Background to SSPHAP

South Sulawesi includes the southwest peninsula and southwest central highlands of the island of Sulawesi, also known as the Celebes. This orchid-shaped island due east of Borneo contains a highy diverse environment where interdigitating plains and mountain chains define some of the wettest and the driest ecozones in Indonesia, and the wildlife features both Oriental- and New Guinea-related species. There is also an enormous cultural and ethnic diversity of Austronesian speakers who alternatively live in small groups at low densities, or number in the millions. Historically and archaeologically, South Sulawesi is particularly engaging to scholars. Its two dominant groups, the Bugis and Makasars, had developed writing systems (based on an Indic model) and substantial bodies of literature before any European set foot on Sulawesi, and before the seventeenth century conversion of the Bugis and Makasars to Islam. Their texts, and the associated oral traditions that thrive to this day, provide a rare insight into the processes that underlay social complexification in an Indonesian realm. The archaeology of the peninsula is rich, thanks to the fertile soils and plentiful rainfall that have supported comparatively dense populations for millennia, the preservation of a deep archaeological record in limestone shelters near the plains, and a long history of archaeological research initiated by Paul and Fritz Sarasin over 100 years ago and continued through the efforts of Robert van Heekeren, Hasan Ambary, Ian Glover, Truman Simanjuntak and others.
 
I set up "The South Sulawesi Prehistorical and Historical Archaeology Project" (SSPHAP) for my PhD research at the Australian National University in 1985, under the supervision of Campbell Macknight (now Emeritus Professor) and Peter Bellwood (now Professor of Archaeology). The PhD thesis, "A Tale of Two Kingdoms: The Historical Archaeology of Gowa and Tallok", was submitted in 1992 and passed in 1993. As originally envisaged with Campbell Macknight, the project would review the relevant historical and late prehistoric archaeological evidence relevant to understanding the rise and elaboration of the Bugis and Makasar kingdoms (which included chiefdoms, complex chiefdoms, and the full-blown Macassar empire). That original goal was partly realised in a subsequent publication (see link to Bulbeck 1996-7 below), and has been a continuing research interest of mine to this day. As reflected in recent publications (see adjacent panel), my research has covered fields as diverse as late Pleistocene archaeology, Holocene prehistory (Toaleans and the Austronesian expansion; e.g., see link to Bulbeck and Nasruddin 2002 below), and human osteology as well as historical archaeology. My PhD research, however, concentrated on two study regions. One was the lands near the present-day capital of Makassar, where an intensive survey - one of the first in Indonesia - recorded 150 sites, mostly from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries being the period targetted by the survey. Study of these sites and the associated historical documentation constituted the core of my PhD thesis (see link to Bulbeck 1993 below). A shorter survey, supported by the Australian Myer Foundation, investigated toponyms with early historical and literary assocations in the vicinity of Watansoppeng, which has for centuries been the centre of the Bugis kingdom (now kabupaten) of Soppeng. The results have been published in both English and Indonesian in Bahru Kallupa, David Bulbeck, Ian Caldwell, Iwan Sumantri and Karaeng Demmanari. 1989. Survey Pusat Kerajaan Soppeng 1100-1986 [Survey of the Capital of Soppeng Kingdom 1100-1986]. Final Report to the Australian Myer Foundation. Privately published in Canberra ISBN 073 1690 78 8.
 
My colleague Dr Ian Caldwell, who studied the early Bugis texts for his PhD, readily recognised the importance of the archaeological record for understanding social developments in pre-Islamic South Sulawesi (one of Campbell Macknight's strongest points of emphasis). We had always shared a concern about this shadowy entity called Luwu that was supposed to be the earliest South Sulawesi kingdom and the archetype of subsequent socio-political developments. Luwu appeared to be in the wrong place for this pivotal role, strung along marginal land flanked on all sides by non-Bugis speakers, far away from the Bugis heartland with its fertile rice fields in the central peninsula. Ian Caldwell initiated our joint project, "The Origin of Complex Society in South Sulawesi" or OXIS, to address the enigma of Luwu, and also led complementary research focused on the semi-legendary kingdom of Cina. Between 1997 and 2000 we ran OXIS with funding from the Australian Research Council, which also funded my Australian Postdoctoral Research Fellowship during that period. The volume of information and finds recovered from the survey and excavations in Luwu far exceeded expectations, and is still undergoing analysis, to detail the general pattern we have already established on developments in trade and social organisation in Luwu over the last two millennia.
 
Stay posted for further research outcomes through this website; we have not finished by a long shot!

D. Bulbeck. 1993. New perspectives on early South Sulawesi history. Baruga 9:10-18.
 
D. Bulbeck. 1996-7. The Bronze-Iron Age of South Sulawesi, Indonesia: mortuary traditions, metallurgy and trade. In F. David Bulbeck and Noel Barnard (eds), Ancient Chinese and Southeast Asian Bronze Age Cultures. Vol. II:1007-76. Taipei: Southern Materials Center Inc.
 
F. David Bulbeck and Nasruddin. 2002. Recent insights on the chronology and ceramics of the Kalumpang site complex, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 22:83-99.
 
For further information on the project or this website, contact David.Bulbeck@anu.edu.au