KALPATARU

Characteristic of Prehistoric Austronesian Pottery Around Lake Singkarak, Solok, West Sumatra

2023-08-22T13:47:59+07:00

The karst environment with forests and lakes has the potential to be a source of water, food, and materials that are important to the human's ideal location for its inhabitants. Pottery shards found in surveys and excavations illustrate that the site became a place to settle with various human activities. This article aims to determine the characteristics of Austronesian pottery remains at the cave and open sites and determine the relationship with maritime culture around Lake Singkarak. The method used is qualitative, analyzing pottery fragments supported by laboratory analysis. The results of the analysis data note that the discovery of geometric patterns and red slips can illustrate the expertise of supporters in beautifying pottery and describe the cultural history and life of the makers.

Holocene Crab Consumption at Watinglo, Papua New Guinea

2023-01-09T12:17:49+07:00

Malacostraca are commonly found in coastal archaeological sites in the Indo-Pacific; both swimming and terrestrial crabs. This archaeological evidence as well as ethnographic studies indicate that they formed an important component of the human diet in the past as they still do in many regions today. However, they often go unidentified and largely unanalysed in archaeological research due to the highly fragmentary state of the remains and the associated difficulties posed for identification and quantification. Here we discuss these issues and provide an example of crab remains recovered from a coastal archaeological site in Papua New Guinea, Watinglo shelter, with an occupation record spanning from the Terminal Pleistocene to historic times. We also briefly compare these finding to crab remains from archaeological sites of similar antiquity in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Enigmatic Perforated Stone Disk and Grooved Stones from Three Caves Sites in Sumatra

2024-01-13T16:06:06+07:00

Ground stone tools, especially perforated stone disks and grooved stones, are rarely discussed in Indonesian prehistory. In terms of its quantity and workmanship, these types of artifacts are fairly unique. They are often limited in quantity, which makes it difficult to compare with the other references. Moreover, their technological aspect still needs to be widely understood by academics. For the first time in Indonesia, this article will discuss perforated stone disks and grooved stones in the context of prehistoric cave sites in Sumatra. Through formal analysis of its attributes at medium to high magnification, we provide a reference for their technological aspects as well as the context of the artifact. Our study reveals that both types of artifacts appear to be closely related to the aquatic culture. The practical function of these artifacts is associated with a fishery tradition on the rivers inland. Our argument is corroborated by the remnants of aquatic fauna associated with these two types of artifacts. Apart from that, the perforated stone disks that were previously reported were found in the mainland of Southeast Asia and, in fact, also found in Sumatra. It further emphasizes the connection between the cultural entities of prehistoric populations that inhabited insular and mainland Southeast Asia.

First Experimental Iron Process Based on The Montalat Iron Sites in Central Kalimantan – Indonesia

2023-12-29T17:20:35+07:00

This article is based on an experimental iron furnace from archaeological sites in Central Kalimantan – Indonesia, from July 2019. The iron furnace for the experiment is replicated the original iron furnaces from the latest research found in 2017 in the Benangin and Temelalo sites from Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. The experiment aims to prove whether the iron furnace can melt metal. From the archaeological experiment we can answer questions about the iron process in Central Kalimantan in the past with the local resource’s laterite and hematite. From archaeological experiments, duplicate iron furnaces can make iron raw materials into melts and extract iron from hematite and laterite raw materials. The results showed that the ancient people in Central Kalimantan were able to make iron from raw materials and process it as iron ingot.

Burial System in Karakelang Island, Talaud Regency, North Sulawesi

2023-10-26T16:34:59+07:00

Karakelang is an island which administratively located in Talaud Islands Regency, North Sulawesi. As one of the migration entrances of immigrants from the north of Indonesia islands, Talaud has become a quite wide area of prehistorical findings site dispersion and various activities that occurred in Talaud that provide the proof of civilization. One of the civilization heritages is burial system. This writing aims to explore the burial system in Karakelang Island in the past by looking at the site dispersion potential of occupancy area. The data were collected through survey and excavation. The research result shows that the collected occupancy sites in Karakelang reflect the burial activities in this area. The dispersion of occupancy site and burial system in Karakelang Island were parts of adaptation system of the people in Karakelang Island. It was mostly influenced by the natural resources that closely related to the developed local culture in Talaud.