This paper reviews the current evidence on typologically specialized tools assigned
to the Toalean tradition of the southwest Sulawesi peninsula. Bone points and a
range of stone points appeared across the peninsula in the early Holocene; this
probably occurred as part of the expansion of archery and improved spear technology
in Island Southeast Asia at the time. The technologically most specialized Toalean
tools, namely backed microliths and Maros points, were evidently confined to
the southwest of the peninsula. Backed microliths occur in contexts spanning some
six millennia, but Maros points were largely restricted to the immediately preceramic
period, approximately 5500 to 3500 B.P. The distribution of these tool
types closely matches the area where late Holocene pottery in the ornate "Sa
Huynh-Kalanay" tradition has been recorded, and where Makasar languages are
spoken today. Sulawesi's southwest peninsula may have effectively been an island
throughout much of the Holocene, and its southwest fringe runs hard against a major
cordillera. Thus, physiographic constraints laid the basis for the division of the
peninsula into two "social landscapes" that display long-term continuity throughout
the Holocene, notwithstanding fundamental changes in subsistence patterns and
technology.
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