Dominik Bonatz/Mai Lin Tjoa-Bonatz: More than 3400 years of pottery traditions in Highland Jambi on Sumatra

Free University of Berlin, Germany tjoabonatz@hotmail.com

Introduction Our knowledge on historic period pottery traditions on Sumatra has increased substantially in the past 50 years.1 In contrast, the prehistoric earthenware still remains largely understudied. Many prehistoric sites lack verified dates. Missing, too, are in particular detailed ceramic studies to document the typology and chronology of earthenware in the highlands of Sumatra. From 2002-2008 the early material culture of highland Jambi was examined through the initiative of the Free University of Berlin, sponsored by the Swiss-Liechtenstein Foundation for Archaeological Research Abroad (SLSA). Our Highland Jambi Research Project has undertaken extensive surveys and six excavations of which two where pursued at megalithic sites. Our surveys have provided evidence that earthenware is widely distributed in Highland Jambi during more than 3400 years. I will present new finds from our latest 4th field campaign in 2008 which was conducted in cooperation with the Free University of Berlin, the PUSLIT ARKENAS (Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional), the Balai Palembang, and the Bern University.2 This excavation at a stone tool workshop site in Serempas gives new insights into an artefact assemblage of an early pottery using community. The pottery can be directly associated with lithic materials. The cord- and basket-marked earthenware was produced locally but interregional exchange connections are also attested. In Highland Jambi, no thorough analyses have been undertaken after the first ceramic description of the region given by Thomas van der Hoop in 1940. The following pottery study, therefore, is still in its initial stages with the establishment of a typology and a chronological framework within the study area taking precedence over studies of function and context.

The site Highland Jambi forms part of the Barisan Mountains where the highest volcano of Indonesia, the Gunung Kerinci, reaches 3805 m. This mountain range is the water shed between the wide plain of East Sumatra and the West coast of Sumatra. Highland Jambi includes the fertile valleys of Kerinci, Serampas, Pratin Tuo, and Sungai Tenang. In Highland Jambi, so far the oldest pottery is that discovered in Serampas on the mound of Bukit Arat southwest to the modern-day village of Renah Kemumu which lies in the Seblat National Park. This open site on an elevated terrain is in close conjunction to a stream and a fertile plain, where today wide rice terraces expand. Five areas of 252 m where excavated until an average depth of 1,05 m before the natural soil begins. The community of Bukit Arat probably lived in perishable shelters. No The current state of knowledge was lately summarised by Edwards McKinnon in 2003. The team included Indonesian, German, and Swiss researchers and students: Prof. Dr. Dominik Bonatz (Freie Universitt Berlin), Amardi (Balai Arkeologi Palembang), Tri Marhaini (Balai Arkeologi Palembang), Sebastian Steiger (Universitt Bern), Dr. Mai Lin Tjoa-Bonatz (Freie Universitt Berlin), Manfred Tonch (Freie Universitt Berlin).
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features, neither house posts, pits nor hearths, were discovered but the excavated pottery and stone tools leave enough evidence for domestic activities. Irregular bigger stones which were found on site might have been used as working or sitting platforms due to the concentration of artefacts in close vicinity. In the areas A-D mostly stone tools together with pottery sherds were unearthened, whereas in area E the earthenware prevailed. Most of the 3175 collected stone objects report debitage:

Material Obsidian

Quantity 220 18 1392

Stone tools blades (205 flakes, dorsal part of the cortex) roughly ovoid hammerstones for producing the flakes and blades chips (smaller than 2 cm) flakes oblate grinding stones or anvils Scrapper

Silex Tuff

22 7 1

This collection suggests that Bukit Arat was a stone tool making site or workshop containing a variety of stone assemblages ranging from cores, hammerstones, flakes, and debitage as well as finished tools such as blades and a large adze in the tradition of the Hoabinhian techno complex (Bonatz 2007: fig. 15). Obsidian and tuff is omnipresent in the volcanic region of the highlands, whereas silex must have been obtained from lower regions. Thus the community on Buki Arat participated in long-distance exchange to obtain the raw material or the finished products.

The manufacturing of the pottery Associated with the stone tools are fairly weathered and small potsherds which belong to hightempered and brittle vessels. Their bad condition can be partly explained by the high acidity of the soil, partly by their coarse fabric. From the total of 1040 pottery sherds 55 diagnostic ones were analyzed. According to archaeometric analysis, the pottery from Highland Jambi is made from an iron rich clay of volcanic origin. It is not clear whether these volcanic fragments such as feldspars, glass, and pumice are natural inclusions or if they were intentionally added as temper (Bonatz 2006b). The firing temperature was generally low and probably not well controlled. Therefore the surface colour is uneven and bears multiple colours of orange to red-brownish and black colour. Numerous sherds have a dark core. The vessels were manufactured by the paddle and anvil technique. The excavations on the site yielded stones of an oblate form and a diameter of 5-8 cm as well as clay objects with a short handle and one flat side which look like elephant feet (BA-06-2-16, BA-27-23, BA-168). I would like to discuss if both objects could have been used as anvil from the inside of a vessel to which a short flat and incised wooden beater was opposed. The use of these elephant feet as potting tool is still an open question. In my previous article I interpreted them as cooking stands (Tjoa-Bonatz 2009: 219) but they are neither smoked nor did we recover several of them at one location. Following a similar debate (Stark 2003: 215) in which stove fragments of Cambodia are also described as pottery anvils, it seems difficult to clearly distinguish between pottery making tools and cooking utensils. The abundant
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Different to the other examples this object is hollow. 2

potting clay and these tools reinforce the idea that pottery was manufactured on site. At later sites of the region fired clay balls similar to examples shown in a 19th century European illustration from Sungai Pagu on the upper Batanghari River were most likely used as anvils (Tri Marhaeni 2006: fig. on p. 45; Bonatz 2006: fig. 12; Hasselt 1881: plate CVII, 1-2, 6). This is similar to present-day techniques applied by the female potter in Kerinci who takes a stone together with a flat beater made of wood or a longer round stick made of bamboo (Bonatz 2004: fig. 8). The paddle and anvil technique leaves a series of impressions in the clay. It creates carved paddle impressions on the inside and cord- and net-marked patterns on the outside. The patterns on the outside occur as a result of grooves, which are cut into the paddle, or a string or a net, which is wrapped around the paddle. This texturing treatment is applied to the body of a vessel, sometimes reaching as high as the neck. The final character of the surface, which shows different patterns of thinner, wider or deeper striations as well as ridges (BA157-8), hatches with lozenges or a regular grid (BA 57-4), is dependent on many factors like the size or the shape of the carved paddle, the direction or frequency of employment by the potter, or the condition of the clay. Therefore it remains a question if these marks were intentionally meant as decoration or were simply marks of a production trait. This impressed decoration was applied in Serampas and Kerinci until the 20th century and is therefore not a style variability as a means of chronological evidence as suggested by van der Hoop (1938). Apart from this surface treatment only two tiny sherds with small impressed circles (BA 57-2) and a rib-pattern (BA 153-13) attest alternative but rarely used decorative techniques.

The forms The pottery assemblage comprises round-bottomed bowls and pots. Some of them had spherical handles (BA 68-3, BA 11-3, BA 201-5) or could be covered by convex-shaped lids with high inwardcurving knops (BA-52-6, BA-157-4/-6, BA-205-9). The bowls can be distinguished between spherical ones with a small diameter between 12-14 cm and more shallow but wider bowls or better to say plates with a diameter between 22-23 cm. The rim profile of the smaller bowls are straight and flat (BA-205-7) or slightly inverted (BA-52-8), whereas those of the wider bowls have an everted and thickened (BA 157-5) or an ondulated rim (BA-6-10, BA 52-4). These saw-tooth-rims were created by regular finger impressions or a thin tool set obliquely or straight. This characteristic rim decoration will be employed for many centuries in particular in the Serampas region such as at the megalithic site of Bukit Batu Larung of the 12-14th century and the fortified settlement of Dusun Tinggi of the 18/20th century. Among the pottery assemblage more frequently found are carinated pots with a short neck and rounded shoulder (BA 114-2, BA 104-2) which reveal a much wider repertoire of rim shapes than the bowls: flattened (BA-01-2), thickened (BA-166-1), thickened and everted (BA-52-3, BA-153-4, BA100-2, BA-133-3, BA-205-1), set obliquely (BA 107-1) and an ondulated one (BA-61-9, BA-205-8, BA205-6, BA-104-2). Among these round sided pots, we tend to distinguish the storage vessels with thin walls and a diameter from 8-14 cm, whereas the cooking pots - some sherds showed soot blackening - tend to be thicker (from 0,3-0,6 cm) and with a wider diameter up to 24 cm. Not many forms could be reconstructed by base forms or function. A main distinction is therefore whether the vessel mouth is open or restricted. It seems that the profile of the lips was 3

neither determined to a certain shape nor to a specific function. The vessel shapes suggest a domestic usage of the pottery: storage, cooking, and the preparation of food.

Dating Six sherds were analyzed by thermoluminescence-measurements and revealed the astonishing early date that the vessels were burnt between 1400 and 900 BC.4 In detail the dates for the site are:

BA 157-2: BA 57-4: BA 123-4: BA 57-2: BA 157-8: BA 107-1:

1390 260 BC 1285 265 BC 1240 250 BC 1205 270 BC 1040 235 BC 910 200 BC

(Lab.code D2246) (Lab.code D2241) (Lab.code D2245) (Lab.code D2242) (Lab.code D2247) (Lab.code D2243)

Although the time span rises up to 270 years, this technique was the only way to date pottery of a prehistoric open site of rather limited depth. C14-measurements were not applicable. The charcoal samples though retrieved from deeper layers were of much younger date.5 The dates cover a period of 500 years and we might consider that a rather limited number of vessels were in use of many generations. The Bukit Arat site may be inhabited in later periods what is indicated by some few sherds of Quing-Dynasty porcelain dating to the 19th century. These sherds were found in the upper layers. So far the pottery of Bukit Arat seems to be one of the earliest sites on Sumatra where earthenware was made. It is still an open question if the pottery-making technology itself was evolved locally in Highland Jambi or if the ceramic production appeared to be an element which developed due to cultural contacts or movements overland. The best comparison offers the open site of Benua Keling Lama in Pasemah which revealed undecorated pottery of around 1550 BC.6 There might be more Neolithic sites in South or West Sumatra where jar burials were excavated by Indonesian teams but they do not provide any reliable dates.7 Of younger date and very different in style are the Neolithic layers of Pondok Silabe I in Southeast Sumatra which date from around 700 BC. The white-paste earthenware is more refined and shows a big variety of impressed, gouched, pricked, and incised decorations (Truman Simanjuntak/Forestier 2005: 112). The definition and timing of the Neolithic on Sumatra is still debated (Bonatz 2009) but for sure this period involves the transition to some form of settled life. The site of Bukti Arat expands our The measurements were done by the CUDaM, Laboratorio di Termoluminescenza, Universit degli Studi di Milano-Biccoca. One sample BA111-4 (Lab.code 2244) could not be dated due to the absence of measurable TL emission or sensitivity. 5 Two samples taken from area C, location 2, area D, location 3, were of modern times whereas one sample of area B, location 3-4, was dated to 1421-1528 AD. 6 See Guillaud (et al. 2006: 45-46). Contrary to the text figure 33 does not show the pottery of the oldest level of 3560 220 BP but a younger pot of 840 130 BP. 7 Such as the following sites in Lintang (Kunduran, Muara Betung, Muara Payang (Kristantina Indiastuti 2003; 2006: fig. on p. 10), Seneman, Gunung Meraksa, in the province of Bengkulu the area of Rejang (Kristantina Indiastuti 2004), and in Lampung at Batu Badak (Ratna Indraningsih 1985: fig. 22-23). 4
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knowledge on these early communities living under perishable shelters at open sites and using stone tools as well as locally produced earthenware. They engaged in subsistence activities using the pottery to preserve horticultural products. Sites of the 12-14th centuries Our excavations at a jar burial and three megalithic sites in Kerinci and Serempas (Bukit Batu Larung, Pondok) in addition to five excavations conducted by different Indonesian teams in the study region add important data on the material culture of the 12-14th centuries.8 Despite the wide time gap between the pottery of Bukit Arat and the earthenware of these later sites, there are still many traits which seem to be kept during the following centuries such as the saw-tooth-rim, the fabric, and the basic forms of bowls as well as pots with carinated bodies and everted rims above a short neck which remain most commonly found. The majority of the vessels are round-bottomed; others are elevated on a relatively high flaring foot. Due to more intensive trade relations with the lowlands, major innovations result in an increasing diversity of vessel and the rim forms, embellishing techniques, and an extended use of the earthenware as ritual objects. The amount of stylistic and technological similarities of the excavated pottery in such a vast region of Highland Jambi indicates that these people had regular contacts with each other. At the end of the 12th century a dense settlement system was well developed and consistent trade contacts with the lowlands existed. Sites of the 18-20th centuries The youngest excavation sites, Sungai Hangat in Kerinci and Dusun Tinggi in Serampas, provide insights into two rather distinctive pottery assemblages from the 18th to the early 20th century. The first site gives a good example of how over time villages started specializing in pottery production and developed specific new types of ceramics and wares of a finer paste (Bonatz 2006a/b). Decorative patterns such as incising, impressing, paddle-marks, applications characteristic of the early phase continued to be applied. The earthenware of the second site, the fortified settlement of Dusun Tinggi in Serampas, is more coarsely textured and the repertoire of earthenware forms is rather limited, consisting of those commonly recovered from earlier centuries (Tjoa-Bonatz 2009: 221; Neidel 2009: 334-335). Since the 17th or 18th centuries the vessel forms and their decoration in Kerinci seem to have become increasingly distinct from those in Serampas. Earthenware was locally produced in Highland Jambi from at least 1400 BC until the early 20th century as one of the main domestic items. Starting with the site of Bukit Arat we can develop a regional typology which hopefully provides chronological anchors for the reconstruction of other prehistoric and historic sequences on Sumatra. Until now, Bukit Arat together with Benua Keling Lama in Pasemah both of the 2nd millennium BC represent the earliest dated sites with earthenware on Sumatra.

Bagyo Prasetyo et al. 1994: 25-27; Tri Marhaeni 2006; 2008; Bonatz 2006b; Bonatz/Neidel/TjoaBonatz 2006; Tjoa-Bonatz 2009. The two sites of Muak and Pratin Tuo did not provide much earthenware (Laporan 1995; 1996). 5

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Ratna Indraningsih, J. 1985 Laporan Penelitian Arkeologi di Lampung. 33. Jakarta: Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan. Laporan 1995 Progress report ekskavasi di desa Muak, kecamatan Perwakilan Batang Merangi, kabupaten Kerinci, Propinsi Jambi. Jambi: SUAKA Peninggalan Sejarah dan Purbakala Propinsi Jambi, Sumatera Selatan dan Bengkulu. 1996 Laporan ekskavasi situs Pratintuo dan Nilodingin, kecamatan Muarasiau, kabupaten Sarolangun Bangko, Provinsi Jambi. Jambi: SUAKA Peninggalan Sejarah dan Purbakala Provinsi Jambi, Sumatera Selatan dan Bengkulu. Neidel, David 2009 Settlement Histories of Serampas: Multiple Sources, Conflicting Data, and the Problem of Historical Reconstruction, in From Distant Tales. Ethnohistory and Archaeology in Highland Sumatra, ed. Dominik Bonatz, John Miksic, John D. Neidel, and Mai Lin Tjoa-Bonatz. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press: 323-346. Stark, Miriam 2003 The Chronology: Technology and Contexts of Earthenware Ceramics in Cambodia, in Earthenware in Southeast Asia. Proceedings of the Singapore Symposium on Premodern Southeast Asian Earthenwares, ed. John N. Miksic. Singapore: Singapore University Press. Tjoa-Bonatz, Mai Lin 2008 The Megaliths and the Pottery. Studying the early material culture of Highland Jambi, in From Distant Tales. Ethnohistory and Archaeology in Highland Sumatra, ed. Dominik Bonatz, John Miksic, John D. Neidel, and Mai Lin Tjoa-Bonatz. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press: 196-228. Tri Marhaeni 2006 Aspek-Aspek Kehidupan Tradisi Megalitik Dataran Tinggi Jambi. Siddhayatra 11 (2): 32-54 2008 Laporan Penelitian Kubur Tempayan situs Lolo Gedan, Kerinci, Jambi. Palembang: Balai Arkeologi Palembang. Truman Sumanjuntak, Hubert Forestier 2004 Research Progress on the Neolithic in Indonesia: Special Reference to the Pondok Silabe Cave, South Sumatra, in Southeast Asian Archaeology. Wilhelm G. Solheim II Festschrift, ed. Victor Paz. Diliman: The University of the Philippines Press: 104-118.