| Abstract: |
Reconstructing the process of the peopling of the vast region which constitutes the Pacific continues. Even if the number of different archaeological sites on the map grows all the time there are still numerous gaps, not only for the Pleistocene but even up to the recent part of the Holocene. The intervisibility of islands, the technological capacities revealed or suggested, disparities among different ceramic and lithic typologies, even questions of artefacts distribution, are among the parameters which are far from being resolved. The origin, expansion and the use of space by the Austronesians still produce problems of interpretation. "Lapita" questions, whatever may be the indisputable contributions furnished by interdisciplinary projects, remain controversial. It is on the margins of what has been previously defined and set down by geography, that new results can be expected. In particular, one notes the research which has begun in Wallacea over the last few years on the adjacent archipelagoes of Borneo, Sulawesi, Maluku and Timor, which constitutes the transition zone between continental Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. Recent discoveries made in Kalimantan on the island of Borneo of pottery, stone tools industries, and painted rock art in particular, located right in this zone, have already begun to contribute new evidence of relevance to old questions.
|
