The Pleistocene Maritime Migration of Modern Humans in Northern Wallacea: The Cases of Topogaro in Sulawesi and Bubog in Mindoro

• Main Authors: Ono, Rintaro, Pawlik, Alfred, Fuentes, Riczar
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2024
• Subjects: maritime migration; modern human; island adaptation; Wallacea; Goa Topogaro; Bubog; Sulawesi; Mindoro; northern route; Anthropology; Archaeological Anthropology; Social and Behavioral Sciences
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/sa-faculty-pubs/151; https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.114909
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

Around 50,000 years ago, early modern humans migrated from Island Southeast Asia and via the Wallacean islands into the continent of Sahul in Oceania by several sea crossings. The Wallacean archipelago can be broadly divided into northern Wallacea comprising the northern Indonesian islands and most of the Philippine islands, except Palawan, and southern Wallacea with the southern Indonesian islands and Timor. This chapter focuses on the cases of early modern human maritime migration and resource use in northern Wallacea during the late Pleistocene. Of the Pleistocene sites in northern Wallacea, two important sites are presented and discussed: the Goa Topogaro cave complex in central Sulawesi, Indonesia, now dated to 42 ka, and the Bubog rock-shelter sites in Mindoro, Philippines, dated to at least 35 ka, based on our excavations. We discuss both localities in their regional context, as well as their role in maritime migration and seafaring in Wallacea and Sahul, and provide a comparison with other cases in the Ryukyu Islands, adjacent to northern Wallacea.