3.4 Early Evidence for Maritime Trading in the Spice Island Region
45
regional trading existed in the coldest phase of the Little Ice age, and that such a
distance was being sailed then, provides a context in which we can consider the
possibility that the Spice Islanders may have had a role as regional maritime traders
by this time. At this date the Spice Islanders had already been archipelago dwellers,
and at least local maritime traders, for 20,000 years. The Ice Age floods that were
to drown Sundaland lay 7,500–12,500 years in the future. As the inhabitants for
20,000 years of an ancient island world, it is arguable, though not currently provable, that Spice Islanders may have expanded by this time from limited local trading
to regional trading and even to have become involved with regional obsidian trading
as well as regional spice trading.
The next evidence of obsidian trading, 7,000–12,000 years later, supplies clear
evidence for Spice Island involvement with obsidian sources in the Bismarck
archipelago. Archaeobiologists Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith and J.H. Robins [10] note
that at Panakiwuk in New Ireland in the Bismarck archipelago, three bones of Rattus
exulans, the Pacific rat, were recovered from levels dated to between 8,000 and
13,000 BP. As we have seen, this rat, which Matisoo-Smith and Robins have established has its origins in Halmahera in the Spice Islands, was carried into the Pacific
with the Lapita peoples as a food animal. Its presence in the Bismarcks may mean
that Spice Islanders had established a very early colony in the Bismarcks, associated with obsidian trading, or that Spice Island obsidian traders may have brought
the rat to the Bismarcks and released it there to provide a permanent food resource
for their people when carrying out future trading activities in the archipelago. In
either case, the presence of the rat bones suggests a presence, and possibly a continuing presence, in this period of Spice Islanders in a region not only famous for
its obsidian but already at this time possessing a 20,000-year-long obsidian trading
history.
Obsidian and chert offer the earliest archaeological evidence of likely trading in
the region. Regional spice trading was probably as ancient and as significant. But
where obsidian, a hard black volcanic rock, survives to tell of its role as a trading
commodity, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon sticks have a short vegetable life. Their
discovery is archaeologically improbable in contexts as ancient as those we have
been discussing. That Spice Island mariners may have had a trading range as far as
the Bismarcks by the late Ice Age or early Holocene is significant in its own right.
It also supports the possibility of an earlier connection (though of course it cannot
establish this).
The necessity for maritime subsistence trading in the Spice Islands dating back
40,000 years, the possibility of regional chert-trading 20,000 years after this and
a probable Spice Island connection with obsidian sources in the Bismarcks 8,000–
13,000 years ago suggest the possibility of a very considerable time depth for the
Spice Islanders’ maritime trading in the region. This might be of only incidental interest were it not for the fact that, as we have argued, a considerable time
depth is needed to allow for the slow genetic evolution in the Spice Islands of the
cold-adapted body type and famine resistance without which, Houghton’s evidence
makes clear, the Spice Islanders and their descendants could not have explored and
settled the Pacific.
45
regional trading existed in the coldest phase of the Little Ice age, and that such a
distance was being sailed then, provides a context in which we can consider the
possibility that the Spice Islanders may have had a role as regional maritime traders
by this time. At this date the Spice Islanders had already been archipelago dwellers,
and at least local maritime traders, for 20,000 years. The Ice Age floods that were
to drown Sundaland lay 7,500–12,500 years in the future. As the inhabitants for
20,000 years of an ancient island world, it is arguable, though not currently provable, that Spice Islanders may have expanded by this time from limited local trading
to regional trading and even to have become involved with regional obsidian trading
as well as regional spice trading.
The next evidence of obsidian trading, 7,000–12,000 years later, supplies clear
evidence for Spice Island involvement with obsidian sources in the Bismarck
archipelago. Archaeobiologists Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith and J.H. Robins [10] note
that at Panakiwuk in New Ireland in the Bismarck archipelago, three bones of Rattus
exulans, the Pacific rat, were recovered from levels dated to between 8,000 and
13,000 BP. As we have seen, this rat, which Matisoo-Smith and Robins have established has its origins in Halmahera in the Spice Islands, was carried into the Pacific
with the Lapita peoples as a food animal. Its presence in the Bismarcks may mean
that Spice Islanders had established a very early colony in the Bismarcks, associated with obsidian trading, or that Spice Island obsidian traders may have brought
the rat to the Bismarcks and released it there to provide a permanent food resource
for their people when carrying out future trading activities in the archipelago. In
either case, the presence of the rat bones suggests a presence, and possibly a continuing presence, in this period of Spice Islanders in a region not only famous for
its obsidian but already at this time possessing a 20,000-year-long obsidian trading
history.
Obsidian and chert offer the earliest archaeological evidence of likely trading in
the region. Regional spice trading was probably as ancient and as significant. But
where obsidian, a hard black volcanic rock, survives to tell of its role as a trading
commodity, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon sticks have a short vegetable life. Their
discovery is archaeologically improbable in contexts as ancient as those we have
been discussing. That Spice Island mariners may have had a trading range as far as
the Bismarcks by the late Ice Age or early Holocene is significant in its own right.
It also supports the possibility of an earlier connection (though of course it cannot
establish this).
The necessity for maritime subsistence trading in the Spice Islands dating back
40,000 years, the possibility of regional chert-trading 20,000 years after this and
a probable Spice Island connection with obsidian sources in the Bismarcks 8,000–
13,000 years ago suggest the possibility of a very considerable time depth for the
Spice Islanders’ maritime trading in the region. This might be of only incidental interest were it not for the fact that, as we have argued, a considerable time
depth is needed to allow for the slow genetic evolution in the Spice Islands of the
cold-adapted body type and famine resistance without which, Houghton’s evidence
makes clear, the Spice Islanders and their descendants could not have explored and
settled the Pacific.