The highlands of Sumatra remain one of the most neglected regions of insular Southeast Asia in terms of history and archaeology. No comprehensive research program incorporating both a survey and excavations within a defined geographical or environmental zone has been carried out there since Van der Hoop (1932) conducted his study of the megaliths on the Pasemah plateau in the 1930s. Meanwhile, Van der Hoop’s investigations and several other archaeological research activities at places such as northwest Lampung (McKinnon 1993), Pasemah (Sukendar and Sukidjo 1983-84; Caldwell 1997; Kusumawati and Sukendar 2000), Kerinci (Laporan 1995a, 1996a), and the Minangkabau heartland (Miksic 1986, 1987, 2004) have placed special emphasis on the megalithic remains. As a result, the megaliths are by far the bestknown archaeological attraction of the Sumatran highlands.
The first systematic archaeological research in the Highlands of Jambi in West Sumatra was pursued by a joint German-Indonesian project from 2002 to 2008. The project was attracted by the impressive megalithic remains which are known since the early 20th century. Different areas of this important cultural region were surveyed and six archaeological sites excavated in order to provide a comprehensive account of the settlement history of this region. With this multi-local and diachronic approach in mind it was possible to document developments in the settlement pattern and material culture from an early Neolithic phase in the mid of the 2nd millennium BC to modern times. Reconstructing the history of this particular highland region by means of archaeological data and additional ethnohistoric sources was not the only objective. Another purpose was to set it in relation to socioeconomic and political developments in the history of the lowlands. The results and conclusions of this highland perspective on the archaeology and history of Sumatra are summarised in this article.
The severed head is a topic that has always attracted popular attention. In Christian art, for example, it was an image of martyrdom and fearless resistance against suppression. In contrast, popular accounts of headhunting have been used to convey an image of the primitive for Western audiences since the nineteenth century (e.g. Panel 1992). In anthropology headhunting has long been discussed in terms of materialist and evolutionary models. Only recently attempts have been made to place the phenomenon of headhunting in a wider historical and regional context (Hoskins 1987; idem 1996b; George 1991). The headhunter has become a professional recruiter in the search for executives to fill high-level positions. However, most scholars would not look to urban societies when researching the topic of the practice of headhunting, namely the taking of a head. We still habitually perceive it as an expression of violence and primitive warfare that occurs in stateless societies. In opposition to that view, this article will focus on an urban society in which a headhunt was, in at least one case, carried out in a strict anthropological sense: that is the headhunt of Ashurbanipal, described in the annals as the overthrow of the Elamite king Te-Umman and portrayed on the reliefs at Nineveh.
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