Centre for Archaeology, while conservation of sites and monuments was entrusted to the Directorate for the Preservation and Protection of the National Heritage.

Prehistoric research since 1957 has been largely focused on the Lesser Sunda islands just east of Java, with secondary centers of research in Java and Sulawesi. Liang Bua, Flores, first examined by Dr. Th. Voerhoeven in 1950, has been the subject of several excavations in 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981, and 1982. Preliminary publications indicate that this site is extremely important, with a long series of occupations in several meters of deposit, displaying a sequence of development covering thousands of years.

Ian Glover’s research in East Timor took place when that region was still under Portuguese colonial rule, but since 1975 it has belonged to Indonesia. His surveys and excavations there succeeded in establishing a general framework for prehistoric development stretching back to 13,500 b.p. (Glover 1986).

In south Sulawesi Glover excavated a number of cave sites. Leang Burung 2, the most significant, yielded flake tools dating to sometime between 17,000 and 29,000 b.p. Bellwood, in north Sulawesi examined the Paso midden, recovering much faunal material and tools dating to about 8500 b.p.

The Toalian stone tool technocomplex of south Sulawesi, appearing around 8000 b.p., already the subject of study before World War II, is now better known due to the efforts of Mulvaney and Soejono (1970) at Leang Burung 1, south Sulawesi, and Glover (1976, 1979) at Ulu Leang.

The Gunung Piring site on Lombok is another late prehistoric burial site with significant parallels to the Melolo burials on Sumba, excavated in the pre–World War II period. Excavations were conducted at Gunung Piring in the 1970s.

In Java, for the Pre-Metal Period, the most interesting information gathered over the past 20 years stems from Neolithic 17 workshop sites at Ponjen, Purbalingga, central Java, where excavations were conducted in 1983, 1984, and 1986, and Limbasari, excavated in 1981 and 1983.

The majority of Javanese sites excavated in the past two decades date from the late prehistoric period. Several are burial sites. These include Anyar, west Java, where jar burials were studied by van Heekeren in 1955; research resumed there in 1976. An other jar burial site at Terjan, Plawangan, north-central Java, was listed in Dutch inventories, but first excavated in 1977 and 1978.

For the late prehistoric and early historic period, much attention has been devoted to sites with megalithic remains. Haris Sukendar and co-workers have conducted wide-ranging surveys and excavations at such sites in Java, Sulawesi, and Sumatra. Teguh Asmar has revealed several painted slab graves on the Pasemah plateau, south Sumatra, similar to those recorded by van der Hoop in the 1930s. I Wayan Ardika discovered Romano-Indian rouletted ware on the north coast of Bali, the best-documented evidence for contact with the Indian subcontinent in the late prehistoric era. Edwards McKinnon has noted the discovery of the first Heger type I bronze kettledrums on the island of Borneo (from the Sambas region, at the northwestern tip of the island).

Some of the most exciting discoveries have been made at the oldest sites of Indonesian archaeology: the excavations of fossil man. Teams under Soejono, Jacob, H. Truman Simanjuntak, F. and A. Semah, and Djubiantono working at Sangiran and other sites in the Solo valley have obtained new fossils with dates as early as 1.2 million years b.p., and for the first time have documented human fossils and tools in direct association.

Research on the origins of agriculture and human impact on the prehistoric environment are progressing, but slowly. Palynological studies in Sumatra and Java have succeeded in providing some data, but we still lack evidence for the beginning of a lifestyle based on agriculture on these major islands. Other important gaps for future research to fill include the huge and undoubtedly important islands of Sumatra and Indonesian Borneo, where prehistoric research is still in its infancy.

During the period before 1975, the principal efforts of historical archaeologists in Indonesia were focused on research concerning monuments. The foremost project was the restoration