Sulawesi, in contrast to most of the other islands
in the biogeographical region of Wallacea, is not truly oceanic, but a
composite island at the center of the Asia-Australia collision zone.Parts of
the island were formerly attached to either the Asian or Australian continental
margin and became separated from these areas by vicariant processes. For one.
in the west, the opening of the Makassar Strait separated West Sulawesi from
Sundaland in the Eocene c. 45 Mya.In the east, the traditional view of
collisions of multiple micro-continental fragments sliced from New Guinea with
an active volcanic margin in West Sulawesi at different times since the Early
Miocene c. 20 Mya has recently been replaced by the hypothesis that extensional
fragmentation has followed a single Miocene collision of West Sulawesi with the
Sula Spur, the western end of an ancient folded belt of Variscan origin in the
Late Paleozoic
Before October 2014, the settlement of South
Sulawesi by modern humans had been dated to c. 30,000 BC on the basis of
radiocarbon dates obtained from rock shelters in Maros. No earlier evidence of
human occupation had at that point been found, but the island almost certainly
formed part of the land bridge used for the settlement of Australia and New Guinea
by at least 40,000 BCE. There is no evidence of Homo erectus having reached
Sulawesi; crude stone tools first discovered in 1947 on the right bank of the
Walennae River at Berru, Indonesia, which were thought to date to the
Pleistocene on the basis of their association with vertebrate fossils,are now
thought to date to perhaps 50,000 BC.
The name Sulawesi possibly comes from the words
sula ("island") and besi ("iron") and may refer to the
historical export of iron from the rich Lake Matano iron deposits.
It came into
common use in English following Indonesian independence.
The name Celebes was originally given to the island
by Portuguese explorers
Sulawesi comprises four peninsulas: the northern
Minahasa Peninsula; the East Peninsula; the South Peninsula; and the South-east
Peninsula. Three gulfs separate these peninsulas: the Gulf of Tomini between
northern Minahasa peninsula and East Peninsula; the Tolo Gulf between East and
Southeast Peninsula; and the Bone Gulf between the South and Southeast
Peninsula. The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island and
separates the island from Borneo.
Sulawesi, formerly known as Celebes, is an island
in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's
eleventh-largest island, it is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands.
In Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are larger in territory, and only
Java and Sumatra have larger populations.
The island slopes up from the shores of the deep
seas surrounding the island to a high, mostly non-volcanic, mountainous
interior. Active volcanoes are found in the northern Minahassa Peninsula,
stretching north to the Sangihe Islands. The northern peninsula contains
several active volcanoes such as Mount Lokon, Mount Awu, Soputan, and
Karangetang.
According to plate reconstructions, the island is
believed to have been formed by the collision of terranes from the Asian Plate
(forming the west and southwest), and from the Australian Plate (forming the
southeast and Banggai), with island arcs previously in the Pacific (forming the
north and east peninsulas).Because of its several tectonic origin, faults scar
the land; as a result, the island is prone to earthquakes.
Dwelling
Following Peter Bellwood's model of a southward
migration of Austronesian-speaking farmers (AN),[8] radiocarbon dates from
caves in Maros suggest a date in the mid-second millennium BC for the arrival
of an a group from east Borneo speaking a Proto-South Sulawesi language (PSS).
Initial settlement was probably around the mouth of the Sa'dan river, on the
northwest coast of the peninsula, although the south coast has also been
suggested.Subsequent migrations across the mountainous landscape resulted in
the geographical isolation of PSS speakers and the evolution of their languages
into the eight families of the South Sulawesi language group.If each group can
be said to have a homeland, that of the Bugis – today the most numerous group –
was around lakes Témpé and Sidénréng in the Walennaé depression. Here for some
2,000 years lived the linguistic group that would become the modern Bugis; the
archaic name of this group (which is preserved in other local languages) was
Ugiq. Despite the fact that today they are closely linked with the Makasar, the
closest linguistic neighbors of the Bugis are the Toraja.
Pre-1200 CE Bugis society was most likely organized
into chiefdoms. Some anthropologists have speculated these chiefdoms would have
warred and, in times of peace, exchanged women with each other. Further they
have speculated that personal security would have been negligible, and
head-hunting an established cultural practice. The political economy would have
been a mixture of hunting and gathering and swidden or shifting agriculture.
Speculative planting of wet rice may have taken place along the margins of the
lakes and rivers.
Megalithic stone in Central Sulawesi
In Central Sulawesi there are over 400 granite
megaliths, which various archaeological studies have dated to be from 3000 BC
to AD 1300. They vary in size from a few centimeters to around 4.5 meters (15
ft). The original purpose of the megaliths is unknown. About 30 of the
megaliths represent human forms. Other megaliths are in form of large pots
(Kalamba) and stone plates (Tutu'na).
Hand stencils in Pettakere Cave in Maros
In October 2014 it was announced that cave
paintings in Maros had been dated as being about 40,000 years old. Dr Maxime
Aubert, of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, said that the minimum
age for the outline of a hand was 39,900 years old, which made it "the
oldest hand stencil in the world" and added, "Next to it is a pig
that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old, and this is one of the oldest
figurative depictions in the world, if not the oldest one."
Starting in the 13th century, access to prestige
trade goods and to sources of iron started to alter long-standing cultural
patterns, and to permit ambitious individuals to build larger political units.
It is not known why these two ingredients appeared together; one was perhaps
the product of the other. By 1400, a number of nascent agricultural
principalities had arisen in the western Cenrana valley, as well as on the
south coast and on the west coast near modern Parepare.
Sulawesi is part of Wallacea, meaning that it has a
mix of both Asian and Australasian species. There are 8 national parks on the
island, of which 4 are mostly marine. The parks with the largest terrestrial
area are Bogani Nani Wartabone with 2,871 km² and Lore Lindu National Park with
2,290 km². Bunaken National Park which protects a rich coral ecosystem has been
proposed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The first Europeans to visit the island (which they
believed to be an archipelago due to its contorted shape) were the Portuguese
sailors Simão de Abreu, in 1523, and Gomes de Sequeira (among others) in 1525,
sent from the Moluccas in search of gold, which the islands had the reputation
of producing. A Portuguese base was installed in Makassar in the first decades
of the 16th century, lasting until 1665, when it was taken by the Dutch. The
Dutch had arrived in Sulawesi in 1605 and were quickly followed by the English,
who established a factory in Makassar. From 1660, the Dutch were at war with
Gowa, the major Makasar west coast power. In 1669, Admiral Speelman forced the
ruler, Sultan Hasanuddin, to sign the Treaty of Bongaya, which handed control
of trade to the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch were aided in their
conquest by the Bugis warlord Arung Palakka, ruler of the Bugis kingdom of
Bone. The Dutch built a fort at Ujung Pandang, while Arung Palakka became the
regional overlord and Bone the dominant kingdom. Political and cultural
development seems to have slowed as a result of the status quo. In 1905 the
entire island became part of the Dutch state colony of the Netherlands East
Indies until Japanese occupation in World War II. During the Indonesian
National Revolution, the Dutch Captain 'Turk' Westerling led campaigns in which
hundreds, maybe thousands died during the South Sulawesi Campaign.Following the
transfer of sovereignty in December 1949, Sulawesi became part of the federal
United States of Indonesia, which in 1950 became absorbed into the unitary
Republic of Indonesia.
Sulawesi is the world's eleventh-largest island,
covering an area of 174,600 km2 (67,413 sq mi). The central part of the island
is ruggedly mountainous, such that the island's peninsulas have traditionally
been remote from each other, with better connections by sea than by road. The
three bays that divide Sulawesi's peninsulas are, from north to south, the
Tomini, the Tolo, and the Boni.[n 1] These separate the Minahassa or Northern
Peninsula, the East Peninsula, the Southeast Peninsula, and the South
Peninsula.
The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side
of the island.[citation needed] The island is surrounded by Borneo to the west,
by the Philippines to the north, by Maluku to the east, and by Flores and Timor
to the south.
The Selayar Islands make up a peninsula stretching
southwards from Southwest Sulawesi into the Flores Sea are administratively
part of Sulawesi. The Sangihe Islands and Talaud Islands stretch northward from
the northeastern tip of Sulawesi, while Buton Island and its neighbors lie off
its southeast peninsula, the Togian Islands are in the Gulf of Tomini, and
Peleng Island and Banggai Islands form a cluster between Sulawesi and Maluku.
All the above-mentioned islands, and many smaller ones, are administratively
part of Sulawesi's six provinces
