The largest water management feature in Khmer history was built in the 10th century as part of a short-lived ancient capital in northern Cambodia to store water but the system failed in its first year of operation, possibly leading to the return of the capital to Angkor.
Regional map of Koh Ker showing the location of the chute and key archaeological features. The detailed map area (top right) is shown as a white dashed box on the regional map (left). The black dashed line in the detailed map area shows the approximate area of Fig 2. The location of Koh Ker compared with Angkor, Phnom Penh, and Ho Chi Minh City is shown in the bottom right. North is up in all figures [Credit: Dr Ian Moffat, Flinders University]
An international team of researchers led by Dr Ian Moffat from Flinders University in Australia used ground penetrating radar to map the surface of a buried spillway in Koh Ker to better understand why the reservoir failed during its first year of use.
In a study published in Geoarchaeology, archaeologists explain that the 7km long embankment was designed to capture water from the Stung Rongea river but modelling indicates it was inadequate to contain the average water flow in the catchment, putting into question the legitimacy of Khmer kings, and forcing them to re-establish their capital in Angkor.
"At that time, embarking on projects of civil engineering such as temple building, urban renewal, and the development of water infrastructure was central to establishing the legitimacy of Khmer kings," says Dr Moffat
"It's not difficult to envisage that the failure of the embankment at Koh Ker--the largest and most ambitious infrastructure project of the era--may have had a significant impact on the prestige of the sovereign capital, and contributed to the decision to re-establish Angkor as the capital of the Khmer Empire."
"Our study shows that this ambitious engineering feat was always doomed to rapid failure."
The monumental complex of Koh Ker, located 90 km northeast of Angkor, remains relatively poorly understood even though it was briefly the capital in the middle of the 10th century CE under King Jayavarman IV, the only capital throughout six centuries to be established outside of the Angkor region.
The site is located in an area of gently sloping hills and stone outcrops, far removed from the low-lying floodplains that define the Khmer heartland.
For decades habitat loss and degradation were considered the important drivers for defaunation in tropical rainforest ecosystems. A new study carried out by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) in cooperation with the World Wide Fund for Nature Vietnam (WWF-Vietnam) and the Sabah Forestry Department of the Government of Malaysia suggests that for ground dwelling mammal and bird communities, illegal hunting using indiscriminate snares may be a more immediate threat than forest degradation through selective logging. The researchers conducted a large scale camera-trapping study to compare several forest areas with logging concessions in Malaysian Borneo and protected areas in the Annamites ecoregion of Vietnam and Laos known to be subjected to illegal hunting. The results, published in the journal Communications Biology, show severe defaunation in snared forests compared to logged forests.
Removing snares in Vietnam [Credit: Andrew Tilker]
While both habitat degradation and unsustainable hunting have long been known to negatively affect animal communities in tropical rainforests, no study had directly compared how these threats compare in their severity in terms of losses of mammal and bird biodiversity at landscape scales. The result was that both logging and hunting negatively affected ground-dwelling mammal and bird communities, and unsustainable hunting had more severe effects on these communities. Overhunted sites in the Annamite Mountains of Vietnam and Laos had a higher proportion of species extirpated than the degraded sites in Borneo. Even species which persisted in the landscape subjected to illegal hunting had smaller distributions than similar species in the logging concessions.
"We had a unique opportunity to investigate the complex mechanisms of these defaunation drivers and compare their relative severities," says Andrew Tilker, doctoral student at the Leibniz-IZW and Asian Species Officer at Global Wildlife Conservation, one of the lead authors of the paper. "Our rainforest study sites in Malaysian Borneo are degraded through logging but have experienced little hunting, whereas our rainforest study sites in the Annamite Mountains are structurally intact but are subjected to extremely high illegal hunting pressure. Because the two study landscapes generally have similar habitats and faunal communities, it was an opportunity for us to investigate to what extent these defaunation drivers differ in their impact on tropical rainforest faunal communities."
Forest degradation through selective logging [Credit: Andrew Tilker]
"These findings are not only interesting from an academic perspective, they also have implications for conservation work", says Dr Jesse F. Abrams, postdoc at the Leibniz-IZW and co-first author. "Our results show that maintaining habitat quality as a means of protecting tropical biodiversity is, by itself, insufficient." The researchers suggest that, whilst both defaunation drivers should be addressed to maintain tropical biodiversity, in some cases it may be more prudent to focus limited conservation resources on addressing overhunting rather than habitat degradation.
Because hunting in the Annamites is primarily accomplished by the setting of indiscriminate wire snares, the findings of the study have implications for other landscapes in Southeast Asia, which currently are facing an ever-increasing snaring "epidemic". In this respect, the levels of defaunation found in the rainforest study sites in the Annamites by the researchers could offer a foreboding glimpse into the future of biodiversity across the wider Southeast Asian biodiversity hotspot. Co-author Ben Rawson, Conservation Director of WWF-Vietnam, says: "Industrial-scale snaring must be addressed if we are to avoid empty rainforests in the region and retain healthy populations of what are now some of the world's rarest species."
The study's findings also have positive implications for conservation. Datuk Mashor Mohd Jaini Director of the Sabah Forestry Department notes, "These results show that logging concessions can be safe havens for mammal and bird communities, particularly if sustainable forest management protocols are applied, following principles of forest certification standards" Dr Andreas Wilting, project leader, agrees. "Incorporating these degraded sites into conservation planning strategies could substantially extend the conservation real estate for the world's tropical regions," he says. "Our study has made it very clear that tropical rainforests must be protected from unsustainable hunting, regardless of whether they are logging concessions or protected areas. We must get ahead of the wave of indiscriminate hunting that is sweeping across Southeast Asia. Only then can we ensure the survival of Southeast Asia's biodiversity heritage".
An ancient 'lost city' of the Khmer Empire has been rediscovered in Cambodia by scientists using aerial mapping techniques, a new report has revealed.
An aerial view of the ancient city of Mahendraparvata [Credit: Chevance et al. 2019]
Mahendraparvata - an eighth to ninth century capital of the empire - was believed to have existed in the Southeast Asian state in the Angkor period, but scientists had struggled to pinpoint its location.
An international group of researchers have now used aerial laser scanning and ground-based surveying to uncover an 'extended urban network dating from the ninth century' which they identified as Mahendraparvata.
Archaeological evidence of the ancient settlement had previously been limited to 'scatter of small and apparently isolated shrines'.
But in the report, which was published in the Antiquity journal this week, the researchers claimed they have located the Angkor-period capital on the Phnom Kulen plateau, south of the Dangrek Mountains.
A map of the "lost city" of Mahendraparvata in Phnom Kulen, Cambodia [Credit: Chevance et al. 2019]
Scientists had previously theorized that the ancient city was located on the plateau, north of Siem Reap, but until recently it had been difficult to find evidence due to the dense Cambodian jungle and remote location.
It was also believed the area was littered with landmines leftover from the Khmer Rouge, who occupied the Phnom Kulen from the early 1970s until the late 1990s.
The researchers, with the use of aerial laser scanning known as lidar, were able to find evidence of a centrally planned urban area' which spanned 40 to 50 square kilometres on the plateau.
Mahendraparvata was said to be laid out in a grid system, with a 'distribution of small shrines, mounds and ponds' and a large-scale water management system.
A newly documented temple site found in the forests of the Phnom Kulen, Cambodia [Credit: Chevance et al. 2019]
Other discoveries include evidence of a royal palace and a state pyramid-temple - two infrastructure features said to typically be found in Khmer Empire capitals.
'Here, we confirm the hypothesis, based on this accumulated body of evidence, that Mahendraparvata -- the eighth- to ninth-century AD capital of the Khmer Empire -- was located on the Phnom Kulen massif', the report said.
'The work described here effectively draws to a close 150 years of archaeological mapping work in the Greater Angkor region and sets the stage for more sophisticated spatio-temporal modelling of urban form'.
Damian Evans, part of the five-strong research team, said the result was 'a very full and detailed interpretation of that city'.
Archaeological map of the Greater Angkor area [Credit: Chevance et al. 2019]
The new findings build on scans made in 2012 which confirmed the existence of Mahendraparvata, an ancient temple city near Angkor Wat.
Evans and his colleagues first found traces of extensive networks surrounding the monumental stone temple complex at Angkor Wat in June 2016. He said at the time that their findings could further our understanding of Khmer culture and throw into question traditional assumptions about the 15th-century decline of the empire.
For years, experts have assumed that the ancient Khmer civilization collapsed in the 15th century when invading Thai armies sacked Angkor Wat, forcing populations to relocate to southern Cambodia.
Angkor Wat, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is considered one of the ancient wonders of the world. It was constructed from the early to mid 1100s by King Suryavarman II at the height of the Khmer Empire's political and military power and was among the largest pre-industrial cities in the world.
The Apsara National Authority technical team uncovered a sandstone statue of a Bodhisattva while carrying out excavation work at the east entrance of the Ta Nei temple this week.
Credit: Apsara Authority
The team was trying to find the temple’s roof stone, which had fallen into a pile of stones in land covered with anthills.
Ta Nei temple’s restoration project leader Sea Sophearun, who is also an archaeologist at the Department of Monuments and Preventive Archaeology said his team had only uncovered the head of the statue.
The right ear is still intact but the left one is missing and it has a scraped nose with one side of the cheek damaged.
“Firstly, we cannot determine what caused the damage to the cheek. It might be a result of the statue crashing into something. Although the statue was uncovered at the location, there is no evidence to show the torso of the statue lies in the spot where we uncovered the head,” Sophearun said.
Credit: Apsara Authority
Chhouk Somala, an officer in charge of archaeological registration at the Department of Monuments and Preventive Archaeology said the head is 54cm in height, 27cm in width and has a depth of 36cm.
Somala said the Bodhisattva statue’s head was carved in the Bayon style during the late 12th and early 13th centuries, during the reign of Jayavarman VII.
In Mahayana Buddhism, the statue head is known as the Avloketesvar Bodhisattva, also known as “Guanyin” who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas.
In Khmer art, this kind of statues has two, four, or eight arms, holding Buddhist strings, books, a rose, and a vase. Also, the statue was carved like Bodhisattva Buddha.
Credit: Apsara Authority
Apsara National Authority spokesman Long Kosal said experts have kept the statue head temporarily on the premises of the Apsara National Authority. Then, it will be registered and have its photo taken as part of the documentation process.
Besides, experts will prepare the request to have the statue stored at the Angkor Centre for Conservation of Biodiversity (ACCB).
“After we have cleaned the statue’s head, we will study more about it. Then, in future we will exhibit it to the public,” said Kosal.
He said the Apsara National Authority team had always uncovered artefacts and statues in the Angkor area, but he could not provide the total number of such findings.
Early rice growers unwittingly gave barnyard grass a big hand, helping to give root to a rice imitator that is now considered one of the world's worst agricultural weeds.
New research provides genomic evidence that barnyard grass benefited from human cultivation practices, including continuous hand weeding, as it spread out of the Yangtze River region about 1,000 years ago [Credit: Shutterstock]
New research from Zhejiang University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Washington University in St. Louis provides genomic evidence that barnyard grass (Echinochloa crus-galli) benefited from human cultivation practices, including continuous hand weeding, as it spread from the Yangtze River region about 1,000 years ago.
Barnyard grass is a globally common invasive weed of cultivated row crops and cereals. The new study was published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
"In Asia, rice farmers have traditionally planted and weeded their paddies by hand. Any weeds that stick out are easily detected and removed," said Kenneth Olsen, professor of biology in Arts & Sciences. "Over hundreds of generations, this has selected for some strains of barnyard grass that specialize on rice fields and very closely mimic rice plants. This allows them to escape detection."
Olsen collaborated on data analyses and interpretation for the new study. He is working with the study's corresponding author, Longjiang Fan of Zhejiang University, on other research related to rice evolutionary genomics and agricultural weed evolution.
This study sequenced the genomes of rice-mimic and non-mimic forms of the weed as a step towards understanding how this process has occurred.
This form of mimicry, called Vavilovian mimicry, is an adaptation of weeds to mimic domesticated plants. In the case of barnyard grass, the rice mimics grow upright like a rice plant instead of sprawling along the ground like most barnyard grass. They also have green stems like rice plants instead of the red stems more commonly found in the weed.
The common form of barnyard grass (top) has red stems, while the mimic has green stems - more like rice [Credit: Jordan R. Brock/Washington University]
"With the advent of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, humans all over the planet began creating a wonderful habitat for naturally weedy plant species to exploit," Olsen said. "The most successful and aggressive agricultural weeds were those that evolved traits allowing them to escape detection and proliferate in this fertile new environment."
The researchers estimate that the mimic version of E. crus-galli emerged at about the same time that Chinese historical records indicate that the regional economic center was shifting from the Yellow River basin to the Yangtze River basin. During this period of the Song Dynasty, human populations were growing rapidly, demand for rice as the staple grain was paramount. This is also the time when a quick-maturing, drought-resistant variety of rice called Champa rice was introduced to the Yangtze basin from Southeast Asia -- to allow two harvests in a year. Weed management in paddies might have been intensified in the context of these conditions.
Traditional farming preserves diversity of Thai purple rice
However, while common barnyard grass is a major agricultural weed in the U.S., the rice mimic form has never become widespread in the main rice growing region -- the southern Mississippi valley.
Olsen speculates that this is because U.S. rice farmers rely on mechanized farming instead of hand labor.
"Without farmers out in the fields planting and weeding by hand, there's not such strong selection for weeds to visually blend in with the rice crop," he said.
Human remains discovered on Alor island in Indonesia offer new insight into human migration through Southeast Asia thousands of years ago, say researchers from The Australian National University (ANU).
Credit: Samper Carro et al. 2019
Lead researcher Dr. Sofía Samper Carro says the two skulls, dated between 12,000 and 17,000 years old, are the oldest human remains ever found in Wallacea—the islands between Java, Papua New Guinea and Australia.
"Although we were aware that modern humans were in Timor and Sulawesi over 40,000 years ago, these remains are the first fossil evidence of modern human presence in Wallacea," Dr. Samper Carro said. "The area around Alor may have been a sort of 'highway', with people moving through these islands, and finally getting to Australia."
That wasn't the only exciting find.
"What is really interesting is the small size of their heads," Dr. Samper Carro said. "The size seems to be similar to other remains found later in this region, dated to between 7,000—10,000 years old. This is potentially the result of a reduction in size after the first modern humans settled in these islands. This is different to what you find in Australia and other parts of mainland Southeast Asia during the same period, where, in general, humans have larger skulls."
Dr. Samper Carro says one possible explanation for this is the so-called "island effect"—the idea that when humans and other large mammals get to an island where there are not enough food resources and predators, they tend to get smaller, while small mammals will get bigger.
"It's been suggested this is what may've happened to Homo floresiensis (hobbit) and, potentially, it may have also affected the recently discovered Homo luzonensis," Dr. Samper Carro said.
A huge number of fish bones have also been found in the Tron Bon Lei site in Alor, which could offer some important clues.
"The question is, was that enough food for them?" Dr. Samper Carro said. "The archaeological site show gaps which may indicate that, at some point, humans moved from the island, or they weren't using this particular site and they went somewhere else. This could be because of environmental changes, or because they didn't have enough food to survive. More excavations and research in Alor will help us to test these theories."
Dr. Samper Carro says these findings could build on long-held ideas about human migration.
"It's a really exciting time. Human evolution studies have been focused in Africa and Europe for a long time, but now more and more we seem to be getting new findings from Asia that are challenging our previous conceptions. There's been evidence found that Homo sapiens were around in North Africa and the Mediterranean earlier than we thought, coinciding with the presence of different hominins in other parts of the world. Human evolution is getting more exciting and complex."
One of the skulls discovered on Alor was found with fish hooks and ornaments. Dr. Samper Carro says burial traditions are also a good example of the mobility of humans and ideas. "New people come with new traditions, just like we see now," she said. "If you move somewhere, you bring your culture and traditions with you, and the next generation will continue some of those traditions. We can see that reflected in the way these people buried their loved ones."
New research from the University of Tubingen indicates that the Thai-Malay Peninsula—where parts of Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand are located—was at least partly an open savannah during the Ice Age, when the peninsula was part of a much larger land now known as the Sunda Shelf. It is likely to have provided a corridor for large mammals from mainland Asia to reach today's islands of Sumatra, Borneo and Java for the first time, between 120,000 and 70,000 years ago. That is the conclusion reached by Dr. Kantapon Suraprasit, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Tubingen and a lecturer at Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), and Professor Herve Bocherens of the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tubingen, working with other Thai researchers.
Paleoenvironments in Peninsular Thailand where extinct species of the spotted hyena lived during the past 100,000 years [Credit: Kantapon Suraprasit, University of Tubingen]
The team carried out isotope analyses on the teeth of Ice Age mammals found on excavations in the region. Scientists have long hotly debated how animals and early humans migrated between the mainland and the islands of Southeast Asia. These latest findings strengthen the hypothesis that a savannah corridor existed during the Ice Age, giving humans and animals relatively easy passage to the south and east from mainland Asia. The study has been published in Quaternary Science Reviews.
The Yai Ruak Cave, located in Thailand's Krabi Province, was excavated in 2017 by a team of Thai paleontologists from Chulalongkorn University and the Department of Mineral Resources (Bangkok), with the help of local people. In the cave sediments, the excavators found some near-complete lower jaw bones, individual teeth and bones. The fossils were of the Malay porcupine, the Javan rhinoceros, the Sambar deer and extinct relatives of the spotted hyena.
A mandible of the Javan rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus) in situ during excavations at Yai Ruak Cave, Thailand [Credit: Kantapon Suraprasit, University of Tubingen]
"This is the southernmost evidence found in Southeast Asia of this kind of hyena," says Herve Bocherens. This supports the hypothesis that in the Pleistocene, mammals were able to spread further south. Because sea levels were much lower during the Ice Age, today's islands of Sumatra, Borneo and Java on the Sunda Shelf were connected by land bridges. Although human fossils were not found in the cave, anatomically modern humans may have been present in the area at that time, the researchers say.
Diverse ecosystems
Kantapon Suraprasit carried out carbon and oxygen isotope analyses on the tooth enamel of all the animal species found in the Yai Ruak cave, at the University of Tubingen's biogeology laboratory. Isotopes are atoms of the same chemical element with different weights. From their frequency distribution—or isotope signature—scientists can draw conclusions about the type of food an animal ate and the environmental conditions during its lifetime.
A row of teeth of the Sambar deer (Rusa unicolor) in situ during excavations at Yai Ruak Cave, Thailand [Credit: Kantapon Suraprasit, University of Tubingen]
"The region where the fossils were found is now covered by rainforests. We were therefore surprised that the isotope signatures from the teeth of the spotted hyenas and Sambar deer indicate an open grassland," says Suraprasit.
But the teeth of the Javan rhinoceros and the porcupines produced isotopic signatures that match forests, Suraprasit says. He concludes that there were several different ecosystems in the area—including an open landscape.
A fossiliferous layer in the roof of the Yai Ruak Cave, Thailand [Credit: Kantapon Suraprasit, University of Tubingen]
"These results confirm that a savannah corridor existed at that time along the tropical monsoon regions, stretching to the south of what is now Thailand, as far as the latitude of the previously exposed Sunda Shelf," says Herve Bocherens.
Barrier rainforests
Of all the animals migrating south while sea levels were lower, the grassland-loving hyena may have been one of the few to be put off by a rainforest belt which curved from northern Sundaland across today's Borneo and Sumatra, crossing the savannah corridor. To date, no fossils of spotted hyenas have been found south of the Yai Ruak cave.
Map of Southeast Asia showing areas of the proposed savannah corridor (yellow). Dash lines indicate a boundary of exposed land during which sea levels were 40-50 m lower than today. Distribution areas of vegetation types and environments shown here can be further applied for the lowered sea level of up to 80m below the present-day stands [Credit: Kantapon Suraprasit, University of Tubingen]
"There were likely dense rainforests that formed a barrier. At that time, the hyenas could not go further south to the lands which are now islands, but other Yai Ruak mammal species and possibly humans could," Bocherens explains.
Pollen analyses indicate closed forest vegetation from Sumatra to Borneo back then, as well as on parts of the Malay Peninsula. The research team hopes that the ongoing excavations at Yai Ruak cave will provide more information in the future about these diverse ecosystems and their influence on the faunas of the Southeast Asian mainland and the islands.
More than 2,300 endangered tigers have been killed and illegally trafficked since the turn of the century, according to a report published Tuesday, urging more action to protect the giant cats.
With an average of more than 120 illegally trafficked tigers seized each year since the year 2000, conservation group Traffic warns there was little sign of respite for the species [Credit: AFP/John Thys]
With an average of more than 120 illegally trafficked tigers seized each year -- which amounts to over two each week -- since year 2000, conservation group Traffic warned there was little sign of respite for the species.
Report author Kanitha Krishnasamy, who heads Traffic's Southeast Asia operations, said the numbers were deeply concerning. "It looks like we are losing this fight," she told AFP.
In 1900, more than 100,000 tigers were estimated to roam the planet. But that fell to a record low of 3,200 globally in 2010.
Since then, population numbers have inched upwards, but there are still estimated to be fewer than 3,900 tigers left in the wild.
Graphic on tigers seized from illegal trafficking 2000 - 2018 [Credit: AFP/John Saeki]
"This pernicious trafficking,evidenced by the continuously high number of whole skins, whole animals -both dead and alive - and bones is testament to the ongoing demand for Tiger parts," Krishnasamy said.
"The time for talking is over: words must be turned into action to prevent further Tiger loss," she said in a statement.
Traffic, which campaigns to protect endangered animals and help governments catch those who trade in their parts, published a new analysis looking at 19-years of tiger seizure data from across the globe. It found that an estimated total equivalent to 2,359 individual tigers were seized from 2000 to 2018 across 32 countries and territories.
Skins are the single most frequently seized tiger part, with on average 58 whole tiger skins seized each year, the report found, also noting a clear increase in seizures of whole animals, both dead and alive.
Conservation group Traffic called for action to prevent further tiger losses with fewer than 3,900 of the big cats etimated to be left in the wild [Credit: AFP/Nam Giang]
The study also highlighted the growing role breeding centres play in fuelling the illegal tiger trade, especially in Southeast Asia.
The tiger farm industry often argues the trade in captive animals helps to relieve the pressure on wild felines, but wildlife groups argue it reduces the stigma around buying the animals or their body parts and could create new markets for them.
More than half of tiger seizures in Thailand and a third of those in Vietnam over the past two decades were identified as coming from captive breeding facilities, Traffic said.
"Seizures of tigers from captive facilities continue and serve as a stark reminder that such facilities seriously undermine conservation efforts to safeguard this species and provide opportunities for laundering and other illegal activities," said senior Traffic crime analyst Ramacandra Wong in the statement.
Skins are the single most frequently seized tiger part, with on average 58 whole tiger skins are seized each year, a Traffic report shows [Credit: AFP/Chaideer Mahyuddin]
Tuesday's report was released as parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meet in Geneva to evaluate and fine-tune the treaty that manages trade in more than 35,000 species of plants and animals.
Tiger farms are on the agenda, with the report authors calling for CITES to monitor facilities to ensure they are not helping feed the illegal trade chain.
Let's be clear—tigers are perilously close to extinction. There are fewer than 4,000 wild tigers in the world. The last sighting of a Javan tiger was in 1976, the Bali tiger disappeared even earlier; two subspecies, gone forever. Tigers have been wiped out in Cambodia, are 'functionally extinct' in Vietnam and Lao PDR, and are dangerously close to extinction in China. They have been decimated in Indonesia, with only the Sumatran population of fewer than 400 remaining. Sadly, Myanmar and Malaysia have this year reported significant population declines.
Credit: Fauna & Flora International
These catastrophic statistics are the result of habitat destruction, diminishing prey species, and poaching and trafficking of tiger parts and products. The latter feeds demand from countries such as China and Vietnam where rising disposable incomes fuel a thriving market for luxury goods, including for exotic animals such as tigers.
In contrast to wild tigers, the number of captive-bred tigers is reportedly growing. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) estimates that there are 7,000+ tigers in captive-breeding facilities across China, Lao PDR, South Africa, Thailand and Vietnam. The vast majority of these facilities do not contribute to the conservation of tigers in the wild. What they do contribute to is persistent trade in tiger parts and products.
International response
In 1987 the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) – an international treaty to regulate wildlife trade—agreed to ban commercial international trade in tigers and their parts and products. In 2007, with strong leadership from key tiger range states, the Parties further agreed that tigers should not be bred for commercial trade and that countries should 'restrict the captive population to a level supportive only to conserving wild tigers."
And yet, monitoring by EIA shows that commercial captive-breeding of tigers has escalated, and that their parts are frequently trafficked alongside those from wild tigers.
Farmed and wild tigers are not made equal
Some argue (welfare concerns aside) that captive-bred tigers can form the basis of sustainable trade in tiger parts and products, sating market demand and, in turn, preventing wild tigers from being poached.
However, although likely to be commercially viable, farming tigers is unlikely to help protect the wild population. In fact, based on information available, it might well have the opposite impact.
Consumer research reveals an entrenched preference for wild-sourced tiger parts and products. Captive-bred animals are not perceived to have the same symbolic value, or medicinal potency, as wild ones. Traditional Asian remedies derived from wild animals that must fight for survival and eat a natural diet are considered more effective in restoring vital energy and maintaining good health. Displaying and gifting products from rare wild animals demonstrates wealth and status in a way that a farmed substitute cannot. Since captive-bred tiger products are not considered equal in quality or status, they are unlikely to supplant demand for wild tigers.
Nevertheless, a significant market also exists—including among those who cannot access the wild version—for more readily available products from captive-raised tigers. As the introduction of bear bile "farms" demonstrated, captive breeding of species where a market already exists may later amplify overall demand for wild-sourced products, due to a preference for these, and because the ready availability of legal, farmed alternatives removes any stigma previously attached to consumption of illegal products and reinforces misconceptions about their effectiveness and necessity.
Similarly, permitting legal domestic trade in captive-bred tigers serves to perpetuate the allure of tiger parts and products, and undermines efforts to reduce consumer demand. Ultimately, any increase in overall demand intensifies pressure on those remaining wild tiger populations clinging precariously to existence.
Moreover, breeding and keeping of tigers is a costly business. Poaching a tiger, on the other hand, requires only a wire snare. In the absence of sufficiently resourced and effective law enforcement across range, transit and consumer states, the laundering of wild-caught products into a legal commercial trade in captive-bred tigers is unfortunately inevitable.
What can be done?
If wild tiger populations are to endure, we must apply comprehensive poaching prevention strategies—including resolving human-tiger conflict—and work with a wide range of law enforcement and criminal justice sector agencies to strengthen law enforcement and dismantle trafficking networks.
Fauna & Flora International is committed to protecting Sumatran tigers and is playing a central role in global efforts to address illegal wildlife trade. This includes working closely with our government partners in the run-up to the CITES conference in Geneva later this month, with a view to ending international and domestic trade in all tiger parts, both wild and captive-bred. Only in this way can we turn the tide for this iconic but gravely endangered big cat.
A state-run research center has found traces of 41 Baekje-era tumuli near the tomb of King Muryeong in Gongju, some of which could turn out to be newfound royal tombs, the Cultural Heritage Administration said Wednesday.
This photo shows the locations of Baekje-era tumuli. The yellow ellipsis indicates the tomb of King Muryeong, and the green ellipses indicate tumuli found during the Japanese colonial period. Blue ellipses indicate tombs that have been repaired and are under maintenance, and red ellipses indicate newly discovered tumuli [Credit: Cultural Heritage Administration]
The discovery was made during research conducted as part of a long-term study on the tumuli at Songsan-ri -- part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Baekje Historic Areas -- according to the CHA affiliate the Buyeo National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage. The tumuli are thought to belong to members of the royal family and nobility of the Baekje Kingdom (18 BC-AD 660).
Unlike the Silla and Gaya kingdoms, which coexisted on the Korean Peninsula along with Baekje, Baekje tumuli were hard to identify until recently as the people of Baekje did not create large mounds and the tombs were mostly underground.
Geophysical surveys identified the underground structures around the tomb of King Muraung [Credit: Cultural Properties Administration]
Researchers found traces of tumuli Nos. 7, 8, 9 and 29, for which records had been lost after the tumuli were reportedly discovered between 1927 and 1933 when the Korean Peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule. Of the 29 tumuli discovered during those years, records remain for only eight.
While previous research established that royal tombs existed in this area, King Muryeong’s tomb is the only one whose occupant researchers have been able identify.
King Mureung's tomb and the "Chungbang" brick. Inside the square, the Chinese word "Zhongbang" is clear [Credit: National Burial Cultural Property Research Institute, National Gongju Museum]
The Buyeo institute also found “jungbang” bricks -- similar to eight of the bricks found in King Muryeong’s tomb, which were used to form the shape of a window.
Because the bricks were found 80 meters away from King Muryeong’s tomb and 70 meters away from tumulus No. 17, a brick-based tomb that was already known to archaeologists, researchers say it is possible that another brick-based tomb may be in the area.
Interior of King Mureung's tomb [Credit: Cultural Heritage Administration]
“Most of the research on the tumuli in Songsan-ri had been conducted by the Japanese, and not much follow-up study has taken place since then. This research is very meaningful because it has been done by us (Koreans) with a systematic plan,” the CHA said.
In the mountains and plains of upper Laos sit thousands of stone jars, the only relics of an ancient civilisation possibly 2500 years old.
We actually know very little about the people who created the sites, or even when they placed the jars [Credit: Plain of Jars Research Project]
The jars, weighing up to 20 tonnes, appear to be part of a complex burial ritual, and were transported from quarries up to 10 kilometres away.
The Laos Plain of Jars joined the UNESCO World Heritage Register in July, with the committee describing the area as "the most prominent evidence of the Iron Age civilisation that made and used them until it disappeared".
It's the third World Heritage property in Laos, after Vat Phou and Luang Prabang.
This is a global acknowledgement of the cultural and historic significance of this remarkable collection of sites, but we actually know very little about the people who created them, or even when they were placed.
No other evidence of this society exists beyond these mortuary sites; adding to the intrigue are a group of remarkably similar jar sites some 1200 kilometres away in Northeast India.
Using drones, ground penetrating radar, advanced chemical analysis and some good old-fashioned detective work, researchers are diligently putting together the missing pieces of this puzzle.
The team are using chemical analysis to narrow down potential quarry sites [Credit: Shutterstock]
Dr. Louise Shewan, is an archaeological scientist and Centenary Fellow from the University of Melbourne and co-leads an Australian Research Council funded research team—along with Associate Professor Dougald O'Reilly from ANU, and Dr. Thonglith Luangkoth from the Laos Department of Heritage—that has been studying the Lao megalithic jar sites since 2016.
The Megaliths of Upper Laos
The team follows in the footsteps of pioneering archaeologist Dr. Madeleine Colani, a Frenchwomen who excavated the sites in the 1930s while employed by the École Française d'Extrême-Orient. Professor Shewan expresses "extreme admiration" for Dr. Colani and her work.
"She was diminutive in stature but a powerhouse who started this work at the age of 65," she says. "With assistance from her younger sister, Eleonore, she researched, mapped and recorded many jar sites, collating individual attributes of the jars, and produced a two-volume piece of work."
Dr. Shewan and Dr. O'Reilly have recently published a translation of Ms Colani's work, Megaliths of Upper Laos, with up-to-date additions based on their more recent discoveries.
Each year the team spends several weeks identifying, mapping and excavating jar sites, and then many months analysing samples and data collected on these trips.
Dr Shewan excavating Burial 5 at Site 1 alongside student Joanna Koczur [Credit: Plain of Jars Research Project]
Much of this work is done in the research labs in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne.
On their most recent trip, in February this year, their co-supervised Ph.D. student, Nick Skopal and Lao colleagues found 15 new sites containing more than 100 jars. The sites are about a six-hour bus trip from the Laos capital, Vientiane.
"The sites are mesmerising," Dr. Shewan says. "In 2017, we conducted research at a remote mountainous site that was especially mystical, heavily vegetated and cloaked in mist."
Only a small number of the more than 100 known jar sites have been studied in depth. Some are inaccessible due to unexploded ordnance (UXO) left over from the Vietnam war era.
A clearing program is steadily opening up more sites, allowing the archaeologists to start building a picture of the people and society that created them.
What Teeth Can Tell Us
Human remains, including teeth, have been found buried around the jars, and so it is believed that these sites are associated with funerary practices.
Researchers are using drones, ground penetrating radar and advanced chemical analysis to try and solve the puzzle of the jars [Credit: Plain of Jars Research Project]
Dr. Shewan says by analysing tooth enamel for 'signatures' or chemical residues preserved in the teeth like strontium or oxygen ratios, we can find out how the people used the landscape and where they obtained their food during childhood.
"Strontium isotope ratios vary in bedrock according to age and composition," she says. "This signature is carried through to the soil via weathering, inherited by plants, and absorbed into teeth and bones of animals and humans through food and water."
"Oxygen isotopes vary with climate, environment and geography. The oxygen isotope composition of skeletal tissue is related to that of ingested drinking water. Depending on the type of tooth analysed, we can use these signatures to get a snapshot of life from between birth to 16 years of age."
The team are also using a similar kind of analysis to create chemical fingerprints for the stone jars, which can then be matched to potential quarry sites.
"Geochronology work has so far confirmed that the jars, some weighing more than 20 tonnes, were transported from quarry sites eight to 10 kilometres away," says Dr. Shewan.
But we still don't know how the jars were moved. "The actual mechanism of transport is another area of the research."
Using an Eye in the Sky
As the work continues, the team are using drones to take photographs and video footage to create 3-D models and build a much richer map of jar sites than they can from the ground.
"We will use drone images to explore possible spatial patterning in jar placement, search for habitation areas as we don't know where the population lived, measure distances between jar sites and observed quarry sites," says Dr. Shewan. "And potentially find new sites under the forest canopy using drone-mounted lidar."
Lidar technology uses a pulsed laser to measure distance from the drone and can penetrate canopied and inaccessible sites providing highly accurate details of the ground surface.
Remarkably, similar jars sites have been found over 1200 kilometres away in northeast India.
"The Assam sites are now gaining renewed interest given identified linguistic and genetic connections between Southeast Asia and Northeast India, and we hope to more fully explore these sites and the links between them in collaboration with our colleagues in India in the near future," says Dr. Shewan.
Dr. Shewan, who has previously worked on prehistoric sites near the World Heritage site of Angkor Watt in Cambodia, is excited to see the Plain of Jars recognised in the same way.
"The World Heritage listing of the Lao megalithic jar sites will bring this unique cultural landscape to global awareness, leading to greater conservation of the sites. "It heightens the need to understand more about the culture that created the sites."
Millennium-old Cambodian artefacts displayed in a Japanese collector's home for two decades have been returned to the Southeast Asian country's National Museum.
Some 85 artefacts are displayed before the handover ceremony at the National Museum, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia [Credit: Heng Sinith/AP]
The 85 artefacts are mostly small bronze items and include statues of Buddha and the Hindu god Shiva, plus jars, ceramics and jewelry. Cambodia's Culture Ministry says some items were older than the Angkor era, which began about 800 A.D. Others date from the Angkor era or just after it ended in the late 14th century.
Cambodia has made intense efforts to recover artefacts looted during its civil war in the 1970s.
At an official reception for the artefacts Friday, Prak Sonnara, secretary of state for the Culture and Fine Art Ministry, praised the Japanese collector for voluntarily returning the artefacts. He said her actions set a good sample for other countries and collectors to follow.
The collector, Fumiko Takakuwa, told reporters after the handover ceremony that she and her husband had bought the items in Japan and liked to collect and display them in their home. But she knew they were originally from Cambodia and that is why she returned them.
The 85 artefacts are mostly small bronze items and include statues of Buddha and the Hindu god Shiva, plus jars, ceramics and jewellery [Credit: Heng Sinith/AP]
Cambodia has made intense efforts to recover artefacts looted during its civil war in the 1970s [Credit: Heng Sinith/AP]
"My husband has said before he passed away that those artefacts have to be returned back to Cambodia, and today I am happy that I did," Takakuwa said.
Prak Sonnara said the 85 items were believed to have been stolen from Cambodia's temples during the war, when intense looting occurred and valuables were smuggled through neighboring Thailand.
A 1993 Cambodian law prohibited the removal of cultural artefacts without government permission. The law strongly compels owners of items taken abroad after that date to return them. But there is also general agreement in the art world that pieces were acquired illegitimately if they were exported without clear and valid documentation after 1970 — the year of a United Nations cultural agreement targeting trafficking in antiquities.
In 2014, three 1,000-year-old statues depicting Hindu mythology were welcomed home to Cambodia after being looted from a temple and put in Western art collections.
Also in 2013, two 10th century Cambodian stone statues displayed for nearly two decades at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art were returned to their homeland in a high-profile case of allegedly looted artefacts.
