Reflections on the Human Condition - Api-fellowships.org

HERITAGE, IDENTITY, CHANGE AND CONFLICT
NEW HYPOTHESES RESULTING FROM GUA SIRIH RESEARCH,
SARAWAK
Wilhelm G. Solheim II
INTRODUCTION
My mind is in ferment with so many new ideas tumbling
around. This came to a head when I was writing a paper
to present in Kuching on a small portion of my APIsupported
research at Gua Sirih, Sarawak. I was so
shaken by these new ideas that I included in the paper
the date that this happened -19 June 2005. These new
thoughts have to do with the relationships of three
different pottery traditions that were present at Gua
Sirih. Why pottery? (Solheim, 2004)
More or less by accident, I became a specialist in the
earthenware pottery of the Pacific Islands and
Southeast Asia. My beginning in 1948 was organizing
the prehistoric earthenware pottery excavated by
Edward Gifford (Department of Anthropology,
University of California, Berkley) in Fiji. This led to
my Master’s thesis (Solheim, 1952a-b) on Oceanian
earthenware pottery and from then on I became a
specialist in earthenware pottery.
My first publication on earthenware pottery in an
international journal was in 1957. After that, hardly a
year would go by that I did not publish one or more
papers primarily concerned with pottery. I was quite
unhappy, however, that no other Southeast Asian
archaeology specialists were doing the same.
Archaeological reports up until the 1960s included very
little information on the earthenware pottery excavated.
Stone artifacts were what received the attention. In my
papers I kept urging others to pay more attention to
the earthenware pottery, but this developed only very
gradually until the 1970s or so when a new generation
of archaeologists started doing fieldwork on prehistoric
sites in Southeast Asia. The first major book on Southeast
Asian earthenware did not appear until 2003, wherein I
had two papers. (Solheim, 2003a-b)
GUA SIRIH IN SARAWAK, MALAYSIA
I excavated in the site of Gua Sirih in 1959 at the invitation
of Tom Harrisson, then the Curator of the Sarawak
Museum. Where this site is referred to by other than
myself, it is stated that it was excavated by Tom Harrisson
and myself. He was at the site, briefly on two different
days and never took part in the excavation. I had agreed
with Tom that we would write a joint report on the
excavation but this never came about as the Indonesian
Confrontation 1963-1966 developed and Tom had to
put full time in dealing with that.
A year or two after the problem of the Confrontation
was settled, after Tom had left Sarawak, I inquired
about the collection, my notes, and the photographs
and received the unpleasant news that everything
having to do with that excavation had been lost. I gave
up hope of there ever being a final report on the site as
I did not have a duplicate set of the notes. A few years
ago, I heard that the site materials and the recovered
artifacts of the 1959 excavation had been found. Luckily
I heard of the API grants, applied, and received a grant
there for six months research at the Sarawak Museum to
be able to write a final report. I was overjoyed.
There have been several short reports or mention
published on the excavation by myself and one or two
others. While I probably will not be referring to most
of them in this paper, I list a majority of them in the
Reference section for anyone who might be interested
i.e. Solheim, 1959a-b, 1961, 1967, 1973-1974, 1981,
1983, 2003a: 3-4 Fig. 1.2a, 17-18, 2003b, n.d.a-b: 25-
26; Solheim et al. 1959 and 1961. Harrisson, Barbara
1959 and 1960, Wall 1962, Medway 1977, Bellwood
1985 and 1997, Datan and Bellwood 1991, Datan
1993. Several articles on the early rice discovered in
potsherds from Gua Sirih are not included here.
Most of my research and publications up until 2004 had
to do with the Sa Huynh-Kalanay Pottery Tradition,
decoration primarily incised, or the Bau-Malay Pottery
Tradition, primary decoration using a carved-paddle
(Plate I). I had thought very little about the decoration
done with a bound-paddle, except for cord-marking. I
had sort of considered that the use of a bound-paddle
was connected with the Sa Huynh-Kalanay Pottery
Tradition.
(PLATE I)
I think that most archeologists dealing with earthenware
pottery in some detail, including myself, had realized
that both Cord-Marked and Basket-Marked were done
with a bound-paddle (Plate II), but had not thought
Ref lections on the Human Condition: Change, Conflict and Modernity
The Work of the 2004/2005 API Fellows
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