MISSING TYPES: OVERCOMING THE TYPOLOGY DILEMMA OF LITHIC ARCHAEOLOGY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA.
2009-06-29

In Europe as well as in the Americas, typology of at least some key forms was and still is the basis of relative chronology. For Southeast Asian prehistory, attempts to classify lithic assemblages morphologically and technologically in order to fit them into established stone tool typologies from other parts of the world have not proved to be very useful. Up to now, the formation of a specific regional typology system has failed. Session 1C of the 18 Congress of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association at Manila (Fig. 1) wanted to explore the “missing types”-problem and adjacent questions. Is the typological approach not appropriate to the special characteristics and circumstances of lithic industries in Southeast Asia? Why do we know of only a few formal “Asian” types and how did the availability and acquisition of raw material influence lithic technology? Are morphological features of lithic artefacts significant enough at all to establish an acceptable chronology system of lithic periods? How can morphological features of lithic artefacts be linked to geostratigraphy in Southeast Asia? Can non-stratified surface finds contribute to Palaeolithic and Neolithic chronologies in that region? And if we dismiss the typological approach, what are the alternatives? Mirroring the state of discussion in lithic analysis in Southeast Asian archaeology, the contributions of the session covered a broad range of subjects. With his talk titled “River basin archaeology” Israel B. Cabanilla (University of the Philippines) reviewed aspects of early Philippine prehistory and site formation. Palaeolithic sites in the Philippines seemingly date back to 400-500,000 years. While most of the investigated Palaeolithic sites are situated in Northern Luzon and on Palawan Island, Cabanilla focused in his talk on the river basins of the Manila area. In his examination of the vast collection of H. Otley Beyer (1947), a pioneer in Philippine archaeology, and of various surveys of the National Museum conducted since the 1960s by Robert Fox and others, Cabanilla revealed that a major share of lithic artefacts originate from the Manila region and are associated with the tributaries of Manila Bay and Laguna de Bay like Marilao, Pasig and Santa Mesa. In her presentation on “Pleistocene stone tools of New Guinea: a new analysis from the Far East of the Far East”, Susan Bulmer (Auckland, New Zealand) mooted artefacts from New Guinea which have long been ignored. Stone tool assemblages from five excavations in the Central Highlands of Papua New Guinea were restudied: four rockshelters in and near the Wahgi Valley, and one openair site, a natural swamp that was first cultivated at around 10,000 BP. Bulmer focused mainly on Pleistocene axes and axe-like tools and compared the evidence of the Highlands with two other Pleistocene sites, Bobongara and Kosipe, the former found on the former coastline and the latter found high on the edge of the upper mountain forest. The types defined are based on empirical attributes such as size, shape, the position and nature of their working edges, and the wear they exhibit. A provisional chronology of the stone tools has been suggested.