farming populations in MSEA first migrated from southern China, the project will provide baseline data on the origins and timing for human and animal dispersal into MSEA at the end of 3rd and/or beginning of the 2nd millennium BC.