Current issues on prehistory and protohistory in Malaysian archaeology,
Nik Hassan Shuhaimi Nik Abdul Rahman’s 2007 article in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Vol. 80, Part 1) presents a comprehensive reassessment of Malaysian prehistory and protohistory, arguing that cultural transformations from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic and the rise of early Indianized kingdoms were driven by internal development and trade networks rather than by the migratory waves posited by Heine-Geldern and his successors. The author draws on excavation data from sites across Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak, and Sabah to challenge both the Austronesian migration theory and Quaritch-Wales’ colonist model of Indianization, proposing instead a continuous, locally rooted developmental sequence.
Summary
The article opens by establishing the accepted chronological framework for Malaysian prehistory, spanning from the Palaeolithic (c. 70,000–2,500 BCE) through the Hoabinhian/Mesolithic, Neolithic, Metal Age, Early Kingdoms, and Early Islamic periods. It then turns to the migration theory, tracing its origins to Heine-Geldern’s 1930s formulation that Austronesian speakers bearing the “quadrangular adze culture” invaded the Malay Peninsula from the north, displacing or replacing earlier Austro-Asiatic-speaking populations. The author reviews the evidence marshalled by supporters such as Sieveking, Duff, Sorensen, Heekeren, and Bellwood, noting their reliance on pottery assemblages with supposed Lungshanoid affinities and the distribution of ground stone adzes.
The core of the argument is a systematic dismantling of the migration hypothesis. The author points to the presence of beaked adzes and stone pounders—artefact types unknown at mainland sites such as Sai Yok and Ban Kao—which Duff himself struggled to accommodate within the Austronesian quadrangular adze model. Stone bark-cloth beaters, found in association with Neolithic, Hoabinhian, and even iron-age assemblages, further demonstrate that the Neolithic culture of the Malay Peninsula was a mixed, locally developed assemblage rather than a single intrusive package. The author concludes that the plausible sociocultural transition from Hoabinhian to Neolithic was the product of environmental adaptation, neighbourly contact, and barter trade along inland and coastal routes, not seaborne migration.
The second major section addresses the Bujang Valley in Kedah, where the author revises the periodization of the early kingdom. He argues that the earliest centre was at Sungai Mas and the area south of the Sungai Merbok, where four of the five major Buddhist inscriptions were found, along with Buddhist sculptures and Tang-period ceramics. This Buddhist phase, dating from the fifth to the tenth century AD, was followed by a Saivite phase centred on Pengkalan Bujang from the late eleventh to the fourteenth century, marked by vimana-mandapa type temples and Song-Yuan ceramics. The author explicitly rejects Quaritch-Wales’ tripartite scheme of Buddhist, Hindu-Pallava, and Mahayana phases, demonstrating that the vimana-mandapa temples are Saivite and closely dated to one another, thereby invalidating the notion of successive Indian colonial incursions.
Key Findings
- The latest date for the Kota Tampan Palaeolithic site, derived from Universiti Sains Malaysia research, is approximately 70,000 years, based on ash layers from the Mount Toba eruption (p. 42).
- Beaked adzes and stone pounders, found at sites across Kedah, Kelantan, Perak, Selangor, Pahang, and southern Thailand, are absent from mainland Neolithic sites such as Sai Yok and Ban Kao, undermining the claim that the Malay Peninsula Neolithic was a single intrusive Austronesian package (pp. 44–45).
- Stone bark-cloth beaters occur in association with Neolithic, Hoabinhian, and iron-age assemblages at sites including Gua Cha, Gua Madu, Gua Kelawar, and Changkat Menteri, indicating they belong to a continuous local cultural horizon rather than a migrating population (p. 45).
- Four of the five major Buddhist inscriptions from Kedah (Bukit Meriam, Bukit Choras, Sungai Mas, and Cherok Tokun) originate from the Sungai Mas area, supporting its identification as the earliest centre of the ancient Kedah kingdom from the fifth to tenth century AD (p. 47).
- The kala head on the gold belt from Sungai Trus is stylistically closer to the Dieng Plateau period and Candi Kalasan than to the Bhairava image from Sungai Langsat, Sumatra, supporting an eighth-century rather than thirteenth-century date (p. 48).
- The vimana-mandapa type temples of the Bujang Valley, including Sites 4–9 and Site 31 at Permatang Pasir, are Saivite and closely dated to the eleventh–fourteenth century AD, invalidating Quaritch-Wales’ assignment of some to a “Hindu-Pallava” phase (pp. 50–51).
Conclusion
Nik Hassan Shuhaimi’s definitive historical takeaway is that the prehistory and protohistory of Malaysia represent a continuous, locally driven developmental sequence in which cultural change was mediated by environmental adaptation, inland and maritime trade networks, and intergroup contact among the ancestors of present-day Bumiputera peoples. Both the Austronesian migration theory and the Indian colonist theory are rejected as explanations for the archaeological record; instead, the author posits a model of indigenous evolution and exchange that places the agency for cultural transformation firmly within the region’s own populations.
Context
- The article engages directly with the legacy of H. G. Quaritch-Wales, whose 1940 monograph on the Bujang Valley established the “Indianization” or colonist framework that dominated Malaysian protohistoric scholarship for decades.
- The Bujang Valley excavation project, conducted from the 1950s through the 1980s by scholars including Quaritch-Wales, Lamb, Leong, and Nik Hassan Shuhaimi himself, generated the stratified ceramic and architectural evidence on which the revised periodization is based.