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Peter Bellwood has just returned from 4 months of study leave, during
which time he was based in the Institute of History and Philology at
Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taipei, Taiwan. His research there was focused on
Taiwan prehistory and the origins of the Austronesian-speaking peoples. He
is also writing a book entitled "The Origins of Agricultural Societies". He
is also writing up the results of four seasons of research on the islands of
Gebe, Morotai, Halmahera and Kayoa in the northern Moluccas.
His most recent fieldwork project has been in the northern Moluccas islands of eastern Indonesia, where joint research with Indonesian scholars and Geoffrey Irwin of Auckland University has yielded cave sequences covering the past 35,000 years, with very clear signals of an Austronesian presence commencing after 4000 BP. His book Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago will be published in its second edition by University of Hawaii in July 1997, and in Bahasa Indonesia by Gramedia in 1998. He is currently organising, with Adi Taha, the 16th Congress of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, to be held in Melaka in July 1998. At ANU he is prime supervisor for five asian PhD students: Daud Tanudirjo and Mahirta (Indonesia), Tracey Lu (China), Thongsa Sayavongkhamdy (Laos) and Adi Taha (Malaysia).