Archipelago in the prehistoric period covers a very long period, about 1.7 million years ago, based on existing findings. People’s knowledge of this is supported by the findings of animal and human fossils (hominids), remains of stone tools, animal body parts, metals (iron and bronze), and pottery.
GEOLOGY
The archipelago area is an interesting study from a geological perspective because it is very active. To the east and south of the archipelago lies the confluence of two large continental plates: the Eurasian Plate and the Indo-Australian Plate. In this section, the Indo-Australian plate which is moving northward is subducting under the Eurasian plate. As a result of this, a series of volcanoes were formed along the islands of Sumatra, Java, to the islands of Nusa Tenggara. This area is also prone to earthquakes as a result. In the east there is a meeting of two other large continental plates, the Eurasian plate and the Pacific plate. This meeting formed a series of volcanoes in the northern part of the Maluku Islands towards the northern part of Sulawesi Island towards the Philippines.
The western region of the modern archipelago emerged around the time of the Pleistocene connected with mainland Asia. Previously it was estimated that some of its territory was part of the ocean floor. This land is called the Sunda Shelf (“Sundaland”) by geologists. The eastern boundary of this old land paralleled what is now known as the Wallace Line. The eastern region of the archipelago, on the other hand, is geographically connected to the Australian continent and is older than the mainland. This landmass is known as the Sahul Shelf and is part of the Indo-Australian Plate, which in turn is part of the Gondwana Continent.
At the end of the last Ice Age (20,000-10,000 years ago) Earth’s average temperature increased and sea levels rose rapidly. Most of the Sunda Shelf is covered by ocean and forms a series of waters of the Malacca Strait, South China Sea, Karimata Strait, and Java Sea. It was during this period that the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra Island, Java Island, Kalimantan Island, and the surrounding islands were formed. In the east, the island of Irian and the Aru Islands are separated from the mainland of the Australian continent. This sea level rise forces the people who live in this area to separate from each other and encourage the formation of a modern society inhabiting the archipelago.
Plants, animals and hominids
The geological history of the archipelago influences the flora and fauna, including the human-like creatures that once inhabited this region. Part of the mainland of the archipelago used to be the seabed, such as the southern coast of Java and Nusa Tenggara. Various marine animal fossils were found in this area. This area is known as a karst area formed from limestone deposits of ancient coral reefs.
Coal deposits in the Sumatra and Kalimantan regions indicate the existence of forests from the Paleozoic era.
The shallow seas between Sumatra, Java (including Bali), and Kalimantan, as well as the Arafura Sea and the Torres Strait are young waters that only started to form at the end of the last Ice Age (up to 10,000 years before the modern era). This is the reason why there are many similarities in the types of plants and animals between the three large islands.
The flora and fauna of the three islands have similarities with mainland Asia (Indochina, the Malay Peninsula, and the Philippines). Tigers, elephants, tapirs, buffalo, pigs, rhinos, and various birds that live in mainland Asia have many relatives on these three islands. The first human-like creature (hominin) discovered was the Javanese man, which was discovered in 1891 by Eugene Dubois in Trinil, Ngawi Regency. Between 1931 and 1934, G.H.R. von Koenigswald and his team found a series of hominin fossils in the Bengawan Solo valley, near Ngandong Village.
Paleontologists now mostly think that all the fossils found from Java are Homo erectus and are of a primitive form. Initially thought to be 1,000,000 to 500,000 years old (carbon measurements are not possible), now based on radiometric measurements of volcanic minerals in the discovery layer, it is estimated that it is older, namely 1.7-1.5 million years.
The first modern Homo sapiens entered the archipelago around 100,000 years ago, via India and Indochina. The first Homo sapiens fossils in Java were found by van Rietschoten (1889), a member of the Dubois team, in Wajak, near Campurdarat, Tulungagung, on the banks of the Brantas River. It was found along with the bones of a tapir, an animal that does not currently live on Java. The Wajak fossils are considered to be the same race as the Niah Cave fossils in Sarawak and the Tabon Caves on Palawan Island. The Niah fossils are estimated to be 40,000-25,000 years old (Pleistocene period) and show an “Australomelanesoid” phenotype. They are supporters of the chopper culture and belong to the paleolithic culture (Old Stone Age).
The 2003 announcement of the discovery of Homo floresiensis, considered a primitive Homo species by its discoverers, sparked new debate about the possibility of a human-like species living in the same period as H. sapiens, as it is only 20,000-10,000 years old from the modern era and is not fossilized. . This contradicts the previous assumption which stated that only H. sapiens survived in the archipelago at that time. This debate is not over yet, because the opponents consider H. floresiensis to be H. sapiens that suffers from the disease so that it is dwarf in size.
Human migration
Evidence of the oldest Homo sapiens in the archipelago is known from the skull and bone remains of hominins in Wajak Cave, Tulungagung Regency and Niah Cave (Sarawak), Kalimantan Island. Following the next new discoveries that have been identified since the beginning of the second half of the 20th century, one of them is in the Song Continue Cave, the eastern end of the Sewu Mountains, Pacitan Regency. This Wajak race may also include humans who lived around 25,000-40,000 years ago in Southeast Asia such as the Niah man in Sarawak (Malaysia) and the Tabon man on the island of Palawan (Philippines). Homo sapiens in Niah Cave according to radiocarbon dating lived about 40,000 years ago. The age of intact fossils in Braholo Cave (Gunungkidul, discovered in 2002) and Song (Cave) Keplek and Continues (Pacitan) is younger (about 10,000 years before the modern era or 0 AD). This conjecture comes from the shape of the tools found accompanying it.
Despite coming from a different cultural period, the fossils show Austromelanesoid characteristics, a subrace of the Negroid race now known as the original inhabitants of New Guinea, Melanesia, and the Australian Continent. The theory of the origin of this race was first described by Fritz and Paul Sarasin, two Swiss brothers (cousins of each other) in the late 19th century.
In their study, they saw similarities in characteristics between the Veddas who inhabited Sri Lanka and some of the similarly characterized aboriginal peoples in island Southeast Asia and Australia. In August 2017, the international science journal The Nature reported the discovery of fossilized Homo sapiens teeth in Lida Ajer Cave, West Sumatra, believed to be between 73,000–63,000 years old. The findings are based on a study by an international research team led by scientists from Macquarie University. Previously, an investigation into caves in West Sumatra was carried out by the Dutch anatomist Eugène Dubois in the 1880s, but as a result he only found the bones of sub-recent animals and humans.
Prehistoric relics of the archipelago are known from various findings of graffiti/paintings on cave walls or niches in cliffs as well as from excavations at archaeological sites.
Some locations of the discovery of prehistoric remains of the archipelago:
- Putri Cave Site, Baturaja, South Sumatra
- Sangiran Valley, now the Sangiran Archaeological Park
- Wajak Archaeological Site, Tulungagung
- Liang Bua, Flores Island
- Leang-leang Cave, Sulawesi
- Sangkulirang Hills Cave Site, East Kutai
- Pasemah site in Lampung
- Cibedug Site, Banten
- Pangguyangan Site, Cisolok, Sukabumi, West Java
- Cipari Site, Kuningan, West Java
- Pawon Cave Site, Bandung, West Java
- Gunungpadang Site, Cianjur, West Java
- Cilacap Gunungpadang Site, Cilacap, Central Java
- Mbolu Hamlet Site, Ngepo Village, Responsibilitygunung District, Tulungagung Regency, East Java
- Gilimanuk Site, Jembrana, Bali
- Keramas Village Site, Blahbatuh District, Gianyar, Bali
- Biak Caves Site, Papua (40,000-30,000 BC)
- Beachside Painting Site in Raja Ampat, West Papua
- Tutari Site, Jayapura Regency, (Megalithic period)
- Pig Cave on Mount Batu Buli, Randu village, Muara Uya, Tabalong