Brief Communications

THEEARLYMETALAGESOF INDONESIA
Alfred G. Smith’s review of H. R. van Heekeren’s book, The Bronze-Iron
Age of Indonesia (American Anthropologist, 1959: 335-336), calls for some
comments since it is likely to create a completely wrong impression of our
present knowledge of the period and cultures in question. I t is largely due to
van Heekeren’s numerous excavations and studies that the veil over Indo-
nesia’s prehistoric past has been lifted a t least to some extent. We ought to
be grateful to him for having undertaken the thankless task of compiling and
digesting the little that is known about the region’s Early Metal Age and he
should not be blamed for deficiencies which are merely due to the lack of
reliable data.
Smith finds fault with van Heekeren because “a whole site is never de-
scribed.” No L‘wholesites” are known. No dwelling place of the period has ever
been discovered. Moreover, most of the early stone cist graves, stone sarcoph-
agi, etc., found so far, had been looted and yielded only poor remnants of
their original contents. Our knowledge of the pre-Hindu metal-using cultures
of Indonesia is therefore mainly based on stray finds, such as bronze axes,
bronze drums, ornaments, or a few moulds. What else could van Heekeren have
done under these circumstances than to give an inventory of the materials?
The two sites tentatively ascribed by van Heekeren to the early metal
period comprise the urn burials of Anjar in western Java, and the urn cemetery
of Melolo on the island of Sumba. Both are described on pages 80-83 and 85-88
of van Heekeren’s book. The cemetery of Melolo yielded stone adzes, beads of
stone and shell, and a shell pendant, but no metal. It was only from the char-
acter and decorations of the earthenware flasks found in some of the burial
urns that I inferred that the cemetery could not antedate the bronze-using
Dongson period. W. J. A. Willems, who carried out excavations a t Melolo but
never published his notes, came to the same conclusion. This was also ac-
cepted by van Heekeren (Heine-Geldern 1945: 148; van Heekeren 1956;
1958:88). Influences of metal-using cultures seem to have spread faster in
Indonesia than metal itself. I t is mainly a question of terminology whether we
should ascribe sites where such influences are discernible-but where no metal
has been found-to the Neolithic or to the Metal Age. This applies, among
others, to the site of Kalumpang in Celebes, where pottery decorated in a style
characteristic of early metal-using cultures of Southeast Asia has been found
in association with a wealth of stone tools, but with no trace of metal (Van der
Hoop 1941:308; Heine-Geldern 1945: 138; van Heekeren 1949; 1957: 118-
120). Neither stone tools nor bronze objects were found in the urn burials of
Anjar, but the few pottery vessels they contained as funerary gifts indicate a
post-neolithic date. Van Heekeren (1 958 :83) cautiously remarks: “No definite
330
 Brief Communications 33 1
conclusions can be drawn as to the age of this graveyard, but we venture to be-
lieve that it does not date back further than about the 2nd or 3rd century
A.D.”
It is inconceivable why the reviewer should single out the bronze kettle
drums from Sumbawa (more correctly from the small island of Sangeang near
Sumbawa) as being described “in the order they were found,” since they actu-
ally were discovered all a t one and the same time. Van Heekeren mentions this
quite clearly (p. 24). There is therefore no excuse for this oversight.
The reviewer alleges that “any piece of bronze, burial urn, or megalith
found within this area [i.e. Indonesia] is automatically attributed [by van
Heekeren] to a Bronze-Iron Age, and the reality of this Bronze-Iron Age is
affirmed by these very pieces.” This reproof is totally unfounded. Smith seems
not to have realized that innumerable ancient bronzes found in Indonesia were
not “automatically attributed to a Bronze-Iron Age” and, of course, not even
mentioned by van Heekeren for the very good reason that they date from the
Hindu-Buddhist period. Any archeologist a t all familiar with Indonesia will
readily agree that, with the possible exception of two specimens the dates of
which I consider as somewhat uncertain, all the bronzes listed by van Heekeren
antedate the establishment of Indian colonies in Indonesia or were a t least
made in the pre-Hindu tradition. Moreover, van Heekeren states quite clearly
that neither megaliths nor urn burials were confined to the prehistoric periods
(pp. 44, 62, 79, 84, 89).
Smith remarks that “for no apparent reason, the text includes four tables ol
detailed quantitative chemical analyses of beads.” Since none of the specimens
analyzed contained barium, any person familiar with Far Eastern archeology
would immediately recognize that they are not of Chinese origin (cf. Seligman
and Beck 1938) but must have been imported from either India or the Mediter-
ranean region. The problem has been discussed by a number of scholars, and
some glass beads of Mediterranean origin found in Malaya and Indonesia have
been dated in the first millennium B.C. (Nieuwenhuis 1904; 1907:232-233;
Beck 1930: 176-181; Van der Hoop 1932: 133-139; Seligman and Beck 1938:
14-15; Heine-Geldern 1945:146; Braddell 1947 :1-10; Harrison 1950;
1954: 110-111). On the other hand, an ancient Chinese source lists glass among
the commodities for which palace officials of the Han period used to sail to the
southern islands and says that the latters’ inhabitants “offered tribute” (i.e.
traded with China) ever since the time of Emperor Wu, 140-86 B.C. (Pelliot
1912:458). Obviously, the ancient glass beads of Malaya and Indonesia testify
to an early sea-borne trade between the West and the countries and islands of
southeastern Asia, a trade which in the Han period extended indirectly as far as
China. It need hardly be stressed that the subject is of considerable interest.
Van Heekeren was, however, quite right in publishing the mere facts, leaving it
to specialists to draw the inferences. The analyses may eventually help them to
determine more exactly the places of origin of the beads in question.
Smith reproves van Heekeren for saying that “in all excavations bronze and
iron objects have been found side by side (van Heekeren 1958: 1, 96), although
332 American Anthropologist [62, 19601
“the data presented in the text indicate no such associations” (Smith 1959).
The statement is again incorrect. Van Heekeren lists several instances in
which bronze and iron objects were actually found side by side. Nevertheless,
in this single instance I agree to a certain extent with Smith’s criticism. The
association of iron tools and weapons with bronze ornaments, as in a stone
sarcophagus of Bali tentatively dated in the first centuries of the Christian era,
and in the equally late-if not later-stone cist graves of Gunung Kidul in
Java, means nothing. There can be no doubt that bronze ornaments were still
produced and worn long after the use of bronze for tools and weapons had been
discontinued. Moreover, those from the Gunung Kidul graves contain no lead
and differ therefore in composition from the truly prehistoric bronzes. With a
single exception (Pradjekan in Java) bronze tools and weapons have so far
never been found together with iron ones.
Conditions are not very much different in mainland Southeast Asia. One
site only, the cemetery of Dongson in northern Annam, yielded both bronze
and iron, besides numerous bronze tools and weapons, a few iron swords,
lance heads,and arrow heads (Goloubew 1929: 30-31). Although the beginnings
of the cemetery date back a t least to around 300 B.C., the site continued to be
used until the middle of the 1st century A.D., when the region was already un-
der Chinese domination. Therefore the presence of a few iron weapons, prob-
ably all of them Chinese imports, does not tell us anything concerning the
original local culture.
On the basis of the evidence available, I consider van Heekeren’s statement
(1958: 96) that neither Indo-China nor Indonesia knew a pure Bronze Age as a t
least premature. As matters stand, we shall do better to distinguish between an
Indonesian Bronze and an Early Iron Age. The chronological dividing line may
possibly coincide with the first establishment of Hindu colonies in the islands.
There must, of course, have been a transitional period, when both bronze and
iron tools and weapons were used side by side, but so far we have only a single
archeological proof of this. At Pradjekan in eastern Java local people found in
the course of some digging operations an iron dagger with a bronze hilt deco-
rated in the pre-Hindu style, together with other bronze objects in the same
style and with a bronze socketed axe (van Heekeren 1958:39-40).
I n conformity with established archeological usage, according to which a
prehistoric culture should be named after the site where it was first recognized
as a distinct entity (cf. such terms as Magdalenian, Hallstatt culture, La Tbne
culture), we should designate the Bronze Age of both continental Southeast
Asia and Indonesia as “Dongson” culture. This has the further advantage of
not prejudicing the possibility that the use of iron may, after all, turn out to be
older than would at present appear. I still subscribe to what I wrote fifteen
years ago (1945 :143) :
. . . it is possible, although in my opinion not very probable, that the knowledge and use
of bronze and iron may have been introduced in Indonesia at the same time. .. .
It is only with
this restriction that we may speak of a Bronze Age in Indonesia. It seems advisable to use, pro-
visionally at least, the term Dongson Culture, leaving the question open whether this culture
 Brief Communications 333
knew iron from the very beginning or whether the use of iron was introduced only during its
final phases.
It is true, as I and others have shown, that the Dongson Culture is distantly
derived from cultures which already knew iron. But does this justify our call-
ing it an Iron Age culture if it did not use iron? We are faced here with the same
problem of terminology as the one I mentioned before with regard to those cul-
tures of Indonesia which had undergone influences from metal-using cultures,
but did not possess metal themselves.
According to Smith, (‘an artifact is never placed by van Heekeren in any
relative or absolute chronology,” and “a context horizon is never identified.”
Van Heekeren discusses the possible dates of bronze kettle drums (pp. 15, 25)
and very cautiously indicates those of beads (pp. 40-41), of megalithic tombs,
of stone cist graves, stone sarcophagi and prehistoric stone statues (pp. 49-51,
58, 75), and of the urn burials of Anjar and Melolo (pp. 83, 88). This is about
as far as one can legitimately go in the present state of our knowledge.
I t is only a t Dongson that we have definite indications of absolute dates; on
the one hand, Chinese bronzes of the Late Chou period of about 300 B.C., if not
earlier, and on the other, Chinese imports of the Han period and several coins
of the Emperor Wang Mang who reigned from A.D. 9 to A.D. 23 (Goloubew
1929: 11; Janse 1935-36; Karlgren 1942:3-8). Even so, our knowledge of the
cemetery of Dongson is still very inadequate, and we shall have to wait for
Janse’s not yet published final report in order to get a clear view of its stratigra-
phy and chronology.
Smith finally censures van Heekeren for having included in his book a brief
abstract of my results concerning the stimuli which the Dongson culture re-
ceived from.the Hallstatt culture and the early Iron Age cultures of the Cau-
casus. Why he brings in La T h e and what he means by saying that “Hallstatt
and La T h e were products of a western migration,” is enigmatic. He ends his
review with four verses in which he sets my views on a par with G. Elliot
Smith’s ‘(children of the sun” and Gladwin’s Alexandrian fleet. Any com-
ment on this would be superfluous.
There are various points on which I disagree with van Heekeren. Neverthe-
less, I take great pleasure in saying that by his book on the Bronze-Iron Age of
Indonesia he has rendered archeology a very real service. He has given us a
base to work upon, even though his documentary inventory of materials may
“read like a laundry list,”as his critic chose to say.
ROBERTHEINE-GELDERN
Institut filr Volkerkunde
Universitat Wien
REFERENCES CITED
BECK,H. C.
1930 Notes on sundry Asiatic beads. Man 30: 166-182.
BRADDELL,
ROLAND
1947 Notes on ancient times in Malaya. Journal Malayan Branch Royal Asiatic Society
20(2): 1J9.
334 American Anthropologist [62, 19601
GOLOUBEW, VICTOR
1929 L’ftge du bronze au Tonkin et dans le Nord-Annam. Bulletin de 1’Ikole Francaise
d’Extr&me-Orient29: 1-46.
HARRISSON, TOM
1950 Kelabit, Land Dayak and related glass beads in Sarawak. Sarawak Museum Journal
5(2): 201-220.
1954 Outside influences on the upland culture of Kelabits of North Central Borneo.
Sarawak Museum Journal 6(4) :104-125.
HEEKEREN,H. R. VAN
1949 Rapport over de ontgraving te Kamasi, Kalumpang (West Centraal-Celebes).
Oudheidkundige Dienst in IndonesiE, Oudheidkundig Verslag 1949:26-48.
1956 The urn cementery at Melolo, East Sumba. Berita Dinas Purbakala, Bulletin of
the Archaeological Service of the Republic of Indonesia 3. Djakarta.
1957 The Stone Age of Indonesia. Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor
Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 21. The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff.
1958 The Bronze-Iron Age of Indonesia. Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut
voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 22. The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff.
HEINE-GELDERN, ROBERT
1945 Prehistoric research in the Netherlands Indies. In Science and Scientists in the
Netherlands Indies. New York, Board for the Netherlands Indies, Surinam and
Curacao.
1958 Steinurnen- und Tonurnenbestattung in Sudostasien. Der Schlern 32: 135-138.
HOOP,A. N. J. TH.A. TH.VANDER
1932 Megalithic remains in South-Sumatra. Zutphen, W. J. Thieme & Cie.
1941 Catalogus der praehistorische verzameling. Koninklijk Bataviaasch Genootschap
van Kunsten en Wetenschappen.
JANSE, OLOV
1935-36 Rapport preliminaire d’une mission archeologique en Indochine. Revue des
Arts Asiatiques 9: 144-153; 10:42-52.
KARLGREN, BERNHARD
1942 The date of the early Dong-so’n culture. Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities Stock-
holm, Bulletin 14: 1-28.
NIEUWENHUIS, A. W.
1904 Kunstperlen und ihre kulturelle Bedeutung. Internationales Archiv fur Ethnogra-
phie 16: 136-153.
1907 Quer durch Borneo, vol. 2. Leiden, E. J. Brill.
PELLIOT,PAUL
1912 Review of Chau Ju-Kua, his work on the Chinese and Arab trade, by Friedrich
Hirth and W. W. Rockhill. T’oung Pao 13:446-481.
SELIGMAN, C. G . and H. C. BECK
1938 Far eastern glass: some western origins. Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities. Stock-
holm, Bulletin 10: 1-64.
SMITH,A. G .
1959 Review of The bronze-iron age of Indonesia, by H. R. van Heekeren. American
Anthropologist 61 :335-336.

REJOINDERTO DR. ROBERTHEINE-GELDERN’S

“THEEARLYMETALAGES OF INDONESIA”
Dr. Heine-Geldern’s first criticism is of the review’s statement that “a
whole site is never described.” He objects, saying that no whole sites exist,
and that, paradoxically, some of them are described by van Heekeren. Ar-
cheologists in Indonesia have been primarily interested in the rich temples