Date:
Tuesday, May 28, 2024, 12:00pm
Location:
Albert Hall, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City
See you for the Binalot Talk on 28th May, 12:00pm. Lim Tze Tshen of the Geology Department of Universiti Malaya in Kuala Lumpur will give a talk titled 'Prehistoric Proboscideans and the Mystical Origins of Asian Elephants (Elephas maximus) in Borneo'.
Borneo is the largest island within southeast Asia west of the Wallace’s Line. In the past 2.5 million years during the Quaternary period, due to cyclical eustatic sea level changes, it had periodically linked up with other areas and islands in the region, like Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, and Java. Together, they formed a landmass of sub-continental in extent, called the ‘Sundaland’, through which they were connected to the rest of mainland Asia. Not surprisingly, owing to this shared recent biogeographical history, these areas have many large mammal taxa in common with one another. Uniquely, prehistoric proboscidean findings from Borneo are few as compared to some other parts of Sundaland. Did prehistoric proboscideans avoid Borneo in favor of other places? How prehistoric diversity of proboscideans can inform us about possible migration routes of these large mammals in the past? The general lack of fossil and zooarchaeological records of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) in Borneo also leads to debates about the true origins of the elephants now living in the eastern parts of the island. Are they native to Borneo, or merely living descendants of elephants introduced into Borneo by humans during historical periods? This talk attempts to better understand these questions by examining the evidence from various lines of investigation, ranging from recent genetic studies of living populations to the re-discoveries of some of the important fossil and zooarchaeological specimens.
This session is onsite only.
AbstractBorneo is the largest island within southeast Asia west of the Wallace’s Line. In the past 2.5 million years during the Quaternary period, due to cyclical eustatic sea level changes, it had periodically linked up with other areas and islands in the region, like Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, and Java. Together, they formed a landmass of sub-continental in extent, called the ‘Sundaland’, through which they were connected to the rest of mainland Asia. Not surprisingly, owing to this shared recent biogeographical history, these areas have many large mammal taxa in common with one another. Uniquely, prehistoric proboscidean findings from Borneo are few as compared to some other parts of Sundaland. Did prehistoric proboscideans avoid Borneo in favor of other places? How prehistoric diversity of proboscideans can inform us about possible migration routes of these large mammals in the past? The general lack of fossil and zooarchaeological records of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) in Borneo also leads to debates about the true origins of the elephants now living in the eastern parts of the island. Are they native to Borneo, or merely living descendants of elephants introduced into Borneo by humans during historical periods? This talk attempts to better understand these questions by examining the evidence from various lines of investigation, ranging from recent genetic studies of living populations to the re-discoveries of some of the important fossil and zooarchaeological specimens.
