Cover Page

FIRST ISLANDERS

Prehistory and Human Migration in Island Southeast Asia

 

Peter Bellwood

 

With invited contributions by (in order of appearance)
Colin Groves, Debbie Argue, Hirofumi Matsumura,
Marc Oxenham, Truman Simanjuntak, Mariko Yamagata,
Murray Cox, Philip J. Piper, Robert Blust,
Daud Aris Tanudirjo, Hsiao-chun Hung and Mike T. Carson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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For my wife Claudia Morris, who has supported me in writing this book with her love and her considerable editorial skills.

List of Figures and Plates

Figures

1.1 The basic geography and definition of Island Southeast Asiain its regional setting.

2.1 Structural map of Southeast Asia and Australasia.

2.2 Major biogeographical divisions and boundary lines within Island Southeast Asia.

2.3 Climatic regimes and dry‐season distributions in Island Southeast Asia.

2.4 Oxygen isotope records reflecting global temperatures for the last 5.3 million years.

2.5 Sea level fluctuations of the past 300,000 years.

3.1 A current family tree for hominins, from Australopithecine ancestors to Homo sapiens.

3.2 Early and Middle Pleistocene sites and localities in Java,South Sulawesi, and Flores.

3.3 The head and tusks of a Stegodon florensis.

3.4 The Sangiran stratigraphic and faunal sequence.

3.5 Sangiran 17 and Liang Bua 1, with a modern human craniumfor comparison.

3.6 The faunal and archaeological sequence on Flores.

3.7 Stone artifacts from Sangiran, Java.

3.8 Flakes and small cores of chert and similar raw materials from Dayu, Sangiran.

3.9 A bifacial hand‐axe and bifacial chopping tool from Semedo.

3.10 Stone artifacts from Mata Menge.

4.1 Modern populations with large proportions of Australo‐Papuan ancestry.

4.2 Modern populations with large proportions of Asian Neolithic ancestry.

4.3 Flexed and squatting late Paleolithic and Para‐Neolithic burials from Malaysia, Indonesia, northern Vietnam, and Guangxi.

4.4 The distribution of ethnographic hunter‐gatherers in IslandSoutheast Asia.

4.5 A Neighbor Net Splits tree generated from the matrix of Q‐mode correlation coefficients.

4.6 Approximate migration tracks of mtDNA and Y‐chromosome haplogroups in Island Southeast Asia.

5.1 Late Pleistocene and early Holocene sites in Southeast Asia.

5.2 Bifacially flaked Hoabinhian pebble tools from Gua Cha.

5.3 Para‐Neolithic pottery and polished stone axes from Con Co Ngua.

5.4 The Tingkayu chert biface industry.

5.5 Hollowed mortars of volcanic stone from Agop Sarapad.

5.6 Edge‐ground stone axe from Sa’gung Cave and Tridacna shell axe from Duyong Cave.

5.7 Stone blade‐like tools of chert from Leang Tuwo Mane’e and Uai Bobo Cave 2.

5.8 Backed blade‐like flakes and microliths from South Sulawesi and New South Wales.

5.9 Semicircular setting of coral blocks in Golo Cave, inner diameter 80 cm, dated c. 12–10 kya.

5.10 Shell adzes from Golo Cave and Pamwak.

5.11   Shell fish‐hooks and a bone projectile point base from late Pleistocene Timor and Alor.

6.1 The overall distribution of the Austronesian languages.

6.2 Peoples, languages, major Austronesian subgroups, and other language families in Southeast Asia.

6.3 Maximum clade credibility tree of 400 Austronesian languages.

6.4 The likely migration directions of early speakers of Malayo‐Polynesian languages.

7.1 The Neolithic of southern China and Taiwan.

7.2 Wild and domesticated species of rice, Oryza sp.

7.3 Archaeological sites in southern Taiwan, the Batanes Islands, and northern Luzon.

7.4 The Taiwan coastline during the Dabenkeng phasecompared with today.

7.5 The Cagayan Valley coastline at the start of the Neolithic compared with today.

7.6 The pottery sequences c. 3500 to 1 BCE in Taiwan, Batanes, and northern Luzon.

7.7 Neolithic to Metal Age sites in the Philippines and Indonesia.

7.8 Neolithic artifacts from the Batanes Islands and southern Taiwan.

7.9 The four proposed phases for Batanes prehistory.

8.1 Neolithic flaked stone tools from Java and South Sulawesi.

8.2 Distributions of red‐slipped plain ware, rice, and movement of Talasea obsidian from New Britain to Borneo.

8.3 Red‐slipped plain ware rim forms through time and space in Island Southeast Asia.

8.4 Artifacts from Uattamdi and Bukit Tengkorak.

8.5 Carved stone lid fragment at Bulili, Bada Valley, and the Nenumbo Lapita sherd.

8.6 Dry rice field (ladang) cut in rainforest, upper Kapuas basin.

8.7 Modern wet rice fields in Bali and Flores.

9.1 Early Metal Age sites in Southeast Asia.

9.2 The decorated tympanum of the Ngoc Lu 1 bronze drum.

9.3 The Heger 1 style Salayar drum.

9.4 Detail of the Pejeng drum.

9.5 Stone carvings on the Pasemah Plateau.

9.6 The prismatic basalt terraced complex at Gunung Padang.

9.7 Sarcophagus elements from Taman Bali.

9.8 Paddle‐impressed pottery of the Early Metal Age and later.

9.9 A lidded burial jar at Savidug Dune Site.

9.10 Metal Age pottery from Hoa Diem, Kalanay, and Maitum.

Plates

1 Geological formations exposed by erosion within the Sangiran Dome.

2 Red ochre rock art of Pleistocene or early Holocene age from Sulawesi and Kalimantan.

3 Aspects of early Neolithic life in the lower Yangzi region of southern China, c. 6000 to 4500 BCE.

4 Early Neolithic life at Nanguanli and Nanguanlidong.

5 The late Neolithic settlement at Beinan.

6 Punctate‐ and circle‐stamped red‐slipped pottery from Magapit.

7 Punctate‐ and circle‐stamped red‐slipped pottery from Nagsabaran, Achugao, and Lapita.

8 Pottery from Niah, Lubang Angin, and Gua Sireh.

9 Artifacts from Kamassi and Minanga Sipakko.

10 The central Sulawesi complex of stone statues and burial jars.

11 Artifacts from the jar burial site of Leang Buidane.

12 Artifacts distributed across the South China Sea after 500 bce.

13 Early Metal Age green nephrite jade ornaments and manufacturing debitage.

14 Indian and locally made pottery and a casting mold from Sembiran.

15 Neolithic flaked stone tools from Java and South Sulawesi (color reprint of Figure 8.1).

16 The prismatic basalt terraced complex at Gunung Padang (color reprint of Figure 9.6).

17 Modern wet rice fields in Bali and Flores (color reprint of Figure 8.7).

Invited Contributors

Debbie Argue
School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

Robert Blust
Department of Linguistics, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, Honolulu, USA

Mike T. Carson
Micronesian Area Research Center, University of Guam, Mangilao, Guam, USA

Murray Cox
Institute of Fundamental Sciences, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Colin Groves
School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

Hsiao‐chun Hung
Archaeology and Natural History, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

Hirofumi Matsumura
School of Heath Science, Sapporo Medical University, Sapporo, Japan

Marc Oxenham
School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

Philip J. Piper
School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

Truman Simanjuntak
National Research Centre of Archaeology, Pejaten Barat, Jakarta, Indonesia

Daud Aris Tanudirjo
Fakultas Ilmu Budaya, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Bulaksumur, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Mariko Yamagata
Center for Cultural Resource Studies, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank all the invited authors, all of whom read and commented on the main chapter in which their own contribution occurs. Many colleagues also provided or gave permission to use illustrations, as credited in the captions. Wiley‐Blackwell also sent the manuscript to four anonymous readers, who submitted various suggestions. My wife Claudia Morris read and commented on all of the text, and I wish to thank the Australian National University for providing the campus resources that made the writing of this book much easier than it might otherwise have been for a retired professor.

I wish also to thank the many Wiley editorial staff members who helped bring this book to fruition, especially former Wiley editor Mark Graney who sent me the contract in September 2015, copy editor Joanna Pyke who flushed out all the little gremlins in the text, current Wiley editor Tanya McMullin in the Oxford office, and production editor Vimali Joseph and project editor Manish Luthra in the Chennai office.

Finally, I must also emphasize the increasing contributions made to understanding the human past in Island Southeast Asia by indigenous archaeological researchers in Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia. My bookshelves literally sag under the weight of their productions in the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Indonesian languages (and of course in English from the Philippines). Many archaeologists from these countries have studied their archaeology to MA and PhD level with me at the Australian National University in Canberra. I hope that this book can contribute something towards an understanding of the past of Island Southeast Asia by the indigenous populations of the region, scholars, and general public alike. Pride in one’s ancestors, if handled with good sense, can hopefully fuel a desire to understand other people’s ancestors and to bring some peace to a troubled world.