Indonesian History: Pre-history


Figure 1.--This diorama depicts the appearance and life style of the stone equipped hunter, 'Homo erectus'. The family is depicted living in Sangiran (an archaeological excavation site on the island of Java) about 900,000 years ago. In 1934 the anthropologist Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald started to examine the area around Sangiran (1934). He worked there for several years. He found fosils of a species he named 'Pithecanthropus erectus' better known as Java Man. They were some of the earliest remins of early man ever found. The species has now been reclassified as 'Homo erectus'. This means that Homonid migrations out of Africa began before the devlopment of modern man. Most anthropologists, however, believe that modern humans are related to a later migratory wave out of Africa. Source: National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta,

Humans appeared to have reached what is now Indonesia near the end of the long migration east from Africa (1.5-1.6 million years ago). Evidence for this is cut marks on two bovid bones found in Sangiran. Anthropolgists believe them to have been made by clamshell tools. Sumatra and Java at the time because of low sea levels was still attached to the Southeast Asian mainland. This is to date the oldest evidence for human presence in Indonesia. These early homonids may have developed mariy\time skills earlier than previously believed. Anthropolgists discovered stone tools on Flores Island dating (1 million years ago). This find is the earliest known ecidence that homonoids had developed maritime technology permitting sea crossings. The first fossilised remains of early humans in Indonesia were Java Man (Homo erectus). The fossils were discovered by Dutch anatomist Eugène Dubois at Trinil during 1891> Java Man has been dated (0.7 million years ago). Other Homo erectus fossils were found at Sangiran in the 1930s by another Dutch anthropologist, Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald. He also discovered fossils at Ngandong alongside advanced stone toos. Recent studies have dated the tools (550,000 and 143,000 years old). [Pope] Another Homo erectus skull was discovered at Sambungmacan. Another interesting Indonesia find was on the island of Flores. There anthroplogists found fossils of a new small hominid dated (74,000 and 13,000 years old). They have been named Flores Man (Homo floresiensis). [Brown, et. al.] They have engenered considerable discussion among the scientific community. The adults are believed to have stood only 3 foot tall. The general assessment is that they are a modern subspecies related to Homo erectus. There small stature seems to be the result of island dwarfism. Flores Man is believed to have shared their island with modern humans (Homo sapiens until (about 10000BC). The modern Indonesian archipelago was formed during the thaw after the latest ice age. Java man was followed by fully modern humans (Homo sapiens), the ancestors of the present-day Papuans (about 60,000 years ago). Early humans travelled by sea and spread from mainland Asia eastward to New Guinea and Australia. Atatomically modern humans reached Indonesia (about 45,000 years ago). They eventually reached New Guinea and Australia as well (30-40,000 years ago). Recent work on Timor (in the easter reaches of the Indonesian Arcipelgo) has found that humans there had advanced maritime skills (42,000 years ago). The conclusion was based on the finding that they were eating big deep sea fish such as tuna. Themodern people of Indonesia appea to have arrived in relstively recent times (2000 BC). At this time there was a wave of seafaring Austronesian people from Asia who dispersed throughout maritime Southeast Asia and Oceania. Some may have reached as far west as Madagascar. Austronesian people form the majority of the modern population of Indonesia and many areas of Oceania.

Sources

Brown, P., T. Sutikna, M.J. Morwood, R.P Soejono, E. Wayhu Saptomo E.Jatmiko, and Rokus Awe Due. "A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia," Nature (October 27, 2004) 431 (7012), pp. 1055–61.

Pope, G.G. "Recent advances in far eastern paleoanthropology". Annual Review of Anthropology (1988) Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 43–77.







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Created: 5:29 AM 10/13/2012
Last updated: 5:29 AM 10/13/2012