Changing research perspectives from Australia's doorstep: the joint Australian-Indonesian Aru Islands Initiative and the archaeology of East Timor

[Extract] This paper reports on survey and excavation programs that have been carried our in the Aru Islands (Maluku Province) of eastern Indonesia and in East Timor over the last nine years (see Fig. 13.1 for srudy areas). The research focus was provided by the presence of pre-50,000 BP dates for\ud occupation from northern Australia (Roberts et at. 1994) and the lack of any dares for occupation from si tes on proximal island chains, logically assumed to have served as donors for successive colonists. Here we comment on changing research perspectives arising from the Joint Australian- Indonesian\ud Archaeological Project: Prehistory of the Aru Islands and the East Timor Archaeological Project (ETAP).\ud \ud Systematic archaeological research began la te in Maluku Province, in comparison with regions to its east and west. The first archaeological survey in the region was conducted by Danny Miller and Matthew Spriggs in 1975 on Ambon, Haruku, Saparua and West Seram, with shorter visits to Banda and Kei. Scientific excavations began only in 1990-91, with Peter Bellwood and his colleagues on Halmahera, Gehe and Morotai, and Wilhelm Solheim on Halmahera (see Bellwood et at. 1998; Spriggs 1998a and 1998b for full discussion)