Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago, by Peter Bellwood. Academic Press,
Sydney (1985). X i 370 pp. ISBN 0 1 2 085371 X. $35.00 (paperback)
Prehistoric Indonesia. A Reader, edited by Pieter van de Velde. Verhandelingen
van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde No.104, Forum
404 pp. ISBN 90
Publications, Dordrecht-IIolland/Cinnaminson-USA,(1984). vi
6765 058 7. $37.00 (paperback)
+
Reviewed by Dirk H.R. Spennemann
The two books reviewed here have a few things in common. Both deal with the
prehistory of island Southeast Asia, both are meant for the student and interested
archaeologist, they are published within a year of each other (1984, 1985) and are
designed to fill a huge gap that has developed a s a result of research and publication
since the last overviews were offered decades ago by van Heekeren (1957, 1958).
But this is where the similarity ends. While l3ellwood's volume is designed a s a
tcxtbook displaying the wealth of d a t a in a general, but detailed and comprehensive
overview, van de Velde7s volume is a 'reader', consisting of a compilation of
previously published articles by various authors.
Before comparing both volurnes, wt. will have a closer look at, cach of them
separately.
Bellwood
In style, setting and lay-out Bellwood follows his usual grand scheme already
presented in his Man's Conquest of the Pacifzc (1978), a work which he refers t o a s
complementary to the one under discussion. In some respects the previous volume is
even more detailed than the present one. Although his book focuses on island
Southeast Asia, t h a t is, the Malayan Peninsula, Indonesia and Borneo, outer and
neighbouring areas such a s the Philippines, Taiwan, Mainland Southeast Asia with
Thailand, Kampu Chea, Vi6t Nam and southern China are included wherever
necessary for background information.
Bt.llwood s t a r t s his presentation of Southeast Asian prehistory with a n introduction
to past and present environmental conditions, a quite necessary introduction given
t h e importance of changes in sea-level and climate for Sunda and Sahul Land. He
discusses the important physical anthropological material a n d also the Pleistocene
industries.
The bulk of the book is dedicated to the Late Palaeolithic and the Neolithic cultures
of island Southeast Asia. The archaeological record is placed in linguistic, physical
anthropological and ethnographic-anthropological perspective.
The book concll~deswith a chapter on the Early Metal Age, adopting t h e year 1000
A D a s an arbitrary endpoint. It is a bit unfortunate that Bellwood dedicated only
one chapter t o the Early Metal Ages Period, a s this period sees the emergence of
stratified societies in the area. This chapter, however, provides, together with t h e
chapters in his book Man's Conquest of the Puci fic, a fairly good overview on the
s t a t e of the a r t .
Bellwood presents a personal interpretation.
controversial issues are often glossed over,
contradictory views are offered. His volume
needed, and since it is very well referenced and
easily with it and t o find one's way to the more
As can be expected in a textbook,
but where necessary, references to
provides the right level of overview
has a good index, one is able t o work
detailed studies.
At a more general level, one would have liked some more pictures and, while
discussing figures, one has t o mention t h a t some of the figures, especially those of
artefacts, are quite poor, either because they have been reduced too much, making
them hard t o read (e.g. Figs 1.2, 6.17), or because they have been re-reproduced and
many details, sometimes quite vital information, has gone missing in the process
(Fig.9.9; compare with Bellwood 1978:Fig.7.27).
van de Velde
At first sight, van de Velde's volume seems t o be a good idea, being a compilation of
key articles on Indonesian and Southeast Asian prehistory. The main body of
information is pulled together in one volume, easily accessible for the general student.
But is it worth it?
O n closer inspection, problems emerge. The 14 articles compiled in this reader are
exact facsimile reprints plus an introduction by the editor and a bit of HeineGeldern's classic article Urheimat u n d friiheste Wanderungen .... In these reprints
even t h e grossest production errors are reproduced; for example one would have
hoped t h a t t h e editor would have taken the opportunity t o correct the inverted
figures in Soejono's article. But no. Because of the reprint character of the volume,
the typesetting varies incredibly, from typewriter font to Lnormal' Times font,
making a quick flick through the book and page-jumping a tedious business. This
may be excusable in view of production costs (but see below), but then one might
expect t h a t the original pagination would have been maintained (in brackets), so that
the articles can be cited properly. Unfortunately the original pagination is not given,
forcing t h e reader to count the pages to reconstruct the original pagination.
The articles selected cover a wide field. Three papers give introductions to and
overviews of Indonesian prehistory, outlining the social conditions and history of
research from an insider's (Soejono), and outsider's point of view (van de Velde,
Smith and Watson). T R Opapers act as ir~troductionsand overviews t o adjacent and
interrelated areas (Harrison for Borneo and White for 3lelanesia).
Five papers cover the palaeolithic period (Hutterer, Bartstra, Hayden and two by
Glover), but none focuses on t h e Neolithic or the early Metal Age. The only
contribution t o the more recent periods of the Indonesian pre-prehistory is made by a
discussion of some Romano-Indian pottery from Indonesia (Walker and Santoso).
Of the more specialised kind are two papers, one of which covers the linguistic
aspects (Blust), while the other focuses on general questions of subsistence economy
in the area (Dunn and Dunn).
The translation the summary of Heine-Geldern's paper is juxtaposed with Solheim's
discussion of the Austronesian expansions. As Bellwood (1986) notes, van de Velde
seems t o have a bee in his bonnet about the concepts of large-scale diffusion and
migrations, which prevail in many of the pre-World War I1 works on Southeast Asian
prehistory. This approach is now outdated and has passed into the realms of history,
although in its time it was quite justified, considering the generally slim s t a t e of
archaeological knowledge of the area and t h e methodological and philosophical
traditions of the scholars. No scholar of the 1980s would seriously assume diffusion
and migration t o be the sole cause for cultural change in a given area, and assume
that diffusion occurs on a 'nationwide' scale with hordes of people tramping through
the continent, similar to the Helvetian migration described by Caesar (de be110 gallico
1:12).
Again a good opportunity has been missed t o summarise Robert Heine-Geldern's
most important article on early Austronesian migrations in a more detailed manner.
In this reader, IIeine-Geldern's Conclusions have been translated, h11t n o more.
Articles like Cleghorn's (1984) assessment of Poly nesian adze studies, show t h a t
German language literature is only rarely read in the Anglo-American dominated
research tradition of the Pacific rim countries. Heine-Geldern's 1932 article is still of
interest, and not only for those interested in the history of research.
On a more basic level, considering the book sports the subtitle 'a reader', some
criticism of the editorial input has t o be made. Editing a reader by compiling t h e
articles and whiting-out the old pagination is not enough.
Van d e Velde's
introduction is fairly short and full of criticism of the work done s o far. It does not
give a synthesised overview of Indonesian prehistory, nor does i t really pull together
the huge variety of articles reproduced in the volume. T h e select bibliography is a
bit on the short side, considering the status of the book. Given van d e Velde's stated
intention not t o restrict himself t o Indonesia, b u t t o include relevant articles from
neighbouring areas a s well, one misses for example two of Roger Green's publications
which bear on models of exchange and expansion in Melanesia (1979, 1982). A m a p
showing the area under discussion and the important sites discussed in the papers is
lacking. T h e index provided is rather poor.
This reader is a bit disappointing from someone whose consistently high standard of
work in Europe would have led one t o expect otherwise.
B e l l w o o d or van d e V e l d e , or both?
Given the differences in presentation, it is not so easy t o compare these volumes.
Both books put a major emphasis on the Stone Age of the region. T h e later periods of
prehistory, especially the Bronze-Iron Age, unfortunately still quite often termed
Dongso'n following Heine-Geldern's ( 1945: 143) initial chronologically broad
approach, get little attention. This, however, reflects very well t h a t t h e main thrust
of Indonesian archaeology has been on the Palaeolithic and Hindu-Javanese culture of
the second millennium AD.
It must be asked whether the prices asked for both books a r e reasonable. In t h e age
of photocopying/pirating on the one hand, and reasonably cheap printing techniques
on the other, the high pricing of van de Velde's compilation, which after all is not
newly typeset, is simply outrageous. Photocopying all the articles would have come
to less t h a n two-thirds of t h e price, and the figures could not have come out much
worse either. But, t o be fair t o van de Velde, it is not the author t o blame, but the
publishers.
What is still lacking is a compilation which pulls together all the early literature on
Indonesian prehistory, mainly of the 1930s, which is so widely dispersed and has often
been accessible only with endlessly long inter-library loans. It is t o be hoped that at
some stage a publisher will produce such a volume which would make much more
sense than van de Velde's compilation of recent literature. Such a reader would not
be written for 'those of us who a r e too lazy t o visit our faculty libraries' as Bellwood
(1986) puts it acidly. Van de Velde's reader, however, unfortunately meets this
description rather well.
Bellwood's volume is good reading and all in all offers much more value for money. I
can readily recommend Bellwood's volume as both a textbook and a quick reference
for general information, since it is the best currently on the market. I cannot
recommend van de Velde's volume even t o the financially better off, since they
probably have the original journals on their bookshelves anyway.
REFERENCES
Bellwood, P. 1978 Man 'S Conquest of the Pacific. Collins: Auckland and Sydney
Bellwood, P . 1986 Review of The fiehistory of Indonesia (sic!), edited by P. van de
Velde. Archaeology i n Oceania 21 ( 2 ) :154
Cleghorn, P. 1984 An historical review of Polynesian stone adze studies. Journal of
the Polynesian Society 93:399-42 1
Green, R.C. 1979 Lapita. In J.D. Jennings (ed.) The Behistory of Polynesia,
pp. 27-60. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Green, R.C. 1982 Models for the Lapita cultural complex: an evaluation of some
current proposals. New Zealand Journal oj Archaeology 4:7- 19
Heekeren, H.R. van 1957 T h e Stone Age of Indonesia. Verhandelingen van het
Koninkli jk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde No.21. (2nd revised
edition published in 1972 a s Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instit uut
voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde No.61). Martinus Nijhoff: The Hague
Heekeren, H.R. van 1958 T h e Bronze-Iron Age of Indonesia. Verhandelingen van het
Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde No.22. Martinus
Nijhoff: T h e Hague
Heine-Geldern, R. von 1932 Urheimat und friiheste Wanderungen der Austronesier.
Ant hropos 27:543-619
Heine-Geldern, R. von 1945 Prehistoric research in the Netherlands Indies. In
P. Honig and F. Veerdorn (eds) Science and Scientists i n the Netherlands
Indies, pp.129-67. Board for the Netherlands Indies, Surinam and Curaqao:
New York
Research School of Pacific Studies Australian National University
Department of Prehistory