Research questions in Maluku archaeology

Archaeological research has started late in Maluku compared to regions to the east and west. The first archaeological survey in the region was conducted by Danny Miller and myself in 1975 (see Spriggs 1990 for a summary), and scientific excavations began only in 1990–91, undertaken by Peter Bellwood and his colleagues on Halmahera, Gebe, and Morotai (Bellwood 1992, 1996; Bellwood et al. 1993) and by Wilhelm Solheim on Halmahera. There are advantages and disadvantages to this situation. The advantages stem from the fact that the archaeology conducted in adjacent areas can give an initial framework for chronology in Maluku and suggest suitable research questions to be pursued as work starts there. New results can be given an immediate context within the archaeology of the wider region. The disadvantages stem from the same situation. Maluku is in danger of being seen only as an appendage or footnote to the archaeologies of the better-known areas to either side. New finds will tend to be inter-preted not on their own terms but within frameworks already established in these other areas. We will need to guard against a situation wherein Maluku is not allowed to have its own unique history. It may remain unrecognized, imprisoned within general models derived from else-where. Having said that, we need to start somewhere, and in the absence of any archaeological research at all on most islands in Maluku it would be pointless to interpret the region's history as if we knew nothing of areas nearby. In a paper given at the First Maluku Studies Conference in 1986, I sketched what was then known about Maluku archaeology and how it fitted into the regional picture (Spriggs 1990). Since that time research has started in northern Maluku, as already noted, and further archaeo-logical work has been conducted in Maluku Tengah by a joint Indone