Results of the Origin of Complex Society in South Sulawesi Project (OXIS). Centre for South-East Asian Studies, University of Hull; School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University. [Hull]. 2000. 141 p.*

The authors of the book under review are the Australian archaeologist D. Bulbeck and the English specialist in the history of Indonesia I. Caldwell, the leaders of the scientific project " The Origin of a complex society in South Sulawesi "(English quasi-acronym OXIS). The aim of the project was to study the social processes that led to the formation of the multinational Luwu state with a Bugi ruling elite in the southern part of Sulawesi in the 14th century. The core of the state, which existed until the beginning of the XX century, was the geographical area of Luwu in the north-eastern part of the modern Indonesian province of South Sulawesi. In addition, in the first centuries of its existence (until about 1500), the Luwu State owned land in the Chenrana River Valley, located further south within the same modern province. But even later, the land under Luwu's control extended to the north, to the geographical center of the island (in the present-day province of Central Sulawesi).

Within the framework of the OXIS project, archaeological excavations were conducted at various points in the former Luwu state (including the Chenran Valley), as well as studying Bugian texts dating back to the 15th and 18th centuries, but usually known only in later copies. All of these research projects were carried out between 1997 and 2000, and involved more than 40 scientists, mainly from the United Kingdom, Australia, and Indonesia.

The implementation of the OXIS project has provided a new perspective on the emergence and development of the State of Luwu. In particular, the conclusions about the ways of settlement of the Bugian ethnic group are very important (and essentially contradict the points of view expressed earlier, including in the relatively new large monograph of the French researcher K. Pelras "Bugians"¹). Traditionally, its cradle was considered the eastern tip of the Luvu region, which is associated with the epic cycle "La Galigo" (these lands are still sacred to some Bugians). According to Bulbek and Caldwell, the Bugians spread across South Sulawesi from the central part of their current range, in particular from the Lake district. Tempe, from where they moved (probably in the second half of the 13th century) to the east, to Louva. Their goal was to trade with the population of the Baebunta region, who (apparently, since the beginning of our era) were able to smelt high-quality iron from local ore. Bugian merchants supplied this jelly-

* D. Bulbek, I. Caldwell. Land of Iron. Historical archeology of Luwu and Chenran Valley. Results of the research project "The origin of a complex society in South Sulawesi". Centre for South-East Asian Studies, Hull University; School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University. [Hull]. 2000. 141 p.

¹ Pelras Ch. The Bugis. Oxford (UK) - Cambridge (USA): Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1996.

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zom all of south Sulawesi and other islands of the Malay archipelago, in particular Java, where it was used to make weapons.

D. Bulbek and I. Caldwell believe that the epic cycle "La Galigo" does not reflect the true history of the Bugians and that it mixes memories of different eras. This view of the epic tradition has long been a commonplace in the world of literary criticism and, of course, there is no need to argue with it. Nevertheless, K. Pelras believes that with a thoughtful approach to the monument, it is possible to form a certain idea of the early Bugian society of the XII-XIII centuries on its basis. The authors of the book under review are skeptical about this possibility. In particular, they draw attention to the extremely autocratic nature of the states depicted in La Galigo: the power of the ruler there is not limited by any institutions or laws. At the same time, it is known that in the later Bugian states, the councils of elders played an important role, largely curbing the ruler's willfulness. It seems to me, however, that the texts of La Galigo do not necessarily imply the extreme autocracy of the society reflected in them. The special nature of these texts cannot be ignored. In La Galigo, commoners who are not descendants of the gods of the Sky and Ocean are mentioned only as performers of some physical work or population of a particular area, occasionally as human sacrifices to the gods (although, according to the epic, these victims were usually revived by the gods after the sacrifice ceremony). It seems possible that under the ruler, who came from a "divine" family, there was still a council of people of non-divine origin, but the storytellers did not consider it worthy of mention in the epic.

The literature has repeatedly expressed the opinion that in Bugian history, the era of rulers of divine origin, or the era of "La Galigo", was followed by a relatively short period of turmoil, when the divine rulers left the earth, and the people left unattended "swallowed each other like fish". K. Pelras refers this period to the XIV century. However, D. Bulbek and I. Caldwell believe that the theory of troubles is not confirmed at all in the archaeological material of Luwu (and in the Soppeng region, in the central part of the Bugian territory, for the XIV century, only a slight decrease in the amount of imported ceramics is observed, which does not go beyond the statistical error). In their opinion, this epic motif is inspired by Sanskrit literature, where civil strife was called matsy-anyaya - "fish way of life" (p. 93).

In the final part of the book (pp. 106-107), a new scheme of periodization of the history of South Sulawesi is given. The authors distinguish the Bronze-Iron Age, which began at the turn of the IV-III centuries BC, protohistoric (approximately 1200 - 1300 AD), early historical (about 1300 - 1600 AD) and modern (Modern) periods (the beginning of the latter is marked by the appearance of the Dutch in Indonesia and the conversion to Islam of the top Bugi and Makassar people both took place around 1600).

The reviewed book can be considered a new word in the study of South Sulawesi-almost the only region in Southeast Asia where a society of complex culture, organized into early state formations, arose without significant participation of the peoples of the large and developed for its time (1st and early 2nd millennium AD) countries of the Asian continent-India and China. China. Other largely peripheral or isolated parts of Southeast Asia did not have any significant early State structures before European contact.

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