Terra Australis 22

by Sue O'Connor, Matthew Spriggs (Editor)

Overview

This volume describes the results of the first archaeological survey and excavations carried out in the fascinating and remote Aru Islands, Eastern Indonesia between 1995 and 1997. The naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, who stopped here in search of the Birds of Paradise on his voyage through the Indo-Malay Archipelago in the 1850s, was the first to draw attention to the group. The results reveal a complex and fascinating history covering the last 30,000 years from its early settlement by hunter-gatherers, the late Holocene arrival of ceramic producing agriculturalists, later associations with the Bird of Paradise trade and the colonial expansion of the Dutch trading empires. The excavations and finds from two large Pleistocene caves, Liang Lemdubu and Nabulei Lisa, are reported in detail documenting the changing environmental and cultural history of the islands from when they were connected to Greater Australia and used by hunter/gatherers to their formation as islands and use by agriculturalists. The results of the excavation of the late Neolithic - Metal Age midden at Wangil are discussed, as is the mysterious pre-Colonial fort at Ujir and the 350-year old ruins of forts and a church associated with the Dutch garrisons.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781740761130
Publisher:	Pandanus Books
Publication date:	03/30/2005
Series:	Terra Australis Ser. , #22
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 11.60(h) x 1.00(d)

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgements	v
1	The Aru Islands In Perspective: A General Introduction	1
2	Environmental Change in the Aru Islands	25
3	Mammals and Other Vertebrates from Late Quaternary Archaeological Sites on Pulau Kobroor, Aru Islands, Eastern Indonesia	41
4	Three Seasons of Archaeological Survey in the Aru Islands, 1995-97	63
5	The Ujir Site: An Early Historic Maritime Settlement in Northwestern Aru	85
6	Wangil Midden: a Late Prehistoric Site, With Remarks on Ethnographic Pottery Making	95
7	Liang Nabulei Lisa: A Late Pleistocene and Holocene Sequence from the Aru Islands	125
8	Human Remains from Liang Nabulei Lisa, Aru Islands	163
9	Liang Lemdubu: A Pleistocene Cave Site in the Aru Islands	171
10	Artefacts on Aru: Evaluating the Technological Sequences	205
11	Bone Artefacts from Liang Lemdubu and Liang Nabulei Lisa, Aru Islands	235
12	The Last Glacial Maximum Human Burial from Liang Lemdubu in Northern Sahulland	255
13	Isoleucine Epimerization in Casuarius Eggshells from Archaeological Sites in the Aru Islands, Liang Lemdubu and Liang Nabulei Lisa	295
14	On the Cultural History of the Aru Islands: Some Conclusions	307