First Islanders: Prehistory and Human Migration in Island Southeast Asia. Peter Bellwood. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell, 2017. 384 pp., 63 figures, 17 plates, bibliographies, index. Hardcover US $95, ISBN 9781119251545; Paperback US $45, ISBN 9781119251552; E-book US $36, ISBN 9781119251583.
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2019-04-09
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This is the third iteration of Peter Bellwood's synthesis of the prehistory of Island Southeast Asia. The first was published in 1985 as The Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago, the second in 1997 with the same title. The pace of research over the past two decades has, in the words of the author, required a major reassessment of the prehistory and early history of this region that stretches from Taiwan to Timor and Sumatra to Seram. Ten particular topics have driven the new appraisal, of which the foremost is the weight of new discoveries. Who could have imagined in 1985 that an entirely new human species would be discovered at Liang Bua on Flores or that the genes of a second new species identified at Denisova in Siberia are represented in modern Melanesia? Advances have also been made on the vital chronological frameworks into which to weave the pattern of cultural changes and migratory movements. This is particularly relevant for the arrival of Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) and the long process of rice and millet domestication and the beginning of metallurgy, the last two of which require dovetailing island and mainland evidence. Bellwood also stresses the phenomenal advances over the last decade in genetics that have provided insights into prehistory unimaginable when he began his career in New Zealand half a century ago.
These and several other advances in, for example, linguistics and bioanthropology in its many subdisciplines are now straining the ability of any single author to distil with authority. It is therefore an innovative and sensible move on the part of Peter Bellwood to invite twelve colleagues to contribute a section on their specialized fields.
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