Reports
HOPE Report No.25, 18th, January 2005.
Program No.25 (Joint research)
Hitomi Hongo : Instructor, Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University
Place of visit: University of Tubingen
(Also University of Munich, and Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary
Anthropology)
Title of research: Zooarchaeological study of faunal remains from Sakai
Cave, Southern Thailand
Period of visit: 24 November- 23 December, 2004
The Mani is nomadic hunter-gatherers who inhabit in the forest in
southern Thailand and northern Malaysia. The Mani hunters specialize in
hunting of arboreal animals using blowpipe. Their traditional life,
however, has been threatened by deforestation and by the Thai government
policy of settling down the nomadic minority groups. The animal bone
remains stored at the Prehistory Department of University of Tubingen were
collected during a series of ethnoarchaeological campaign of Sakai Cave in
Trang Province, southern Thailand in the 1990s. Although layers belonging
to the Neolithic and pre-Neolithic occupations were also discovered, most
of the animal bones discovered at the site were relatively recent (up to
100 years old). Thus the animal bone remains provide us with information
on traditional Mani hunting practice that is being lost in recent years.
The preliminary result of analysis suggests that the main games hunted
are primates (mainly langurs and gibbons, also some macaques). These
primate bones were recorded, measured when possible, and photographed.
Primate bones amount to about 80 % of the total animal bone remains, and
both adults and infants are hunted. Giant squirrel, flying lemur, hog
badger, and various species of civets are also hunted. Hornbill bones are
often encountered among bird species. Bones of turtles, lizards, and
freshwater fish are also abundant. A characteristic butchery practice is
observed: Both epiphyses of long bones are cut off probably to extract the
bone marrow.
Animal bones
More info about the Mani http://www.andaman.org/book/chapter36/text36.htm
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