| If the Indonesians had developed the technique
of working bronze on their own, bronze axes would undoubtedly have
been found which would have greatly resembied ordinary stone axes
in shape. For one can hardly imagine that in so vast an area, once
the technical difficulties of metal-working had already been overcome,
a sudden deviation would have been made from the traditional shape,
and a transition effected to an entirely new shape of axe, and yet
one which had the same shape wherever it was found. But the bronze
age in the Indonesian archipelago did not apparently produce any rectangular
axes in bronze, but only so-called socketed axes, and these most accomplished
soketed axes in their manner of execution. The shape of these socketed
axes is very different from that of the rectangular axes dating from
the stone age. The most essential innovation is that they were fixed
to the haft in an entirely different way: for with the socketed axes
the halt is inserted into the blade, and not vice versa, as was the
case with the stone axes. From this the conclusion must be drawn that
the working of bronze did not develop locally, and that the socketed
axes were brought to the islands from somewhere else; the technique
of bronze casting must have become familiar in Indonesia at the same
time.
This cultural innovation also came to the Indonesian archipelago
from South-east Asia, in particular from the area of Tonking and
northern Annam. Here, close to the village of Deng-Son, such an
abundant variety of artifacts has been found that prehistorians
regard this area as the cradle of bronze culture throughout South-cast
Asia and Indonesia, so that the site of these discoveries has given
its name to the whole culture as such.
|
