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Article Excerpt
Abstract
We present evidence for a significant shift in human landscape use in post 1000 AD East Timor towards fortified and defensively-oriented settlement sites. We propose a model of agents selecting to invest in fortification building that is based on the spatial and temporal variation in the availability of rainfall-dependent resources. These resources may have been significantly impacted by climatic events associated with ENSO variation, and we discuss spatial and temporal correlation with ENSO warm phase frequency and dates of initial fortification building.
Keywords: Climate change, ENSO, fortifications, warfare, East Timor
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Hundreds of stone walled structures are visible on hilltops and cliff edges in the contemporary landscape of north coastal East Timor (Figure 1). These structures are remembered by local inhabitants as places occupied in the past during a time of internecine warfare, mostly before living memory. Recent archaeological work supports the interpretation that these structures served as fortified settlements, and that people shifted suddenly to this settlement pattern only after 1000 AD, despite over 35,000 years of human occupation of Timor (e.g. Lape 2006). In this paper, we propose a model based on rainfall dependent resource distribution across time and space that could explain this sudden shift in settlement pattern, and then apply paleoenvironmental and recently collected archaeological data to test this model. Of particular interest is the history of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which may have had considerable impact on East Timor during the past 1000 years. In recent decades, El Nino caused drought in much of Island Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. Although there are not yet any paleoenvironmental data from East Timor itself, a variety of proxy data from regions with demonstrated teleconnections to East Timor's climate indicate that El Nino events were much more frequent in the past than in the 20th century. Below we will review the culture history of East Timor, introduce our model, test it with archaeological and paleoenvironmental data and discuss the results.
Culture history of East Timor in a regional context
Prior to its separation and subsequent independence from Indonesia in 1999, East Timor had seen relatively little attention from archaeologists. Most work published to date has been conducted on an uplifted limestone plateau in the easternmost Lautem district, where dates of human occupation as early as 35,000 BP have been identified in several solution cave sites (O'Connor 2003; O'Connor and Veth 2005; O'Connor, et al. 2002; Spriggs, et al. 2003). The rich rock art of this region has also been subject to recent investigation (Lape, et al. 2007; O'Connor 2003; O'Connor and Oliveira 2007).
This research, building on earlier work in the 1950s and 1960s (Almeida 1961a, 1961b; Almeida and Almeida 1959; Almeida and Zbyszewski 1967; Glover 1970, 1986), indicates that East Timor's culture history follows patterns found elsewhere in Island Southeast Asia. The earliest sites dating to 30-40,000 BP are in limestone caves, probably because caves provide better conditions for preservation and site visibility. Between 4000 and 3500 years ago, there was a shift from a hunting/fishing/gathering economy to a farming economy, characterized archaeologically by the presence of domesticated animals including pigs, chickens, dogs, agriculture and earthenware pottery (Bellwood 1997, 2004). Goats were likely to have been introduced after 1000 AD. Although Glover claims a date of 5000 BP for goats in East Timor, this is not supported anywhere else in Island Southeast Asia (Glover 1986). Rice agriculture appears to have been practiced in the Philippines, but early agriculture in southern Island Southeast Asia, including Timor, is poorly understood (O'Connor 2006; Spriggs 2003). It is likely to have included the cultivation of fruit and nut beating trees, sago and root crops such as taro and yams (Latinis 2000; Stark and Latinis 1992). Land use probably combined swiddening and utilization of existing wetlands for appropriate root crops. The introduction of metal tools to the region sometime after 2000 BP probably allowed more intensive land clearance in a wider variety of forest ecosystems than stone tools and fire alone. Irrigation systems were not introduced into the region until the first millennium AD, probably later than that in East Timor, although there are few hard data on the history of agricultural practices.
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Regarding settlement patterns, evidence from cave and rockshelter sites in East Timor indicates continued use of these areas from the earliest human presence on the island to today. Caves are still used for ceremonial purposes and in recent memory were places of refuge during warfare (Pannell and O'Connor 2005). However, we have much less evidence for human settlement outside of caves and rockshelters in Island Southeast Asia. In East Timor, coastal shell middens have been dated to the post 4000 BP era, and we have found undated lithic scatters and the fortified sites discussed in more detail below. In other parts of Island Southeast Asia, a similar bias to cave sites exists for the early "Neolithic" period (4000-2000 BP), with a few exceptions (Lape 2000a; Simanjuntak and Forestier 2005). More non-cave sites have been excavated dating to the post 2000 BP period, and these sites provide some insight into settlement patterns. By this time, if not earlier, people were living in houses clustered into villages and towns in much of Island Southeast Asia, particularly the better documented coastal areas (Bacus 1999; Bulbeck, et al. 2001; Bulbeck and Prasetyo 2000). A rich documentary record, particularly for times after the arrival of first sustained contact with Europeans after 1512 AD, also supports the archaeological evidence (e.g. Reid 1988, 1993; Stoler 1989; Wolters 1999). Both lines of evidence also suggest that raiding and trading were dominant in the social systems of Island Southeast Asia, including East Timor (Fox and Soares 2000; Gunn 1999; Junker 1999).
Since 2003, we have been investigating the stone walled structures common on certain parts of the landscape of the Lautem and Manatuto districts on the north coast of East Timor (Chao in press; Lape 2006). These sites appeared similar to fortified settlements found in certain other parts of Island Southeast Asia and Oceania, most of which date to the same period, 1100-1700 AD (Field and Lape in preparation). Based on an admittedly cave-biased archaeological record, these fortified settlements represent a dramatic shift in landscape use by people in north coastal East Timor. Although it isn't clear where people were living outside of caves and rockshelters prior to 1100 AD, they were not living on cliff edges or hilltops. Below, we present our model of settlement locale choice that may explain this shift.
Climate sensitive settlement choice model
Frameworks based on evolutionary ecology are useful for incorporating environmental changes into models of human behavior (e.g. Dyson-Hudson and Smith 1978; Kennett, et al. 2006). These frameworks can be used to map the highly complex adaptations to environmental changes by both human and non-human organisms within ecosystems. An externally introduced change, such as a rainfall anomaly, will stimulate a variety of responses by organisms within ecosystems, which in turn will stimulate a variety of counter-responses and adaptations in linked organisms. By definition, all organisms will adapt to new conditions (or perish), and changing conditions provide both new opportunities and challenges for these organisms. Human cultural responses are of course extraordinarily complex, as culture and memory cannot be reduced to biological adaptation. However, it is a realistic project to model human response options within an evolving ecological system, incorporating factors such as predictability, risk, and bethedging (e.g. other papers in this issue, Kennett and Clifford 2004; Kennett and Kennett 2000).
Our model proposes a causal link between fortification building and spatial and temporal changes in the availability of rainfall-dependant resources. Although many factors undoubtedly affected the choices available to people in East Timor with regard to...
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