Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-r6c6k Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-07T19:28:46.711Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2017

Sue O'Connor*
Affiliation:
Archaeology and Natural History, School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra 2601, Australia
Mahirta
Affiliation:
Jurusan Arkeologi, Fakultas Ilmu Budaya, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogjakarta, Indonesia
Sofía C. Samper Carro
Affiliation:
Archaeology and Natural History, School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra 2601, Australia School of Archaeology and Anthropology, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra 2601, Australia
Stuart Hawkins
Affiliation:
Archaeology and Natural History, School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra 2601, Australia
Shimona Kealy
Affiliation:
Archaeology and Natural History, School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra 2601, Australia
Julien Louys
Affiliation:
Archaeology and Natural History, School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra 2601, Australia
Rachel Wood
Affiliation:
Earth Chemistry, Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra 2601, Australia
*
*Author for correspondence (Email: sue.oconnor@anu.edu.au)
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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.

Information

Type
Research
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
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 re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2017
Figure 0

Figure 1. Map (upper) showing the location of Tron Bon Lei, the current extent of Alor, Pantar and other neighbouring islands, and the island as it would have been at 22000 cal BP. The lower map shows Wallace's Line (black dashed line) and the location of the Wallacean Islands in black; the inset shows Timor-Leste and the location of Jerimalai and Lene Hara Cave.

Figure 1

Figure 2. Tron Bon Lei cranium, photographed during excavation. Fish-hook A and perforated bivalve to the north of the mandible. (Photograph by Sofía Samper Carro.)

Figure 2

Table 1. AMS radiocarbon dates from Tron Bon Lei pit B, Alor. Dates calibrated using OxCal v.4.2.4 against IntCal13 and Marine13 (Bronk Ramsey 2009; Reimer et al.2013).

Figure 3

Figure 3. A) Northern view of the volcanic ridge where Tron Bon Lei is located. The white arrow indicates the general location of the rockshelters (photograph by permission of Putu Yuda); B) pit B looking east from the southern edge of the rockshelter (image from Samper Carro et al. 2016, reproduced with permission from Elsevier).

Figure 4

Figure 4. A) Transect showing the distance from sea level to Tron Bon Lei rockshelter; B) plan of Tron Bon Lei showing the location of test pit B (and also test pits A and C, not reported here); modified from Samper Carro et al. (2016), reproduced with permission from Elsevier.

Figure 5

Figure 5. Stratigraphic drawing of the east section of the Tron Bon Lei pit B excavation, showing stratigraphic levels, excavation units, the location of samples taken for radiocarbon dates and the location of the burial and associated finds (red rectangle).

Figure 6

Figure 6. Plan view of the Tron Bon Lei cranium showing the position of fish-hook A, bivalve and cobbles with red ochre. Cobble 2 is higher in the profile than cobble 1 and is not in the plan; its location is, however, shown in Figure 6. The burial is in the lighter sediment layer 11. The darker sediment in the northern and western part of the pit is layer 12.

Figure 7

Figure 7. Circular rotating fish-hooks (A, B, C and E) found with the burial. (Photograph by Sofía Samper Carro.)

Figure 8

Figure 8. Tron Bon Lei fish-hook D. The dotted line shows the probable shape of the shaft.

Figure 9

Table 2. Measurements taken on fish-hooks.

Figure 10

Figure 9. Schematic diagram showing the location of measurements taken on hooks in Table 2.

Figure 11

Figure 10. Bivalve Vasticardium cf. flavum (L) showing detail of the perforation at the umbo (above) and wear and rounding on the ventral margin.

Supplementary material: PDF

O'Connor et al supplementary material

O'Connor et al supplementary material 1

Download O'Connor et al supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 556.1 KB