Migration and the Economy of Indonesia

Movement of peoples and of the cultures that they bear characterizes from its earliest history the archipelago that now makes up the Republic of Indonesia. To go only as far back as the end of the Stone Age, which in this area occurred about 300 b.c., it appears that immigration of people from South China brought about the use of bronze and iron. We have no direct information on the movement of people, but the record of archaeology shows Han pottery in Java well before the Christian era. The Han objective was to develop the sea route to India, and this was probably not the first of many contacts that the archipelago owes to its location on this route. Ptolemy’s atlas of the second century b.c. shows the outlines and seaports of the archipelago: since India was a transshipment point for goods moving between the Mediterranean and East Asia, Ptolemy probably got his information from Indian sailors. Images of the Buddha found in Java seem to date from the second century of our era. About that time writing was introduced from South India, and many words of Sanskrit and Indian vernacular languages came into the speech of Indonesia.1 Tales of the Ramayana were incorporated into the shadow drama, which is very much alive in present-day Javanese culture.