Looking into the Gap: Land Use and the Tropical Forests of Southern Thailand

Abstract

The pollen and phytolith analysis of a 20,000-year lake core from southern Thailand provides the first long-term environmental sequence for this region. The evidence suggests that groups continuously occupied southern Thailand through both the early Holocene formation of the tropical rainforest and the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture. Hunter-gatherers of the late Pleistocene apparently made the initial transition to the new tropical forest in the early Holocene by maintaining, expanding, or creating localized areas of disturbance or forest gaps to focus economic resources. KEYWORDS: palaeoenvironment, subsistence, Holocene, Thailand, phytolith analysis.