Report on the Masterclass: Southeast Asia: A Centre of Ancient Urbanism?
22-25 February 2005
Submitted by John N. Miksic
Associate Professor, Southeast Asian Studies Programme/Asia Research Institute
National University of Singapore
Aims of the Masterclass
Archaeological research on the early historic period in Southeast Asia has traditionally focused on temples, sculptures, and inscriptions. Early trade and settlement have been largely neglected. During the past twenty years, a few archaeologists have begun to fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge of this subject. This masterclass was designed to acquaint interested students with the current state of knowledge on the subject, to give them the opportunity to learn from several experts in the field, and to meet one another. One long-term outcome which it is hoped that the masterclass will achieve will be the formation of at least a semi-formal circle of scholars working on various aspects of this and related research.
The leader of the masterclass, Prof. John Miksic, has been working in this field for 30 years. He discussed strategies which he has implemented for fieldwork on ancient city sites in Java, Singapore, Burma, and Cambodia. His main goal was to form a link between research design and theory building. One principal desire was to ensure that theoretical arguments were well-grounded in data, and that all reports on data recovered from fieldwork were placed in theoretical perspective.
Main participants consisted of Prof. Miksic; three invited experts (Prof. Ian Glover, University College London; Dr. Pierre-Yves Manguin, École Française d'Extrême-Orient, and Prof. Bion Griffin, University of Hawaii); 12 postgraduate students; and 12 active observers. The audience also included a number of other visitors who attended one or more sessions.
The Masterclass covered four days. During the first session, from 9:30 to 11:00, Prof. Miksic delivered a lecture on the theme for the day. The theme of the first day was "The meaning of urbanism in a Southeast Asian cultural context." Subsequent themes consisted of "Methods for studying early Southeast Asian settlement patterns"; "Mainland Southeast Asia: cities or ceremonial centers?"; and "Island Southeast Asian urbanism: indigenous or introduced?" During the second session, one of the invited experts presented the results of his specific research; each invited expert had conducted fieldwork and analysis spanning many years and several countries in the region, and has numerous relevant publications. All presentations were illustrated with Powerpoint slides.
Afternoons were devoted to presentations by students, and discussion. The requirement that students give presentations appeared to be very useful; it broke down the barrier between students and professors, and also stimulated discussion among the students themselves. By the end of the conference, self-confidence and willingness to speak up in discussion had increased noticeably among the students.
All four senior experts distributed reading lists in advance of the masterclass. Many of the readings were also made available on the web in PDF format.
At the conclusion of the final session on February 25, participants were asked to complete feedback forms, and were given certificates of participation. The entire group then visited the Southeast Asia gallery at the Museum voor Volkenkunde.
On behalf of all participants, I would like to thank the International Institute for Asian Studies for organizing the conference. Furthermore, I would like to thank our sponsors the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Research School for Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies CNWS for their support.
Students and their presentations:
James W. Lankton (UCL, Institute of Archaeology)
Using compositional data to investigate the characteristics of and relationships between four mi-first millennium CE Southeast Asian glass beadmaking traditions
Geok Yian Goh (Southeast Asian Studies Programme, NUS)
Urbanism in Early Burma: What can we glean from combining archaeological and textual evidence (inscriptions and chronicles)?
Lim Chen Sian (Southeast Asian Studies Programme, NUS)
Potential Archaeologies in Singapore
Maartje Zwaneveld (Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University)
Ceramics from the West Baray: The oldest site in Angkor?
A study of the ceramics from the Koh Ta Meas site
Lucienne van Valen (Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University/ IIAS)
The matter of Chinese painting
Roeland Stulemeijer (Southeast Asian Studies Programme, NUS)
Sources of Greenware Trade Ceramics in Fourteen-century Singapore
Ginny Andreas (Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University)
Womenstudies on templereliefs of Javanese temples
Bettine Loogman (Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University)
Myths and megaliths. A combination of cultural anthropological and archaeological methods
Andrew Cowan (Southeast Asian Studies Programme, NUS)
Ceramic distribution in the settlement of 14th Century Singapore
Podjanok Kanjanajuntorn (Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol)
State Formation in West-Central Thailand between 500 BC and AD 500
Kyle Latinis ((Southeast Asian Studies Programme, NUS)
East Indonesian (central Malukan) settlement, archaeology, and history vis-à-vis topics in urbanism and urbanization
Véronique Degroot (Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University)
Reconstrucingt and understanding the essential characteristics of the Central Javanese landscape of the 8th and 9th Centuries