Prehistoric Indonesia

Prehistoric Indonesia is a prehistoric period in the Indonesian archipelago that spanned from the Pleistocene period to about the 4th century CE when the Kutai people produced the earliest known stone inscriptions in Indonesia. Unlike the clear distinction between prehistoric and historical periods in Europe and the Middle East, the division is muddled in Indonesia. This is mostly because Indonesia's geographical conditions as a vast archipelago caused some parts — especially the interiors of distant islands — to be virtually isolated from the rest of the world. West Java and coastal Eastern Borneo, for example, began their historical periods in the early 4th century, but megalithic culture still flourished and script was unknown in the rest of Indonesia, including in Nias, Batak, and Toraja. The Papuans on the Indonesian part of New Guinea island lived virtually in the stone age until their first contacts with modern world in early 20th century. Even today living megalithic traditions still can be found on the island of Sumba and Nias.

Geology

Indonesian archipelago during last ice age was once the part of two large landmass, western parts was connected to Asia, while eastern parts to Australia

Geologically the area of modern Indonesia appeared from under the Southeast Asian seas as the result of the Indian and Australian plates collides and slips under Sunda Plate, sometimes in the early Cenozoic era around 63 millions years ago. This tectonic collission creating Sunda volcanic Arc that has produced chains of islands of Sumatra, Java and the Lesser Sunda Islands. The active volcanic arc creating supervolcano that today become Lake Toba in Sumatra. The massive eruption of Toba supervolcano that occurred some time between 69,000 and 77,000 years ago instigated the Toba catastrophe theory, a global volcanic winter that caused a bottleneck in human evolution. Another notable volcanoes in Sunda Arc is Mount Tambora and Krakatau. The region is known for its instability due to volcano formations and other volcanic and tectonic activities; as well as climate changes; resulted in lowlands drowned occasionally under shallow seas, the formation of islands, the connection and disconnection of islands through narrow land-bridges, etc.

The Indonesian archipelago nearly reached its present form in Pleistocene period. For some periods the Sundaland was still linked with Asian mainland creating the landmass extension of Southeast Asia that enabled the migrations of some Asian animals and hominid species. Geologically the New Guinea island and the shallow seas of Arafura is the northern part of Australia tectonic plate and once connected as a landbridge identified as Sahulland. During the end of last ice age (around 20,000-10,000 years ago) earth experienced global climate change; a global warming with the rising of average temperature caused the melting of polar ice caps and contributed to the rising of sea surface. Sundaland was submerged under shallow sea creating Malacca Strait, South China Sea, Karimata Strait and Java Sea. During this period Malay peninsula, Sumatra, Java, Borneo and the islands around them was formed. On the east, New Guinea and Aru Islands was separated from Australia mainland. The rise of sea surface creating isolated areas that separated plants, animals and hominid species causing further evolution and specification.

Human migration

File:Sangiran Homo erectus Diorama.jpg

A diorama in National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta, depicting the life-size model of stone equipped hunter, a Homo erectus family living in Sangiran about 900,000 years ago.

Fossilised remains of Homo erectus, popularly known as the "Java Man" were first discovered by the Dutch anatomist Eugène Dubois at Trinil in 1891, and were at least 700,000 years old, at that time the oldest human ancestor ever found. Further Homo erectus fossils of a similar age were found at Sangiran in the 1930`s by the anthropologist Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald, who in the same time period also uncovered fossils at Ngandong with more advanced tools, dated to as recently as 50,000 years ago.

In 2003, on the island of Flores, fossils of a new small hominid dated between 74,000 and 13,000 years old and named "Flores Man" (Homo floresiensis) were discovered much to the surprise of the scientific community. This 3 foot tall hominid is thought to be a species descended from Homo Erectus and reduced in size over thousands of years by a well known process called island dwarfism. Flores Man seems to have shared the island with modern Homo sapiens until only 12,000 years ago, when they became extinct.

The archipelago was formed during the thaw after the latest ice age. Early humans to travelled by sea and spread from mainland Asia eastward to New Guinea and Australia. Homo sapiens reached the region by around 45,000 years ago.. In 2011 evidence was uncovered in neighbouring East Timor, showing that 42,000 years ago these early settlers had high-level maritime skills, and by implication the technology needed to make ocean crossings to reach Australia and other islands, as they were catching and consuming large numbers of big deep sea fish such as tuna .

Around 2000 BCE there was an expansion of sea-faring Austronesian people from Asia, who spread throughout Maritime Southeast Asia to Madagascar and Oceania. Austronesian people form the majority of the modern population.

Chronology

Paleolithic

Homo erectus were known to utilize simple coarse paleolithic stone tools and also shell tools, discovered in Sangiran and Ngandong. Cut mark analysis of Pleistocene mammalian fossils documents 18 cut marks inflicted by tools of thick clamshell flakes on two bovid bones created during butchery at the Pucangan Formation in Sangiran between 1.6 and 1.5 million years ago. These cut marks document the use of the first tools in Sangiran and the oldest evidence of shell tool use in the world.

Neolithic

The polished stone tools of neolithic culture, such as polished stone axe and stone hoe, are developed by Austronesian people in Indonesian archipelago. Also during this neolithic period in Indonesia, the large stone structures of megalithic culture also flourished in archipelago.

Megalithic

People on Nias Island in Indonesia move a megalith to a construction site, circa 1915. Digitally restored.

Toraja monolith, circa 1935.

Indonesian archipelago is the host of Austronesian megalithic cultures in past and present. Several megalith sites and structures are found across Indonesia. Menhirs, dolmens, stone tables, ancestral stone statues, and step pyramids structure called Punden Berundak were discovered in various sites in Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Lesser Sunda Islands.

Punden step pyramid and menhir can be found in Pagguyangan Cisolok and Gunung Padang, West Java. Cipari megalith site also in West Java displayed monolith, stone terraces, and sarcophagus. The Punden step pyramid is believed to be the predecessor and basic design of later Hindu-Buddhist temples structure in Java after the adoption of Hinduism and Buddhism by native population. The 8th century Borobudur and 15th-century Candi Sukuh featured the step-pyramid structure.

Lore Lindu National Park in Central Sulawesi houses ancient megalith relics such as ancestral stone statues. Mostly located in the Bada, Besoa and Napu valleys.

Living and surviving megalith culture can be found in Nias, an isolated island offcoast western North Sumatra, Batak culture in interior North Sumatra, Sumba island in East Nusa Tenggara, also Toraja culture in interior South Sulawesi. These megalith cultures remain preserved, isolated and undisturbed well until late 19th century.

Bronze age

Dong Son culture spread to Indonesia bringing with it techniques of bronze casting, wet-field rice cultivation, ritual buffalo sacrifice, megalithic practises, and ikat weaving methods. Some of these practices remain in areas including the Batak areas of Sumatra, Toraja in Sulawesi, and several islands in Nusa Tenggara. The artifacts from this period are Nekara bronze drums discovered throughout Indonesian archipelago, and also ceremonial bronze axe.

Belief system

Early Indonesians were animists who honoured the spirits of nature as well as the ancestral spirits of the dead, as their souls or life force could still help the living. The reverence for ancestral spirits is still widespread among Indonesian native ethnicities; such as among Nias people, Batak, Dayak, Toraja, and Papuans. These reverence among others are evident through the harvest festivals that often invoked the nature spirits and agriculture deities, to the elaborate burial rituals and processions of the deceased elders in order to preparing and sending them to the realm of ancestors. The prehistoric spirit of ancestors or nature that possess supernatural abilities is identified as hyang in Java and Bali, and still revered in Balinese Hinduism.

Way of life

The human livelihood of prehistoric Indonesia ranges from simple forest hunter-gatherer equipped with stone tools to elaborated agriculture society with grain cultivation, domesticated animals, with weaving and pottery industry.

Ideal agricultural conditions, and the mastering of wet-field rice cultivation as early as the 8th century BCE, allowed villages, towns, and small kingdoms to flourish by the 1st century CE. These kingdoms (little more than collections of villages subservient to petty chieftains) evolved with their own ethnic and tribal religions. Java's hot and even temperature, abundant rain and volcanic soil, was perfect for wet rice cultivation. Such agriculture required a well-organised society in contrast to dry-field rice, which is a much simpler form of cultivation that doesn't require an elaborate social structure to support it.

Buni culture clay pottery was flourished in coastal northern West Java and Banten around 400 BCE to 100 CE Buni culture was probably the predecessor of Tarumanagara kingdom, one of the earliest Hindu kingdom in Indonesia that produces numerous inscriptions, marked the beginning of historical period in Java.

See also

• List of human evolution fossils