A standardised classification scheme for the Mid-Holocene Toalean artefacts of South Sulawesi, Indonesia

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Perston, Yinika
Moore, Mark
Suryatman
Langley, Michelle
Hakim, Budianto
Oktaviana, Adhi Agus
Brumm, Adam
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2021
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Abstract

The archaeology of Sulawesi is important for developing an understanding of human dispersal and occupation of central Island Southeast Asia. Through over a century of archaeological work, multiple human populations in the southwestern region of Sulawesi have been identified, the most well-documented being that of the Mid- to Late Holocene ‘Toalean’ technological period. Archaeological models for this period describe a population with a strong cultural identity, subdivided into groups living on the coastal plains around Maros as well as dispersed upland forest dwellers, hunting endemic wildlife with bow-and-arrow technology. It has been proposed that the Toaleans were capable of vast water-crossings, with possible cultural exchange with northern Australia, Java, and Japan. This Toalean paradigm is built almost exclusively on existing interpretations of distinctive Toalean stone and bone artefact technologies, constructed on out-dated 19th and 20th century theory. Moreover, current definitions of Toalean artefact types are inconsistently applied and unsystematic, and the manufacturing sequence has historically been poorly understood. To address these problems in existing artefact models and typologies, we present a clarified typology of the Toalean artefacts of South Sulawesi, and describe the technical aspects of artefact production. This typology provides a tool for standardising research and will facilitate more meaningful assessments of material culture repertoires and more reliable assessment of spatial and temporal changes for the region.

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PLoS One

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16

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5

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FT160100119

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© 2021 Perston et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Archaeology

Archaeology

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Perston, Y; Moore, M; Suryatman, ; Langley, M; Hakim, B; Oktaviana, AA; Brumm, A, A standardised classification scheme for the Mid-Holocene Toalean artefacts of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, PLoS One, 2021, 16 (5), pp. e0251138

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