| Abstract: |
The Song Keplek 5 burial from Java, initially dated to the early Holocene from charcoal in the grave fill, has now been directly dated to around 3000 BP. Bivariate and multivariate analyses of its lower premolar and molar diameters demonstrates affinities with recent Javanese and Malays, whereas other Java burials dated to between the terminal Pleistocene and mid-Holocene have greater dental metrical similarities with recent Australians and Melanesians. This finding is consistent with Peter Bellwoods argument that the major component of the late Holocene gene pool of Indo-Malaysians can be attributed to a migration of Austronesian-speaking southern Mongoloids from Taiwan into Island Southeast Asia at around 4000 BP. However, there may also have been later exogenous inputs into the gene pool of the Javanese, as suggested by their Y-chromosome diversity and implied here by analysis of the lower dental metrics of some of the Batujaya burials from Javas protohistorical period.
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