Archaeological Research in Minahasa and the Talaud Islands, Northeastern Indonesia

THE archaeological work described in this paper was undertaken by the author with the Indonesian archaeologist 1. M. Sutayasa in the Indonesian province of Sulawesi Utara (northern Sulawesi). The two districts within the province which received most attention were Minahasa (the northern tip of Sulawesi) and the Talaud Islands. This report deals mainly with the results from excavations on four major sites, one in Minahasa and three in Talaud. It is from these four sites that a prehistoric sequence going back 8000 years can be reconstructed with some precision. The province of Sulawesi Utara was chosen for research because of its strategic position: the Sangihe-Talaud Islands and Minahasa are located in a junction-zone between the island chains of the Philippines, northern Indonesia (Borneo, Sulawesi, and Halmahera), and western Micronesia and Melanesia. While the region remained archaeologically blank before our work, with the exception of brief mentions by Beyer (1947: 346-347) and van Heekeren (1972: 170), good sequences extending back into Pleistocene times were available for a number of surrounding areas. These included the Niah Cave in Sarawak (Harrisson 1970), the Tabon Caves on Palawan (Fox 1970), the caves in eastern Timor excavated by Glover (1972), and, with less certainty, the Toalean region of southwestern Sulawesi (van Heekeren 1972; Glover 1975). In Melanesia, a detailed sequence extending back into Pleistocene times was available for the Highlands of Papua New Guinea (Bulmer 1975), and the widespread Lapita ceramics of the period 1500 B.C. to 1 were believed to have ultimate origins somewhere in Island Southeast Asia. While these facts were available, however, they were not allowed to direct the course of fieldwork into a search for

[1]  P. Bellwood.  Indonesia, the Philippines and Oceanic Prehistory , 1980 .

[2]  S. Bulmer.  Settlement and economy in prehistoric Papua New Guinea: a review of the archeological evidence , 1975 .

[3]  R. Ellen,et al.  Pottery Manufacture and Trade in the Central Moluccas, Indonesia: The Modern Situation and the Historical Implications , 1974 .

[4]  L. Keeley.  The Methodology of Microwear Analysis: A Comment on Nance , 1974, American Antiquity.

[5]  G. Odell,et al.  Experimentation in the Formation of Edge Damage: A New Approach to Lithic Analysis , 1974 .

[6]  D. Hooijer,et al.  Relation of Pleistocene Migrations of Pygmy Stegodonts to Island Arc Tectonics in Eastern Indonesia , 1973, Nature.

[7]  E. Saurin.  XI. Le champ de jarres de Hang Gon, près Xuan Loc (Sud Viet-Nam) , 1973 .

[8]  R. Green.  Lapita Pottery and the Origins of Polynesian Culture , 1973 .

[9]  R. Fox,et al.  The Tabon Caves . By Robert B. Fox. Manila: Monograph of the National Museum, No. 1, 1970. xiii, 197 pp. Appendix, References, Tables, Illustrations, n.p.l. , 1972, The Journal of Asian Studies.

[10]  T. Harrisson.  The Prehistory of Borneo , 1972 .

[11]  Peter J White,et al.  What mean these stones?: ethno-taxonomic models and archaeological interpretations in the New Guinea Highlands , 1972 .

[12]  H. Fontaine.  NOUVEAU CHAMP DE JARRES DANS LA PROVINCE DE LONG-KHANH , 1972 .

[13]  Earl Herbert Swanson,et al.  An introduction to flintworking , 1972 .

[14]  K. L. Hutterer,et al.  Archaeology of the Sohoton area, Southwestern Samar, Philippines , 1972 .

[15]  Richard A. Gould,et al.  Flat adzes : a class of flaked stone tools from southwestern Australia. American Museum novitates ; no. 2502 , 1972 .

[16]  D. J. Scheans,et al.  A Newly Discovered Blade Tool Industry from the Central Philippines , 1972 .

[17]  T. Harrisson,et al.  Gold and megalithic activity in prehistoric and recent West Borneo , 1971 .

[18]  B. Peacock.  EARLY CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTH‐EAST ASIA WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE MALAY PENINSULA , 1971 .

[19]  R. Gould,et al.  The Lithic Assemblage of the Western Desert Aborigines of Australia , 1971, American Antiquity.

[20]  Edwin N. Wilmsen,et al.  Lithic Analysis and Cultural Inference: A Paleo-Indian Case , 1971 .

[21]  D. J. Mulvaney,et al.  The Australian-Indonesian Archaeological Expedition to Sulawesi , 1970 .

[22]  J. Kamminga,et al.  Prehistory of Australia , 1970 .

[23]  W. Scott.  Prehispanic source materials for the study of Philippine history , 1968 .

[24]  Lourdes Rausa-Gomez.  Sri Vijaya and Madjapahit , 1967 .

[25]  O. W. Wolters,et al.  Early Indonesian Commerce: A Study of the Origins of Srivijaya , 1967 .

[26]  A. Lamb.  30. Some Glass Beads from the Malay Peninsula , 1965 .

[27]  S. Goldhor.  The Malay Archipelago , 1964, The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine.

[28]  B. H. M. Vlekke.  Nusantara : a history of Indonesia , 1961, Journal of Asian Studies.

[29]  W. G. N. V. D. Sleen.  Ancient Glass Beads with Special Reference to the Beads of East and Central Africa and the Indian Ocean , 1958 .

[30]  H. Heekeren.  The stone age of Indonesia , 1957 .

[31]  H. Bandi.  Die Obsidianindustrie der Umgebung von Bandung in Westjava , 1951 .

[32]  H. O. Beyer.  Supplementary illustrations to the "outline review of Philippine archaeology by islands and provinces" , 1949 .

[33]  R. W. Bemmelen.  The geology of Indonesia , 1949 .

[34]  H. O. Beyer.  Early history of Philippine relations with foreign countries, especially China , 1948 .

[35]  J. Marshall,et al.  The beads from Taxila , 1941 .

[36]  W. Kaudern.  Megalithic finds in Central Celebes , 1938 .

[37]  A. J. Arkell.  Cambay and the Bead Trade , 1936, Antiquity.

[38]  Henri Parmentier.  Notes d'archéologie indochinoise : VII. Dépôts de jarres à Sa-huynh (Quáng-ngāi, Annam) , 2022 .