11Story

22 August 2009

Early history

Sharing Cultural Memory

Contents - About the museum Siwalima - The Maluku Islands (Moluccas) - History of the "Spice Islands"                  * Early history                  * The Iberians                     * The Dutch                 * After Indonesian independence                 * The 1999-2003 Inter-communal Conflict - The current exhibitions - Virtual Museum - Bibliography

 

 

Early history

 
 

The earliest archaeological evidence of human occupation of the region is about thirty-two thousand years old, but evidence of even older settlements in Australia may mean that Maluku had earlier visitors. Evidence of increasingly long-distance trading relationships and of more frequent occupation of many islands, begins about ten to fifteen thousand years later.   Onyx beads and segments of silver plate used as currency on the Indian subcontinent around 200BC have been unearthed on some of the islands. In addition, local dialects employ derivations of the Malay word then in use for "silver", in contrast to the term used in wider Melanesian society, which has etymological roots in Chinese, a consequence of the regional trade with China that developed in the 500s and 600s.    Maluku was a cosmopolitan society where spice traders from across the region took residence in settlements, or in nearby enclaves, including Arab and Chinese traders who visited or lived in the region.

 

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