Staple or delicacy: Sea urchin exploitation over the last 40,000 years at Makpan Cave, Alor Island

Figures & data

Figure 1. Map showing the location of Makpan (inset) and the surrounding archaeological sites in Wallacea (main) where recovery of sea urchin has been reported: (1) Leang Sarru; (2) Kelo 6; (3) Here Sorot Entapa; (4) Asitau Kuru; (5) Lene Hara; (6) Laili.

Figure 2. (A) Approaching Makpan Cave; (B) view from inside the cave toward the coast; (C) view westward along the coastline from Makpan.

Figure 3. Comparison between the three sea urchin quantification methods: weight, NISP, and MNI by spit recovered at Makpan. Occupation intensity represented by proxy from the total adjusted fauna weight (excluding micro-vertebrates). Dashed line indicates occupation phase boundary.

Table 1. Total abundance of sea urchin remains from Makpan by phase.

Phase		Spit	Layer	Start date (cal BP)	MNI	Weight (g)	Portion of total sea urchin by MNI (%)	Portion of total sea urchin by weight (%)	Portion of total fauna (%)
5	The Neolithic–Historic	1 – 8	1 – 4	3663	12	422.83	1.3	3.1	1.33
4	The Early–Middle Holocene	9 – 20	5 – 9	10,430	44	1241.35	4.6	9.2	1.66
3	The Pleistocene–Holocene transition	21 – 36	10 – 16	11,805	115	4372.54	12.1	32.3	3.18
2	The Terminal Pleistocene	37 – 57	17	13,965	465	5806.94	48.8	42.9	11.76
1	Initial occupation/the Late Pleistocene	58 – 68	18	43,076	317	1689.08	33.3	12.5	14.59

Portion of total fauna indicates the percent of sea urchin (by weight) of the total faunal weight for each phase. Start date follows the median modeled dates from Kealy et al. (2020).

Figure 4. Weight (top) and NISP (bottom) of the seven major identified taxa recovered from Makpan. NISP is only based on the spine element. x-axis is not standardized across taxa.

Figure 5. Percent NISP of the seven major identified taxa recovered from Makpan. NISP is only based on the spine element. Color spectrum approximately corresponds to habitat/depth (S2).

Figure 6. Linear regression of Makpan terrestrial (micro- and macro-vertebrate) and marine (shellfish, barnacle, fish, and crab) fauna compared to sea urchin assemblage by weight (g) for each spit. Results of the statistical analyses (Pearson’s r) of the Makpan sea urchin assemblage by spit (n = 68) comparing to the other faunal groups, subdivided into Group A (positive PC score, Purple) and Group B (negative PC score, Blue). The “r” indicates “Pearson’s correlation coefficient.” Bar at bottom shows Groups A and B correlation to Phase 1–5. See Supplementary Information S3 and S7 for further results of this analysis.

Figure 7. Sea urchin (likely T. gratilla) harvested by reef gleaning during low tide in Timor-Leste, predominantly women and children (O’Connor, Pannell, and Brockwell 2013: Figure 3).

Kealy, S., S. O’Connor, D. M. Sari, C. Shipton, M. C. Langley, C. Boulanger, H. A. F. Kaharudin, E. P. B. G. G. Patridina, M. A. Algifary, A. Irfan, et al. 2020. Forty-thousand years of maritime subsistence near a changing shoreline on Alor Island (Indonesia). Quaternary Science Reviews 249:106599. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106599

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O’Connor, S., S. Pannell, and S. Brockwell. 2013. The dynamics of culture and nature in a “protected” Fataluku landscape. In Transcending the culture–nature divide in cultural heritage: Views from the Asia-Pacific region, ed. S. Brockwell, S. O’Connor, and D. Byrne, 203–33. Terra Australis 36. Canberra: ANU Press.

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