large as indonesia) has a different history. The one thing that all these countries share is that the first stage of archaeological study for each was initiated and carried out by foreigners. Only gradually did the original inhabitants of the countries become involved and finally take over, through archaeology, the study of their own past. There is one other element of this history that is shared by all the countries of Island Southeast Asia, and that is that World War II marked the end of the total domination of archaeological research by foreigners. Following the war there was a short period of adjustment when a few new foreigners entered the field and quickly started training local archaeologists. As these countries, except for Brunei and, to a lesser degree, Taiwan, are developing countries, they do not have big budgets for archaeological research. While they are able to locally train archaeologists needed for the jobs available, they need an increase in trained archaeologists to keep up with development and to start covering the whole area of their countries.

Island Southeast Asia is treated here country by country, within three very generalized time periods: pre–World War II, the short adjustment period following the war, and the last thirty-five years of the twentieth century, when local archaeologists became the primary research force.

Colonial Archaeology, 1700–1942
Indonesia

The first archaeological research in Island Southeast Asia, as elsewhere, was the making and recording of surface collections. For Southeast Asia, this continued to be the major source of archaeological data until after World War II. In Island Southeast Asia, as in much of the rest of the world, it was, and still is, widely believed that polished stone artifacts are supernatural objects of extraterrestrial origin, brought to earth through thunder and/or lightening. As a result these ancient stone tools, when discovered, were kept by the finders as amulets for protection against fire started by lightening, for protection of crops in the fields, and for personal protection. Much of the early collections was created by purchasing these artifacts from local farmers and villagers. The earliest-known such collector in Indonesia, who published data on his collections, was G.E. Rumphius (1705; Soejono 1969, 68–69; Solheim 1969a, 31–32).

Soejono (1969, 70–73) lists a number of collectors who published on polished adzes, bronze drums and weapons, megalithic and cave sites, human skeletal remains, and ancient beads during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (See Soejono 1969, 70–73 for details on this work.) Heine-Geldern (1945, 129) states that “the first systematic excavation of a prehistoric site ever to be undertaken in the Archipelago…. was that of the Toala Caves in Southwest Celebes by Paul and Fritz Sarasin in 1902.” A major event was the discovery of the Pithecanthropus skull cap in Trinel, Java, by eugene dubois in 1891. Between 1907 and 1908 a follow-up German expedition, led by Frau L. Selenka, searched in Trinel but found nothing else. Soejono also said:

During the first quarter of the twentieth century, intensive studies were done in cave cultures, kettledrums, and the Megalithic culture.... It was suggested that the megalithic tradition was introduced by peoples of the Mediterranean; differing racial groups were assumed to be the producers of the different cave cultures; and ancient beads were thought to have an interconnection with regions in Asia and the Mediterranean. The Archaeological Service,…. however, did not pay much attention to drums, caves, megaliths, or beads, as its greatest concern was the survey and preservation of “Hindu-Javanese” movements. The existence of a prehistoric stage preceding the Hinduized cultural level was still a matter of obscurity.

(1970, 12–13)

Historical archaeology had its beginnings almost as early as prehistoric archaeology, but in the form of written references to historic sites rather than collections of artifacts. In 1733 a Dutch official mentioned the Prambanan temples, which he had visited, in his diary, and toward the end of the eighteenth century F. von Boekholz described them in detail. In 1805 J.H. Cornelious was ordered by the Dutch administrator to explore them (Soekmono 1969, 93).