Publication Date:
2024-04-19
Description:
The late Quaternary history of Sumatra has experienced relatively little attention compared to
that of the other large islands in the Indonesian archipelago. The first reports of fossils from the
island date to the 1880s; they were discovered largely through the efforts of Dubois in the caves
of the Padang Highlands. Following these efforts, focus shifted in the 1920s and 1930s to the
archaeological records of the midden deposits of northern Sumatra and the Hoabinhian cultures
preserved therein. There was little new fieldwork between 1940 and 1970, but by the mid-1970s
several new campaigns seemed to herald a renewed interest in the history and prehistory of the
island. This enthusiasm does not appear to have been sustained, however, and work was intermittent
again in the 1980s and 1990s. Beginning in the mid-1990s and extending into the first two decades
of the twenty-first century, more work at existing sites and new investigations have both taken
place, extending our knowledge of both the deep-time and more recent history of the island. The
application of new techniques on existing sites and the exploration and excavation of new sites are
making an increasingly significant contribution to understanding the role of Sumatra in human
biological and cultural evolution.
Keywords:
Hoabinhian
;
Dubois
;
van Stein Callenfels
;
caves
;
fossils
;
history of archaeology
;
sumatralith
Repository Name:
National Museum of Natural History, Netherlands
Type:
info:eu-repo/semantics/other
Format:
application/pdf
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