The central Indonesian island of Sulawesi has recently been hitting headlines with respect to its archaeology. It contains some of the oldest directly dated rock art in the world, and some of the oldest evidence for a hominin presence beyond the southeastern limits of the Ice Age Asian continent. In this volume, scholars from Indonesia and Australia come together to present their research findings and views on a broad range of topics. From early periods, these include observations on Ice Age climate, life in caves and open sites, rock art, and the animals that humans exploited and lived alongside. The archaeology presented from later periods covers the rise of the Bugis kingdom, Chinese trade ceramics, and a range of site-based and regional topics from the Neolithic through to the arrival of Islam. This carefully edited volume is the first to be devoted entirely to the archaeology of the island of Sulawesi, and it lays down a baseline for significant future research. Peter Bellwood Emeritus Professor The Australian National University

The period 1200-1600 CE saw a radical transformation from simple chiefdoms to kingdoms (in archaeological terminology, complex chiefdoms) across lowland South Sulawesi, a region that lay outside the ‘classical’ Indicized parts of Southeast Asia. The rise of these kingdoms was stimulated and economically supported by trade in prestige goods with other parts of island Southeast Asia, yet the development of these kingdoms was determined by indigenous, rather than imported, political and cultural precepts. Starting in the thirteenth century, the region experienced a transition from swidden cultivation to wet-rice agriculture; rice was the major product that the lowland kingdoms of South Sulawesi exchanged with archipelagic traders. Stephen Druce demonstrates this progression to political complexity by combining a range of sources and methods, including oral, textual, archaeological, linguistic and geographical information and analysis as he explores the rise and development of five South Sulawesi kingdoms, known collectively as Ajattappareng (the Lands West of the Lakes). The author also presents an inquiry into oral traditions of a historical nature in South Sulawesi. He examines their functions, their processes of transmission and transformation, their uses in writing history and their relationship to written texts. He shows that any distinction between oral and written traditions of a historical nature is largely irrelevant, and that the South Sulawesi chronicles, which can be found only for a small number of kingdoms, are not characteristic (as historians have argued) but exceptional in the corpus of indigenous South Sulawesi historical sources. The book will be of primary interest to scholars of pre-European-contact Southeast Asia, including historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, linguists and geographers, and scholars with a broader interest in oral tradition and the relationship between the oral and written registers.

to use the Dutch presence to institute far-reaching innovations in his society. It became apparent that, while the Company's initial involve ment with South Sulawesi had required some military action, its sub sequent activities were often limited to that of arbiter in local disputes. Y et its approval was an essential element without which no local prince could exercise authority confidently. The reputation of the Company helped to sustain its position and that of anyone fortunate or clever enough to become linked with it. Arung Palakka's repeated references throughout his life to this link served a dual purpose: it reaffirmed his continuing devotion and loyalty to the Company, while reminding the people of South Sulawesi of the weapon which he could wield if neces sary to maintain power. Bearing the Company's trust as a right, Arung Palakka was able to introduce changes with little real opposition from within South Sulawesi. The Company has often been blamed for radical innovations in Malay-Indonesian societies, but as this study shows, in South Sulawesi at least the initiative clearly carne from a local ruler. Only research in other areas influenced by the Company's presence will demonstrate whether or not the South Sulawesi experience was unique. A secondary but nonetheless important reason for this study was to examine the roots of the large scale emigrations from South Sulawesi in the second half of the 17th century.