ORYZA SATIVA AND THE ORIGINS OF KINGDOMS IN SOUTH SULAWESI, INDONESIA:Evidence from Rice Husk Phytoliths

Abstract

This article sets out the first direct evidence for the central role of rice cultivation in the origin and development of complex chiefdoms, or kingdoms, in South Sulawesi after c. AD 1200. This evidence comprises Oryza phytoliths recovered from a test pit excavated from the earliest recorded palace site in South Sulawesi. A chronological context is provided by ceramic sherdage recovered from the test pit and from a partial surface survey of the hill on which the site is located. The combined evidence supports our contention that agrarian kingdoms first appeared in the late 13th century as an indigenous response to the availability of trade goods, mainly Indian textiles and Chinese and Southeast Asian ceramic wares. No material or stratigraphic support was found for an alternative theory that South Sulawesi's early kingdoms were primarily trade based, and that their subsequent development was punctuated by an economic and social collapse lasting several decades.

Acknowledgements

The Cenrana Valley fieldwork was funded by the British Academy Committee for South East Asian Studies. Participating archaeologists included Malcolm Lillie (University of Hull), Bagyo Prasetyo and Moh. Ali Fadillah (Indonesian National Research Center for Archaeology), Budianto Hakim (Makassar Archaeology Office), Iwan Sumantri (Hasanuddin University) and Adrian di Lello (Australian National University). Bulbeck's laboratory work in Makassar was funded by the Australia-Indonesia Institute, and Bowdery's phytolith analysis was funded by an ANU Faculties Research Scheme Grant for the project ‘Human and Environmental History in the Tempe Lowlands, South Sulawesi’. The ANU-11352 radiocarbon date was funded by the ANU's Centre for Archaeological Research.

Notes

1 Sets of hierarchically-nested polities whose rulers recognised a paramount regional noble of varying title: see Caldwell (1995) for a detailed description. By the late 16th century Goa-Talloq had developed into a fully-fledged state (Bulbeck 1992: 469–72).

2 The OXIS project was designed to assess the relative importance of rice cultivaton, iron metallurgy, and organised trade as the major economic factors underpinning the establishment of complex polities in the region. It also sought evidence of a possible age of trade-based kingdoms representing a substantially earlier foundation of chiefly authority and succession amongst the Bugis, referred to by South Sulawesi scholars (and by Christian Pelras) as the ‘Age of Galigo’.

3 This work was carried out as a commercial consultancy (see Acknowledgments). Dr Bowdery plans to publish her full results in a specialist archaeobotanical publication.

4 The hill can be seen on Google Earth at approximately 4°12'49.44” S and 120°02'49.80” E.

5 Sherds assigned across century categories are divided equally, and ten Qing Kangxi blue-and-white/red-green overglaze sherds (c. 1650–c. 1750) are assigned to the 17th century. The full table can be viewed at < http://arts.anu.edu.au/bullda/Cenrana_AII_report.pdf > .

6 Which the report make clear was distilled from rice.

7 Large numbers of slaves were exported in the 17th and 18th century, many to Dutch settlements. However, there is no evidence of the export of slaves before the arrival of the Dutch.

8 Dr Ruth Barnes of the Ashmolean Museum has carbon dated a number of block-printed Indian textiles from South Sulawesi to between the 14th and 16th century (Ruth Barnes, personal communication). Guy (1998: Plate 44) shows a textile from the Toraja region dated by Barnes to AD 1340 ± 40.

9 Dating the antiquity of the ricefields would theoretically be possible by excavating the rice phytoliths buried in the soil and dating them in clusters of sufficient carbon mass to produce Accelerated Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dates. Such an ambitious programme is beyond the scope of our current resources.