Recent research in East Timor and the Aru Islands in eastern Indonesia (Figure 1) has brought to light some significant differences in the occupation record of these islands, with the most pronounced contrast relating to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).
The Aru Islands faunal record has been argued to "support the palaeoenvironmental models that propose more extreme cooling and reductions in precipitation at low altitude, rather than the more conservative estimates" (O'Connor et al.
The Aru Islands today lie east of the Kei Islands and south of New Guinea at 7[degrees]S and 134[degrees]E (Figure 1).
Rising sea levels caused flooding of the Sahul Shelf and severance of the Aru Islands around 11,000 years ago.
Being of a rather different kind than the first book it contains the results of excavation campaigns carried out on the Aru Islands located in Central Maluku between late 1995 and 1997.
The Aru islands were part of the Sahul Shelf until ca.
One of the most impressive findings is the location of the ruins of a fort close to the coastal settlement of Ujir in the northern part of the Aru Islands. It is rather well known that the Dutch East India Company built three forts at Aru in the mid to late seventeenth century, only to abandon them about one hundred years later.
The archaeology of the Aru Islands, eastern Indonesia is well edited and makes a fine example of archaeological research and neighbouring disciplines.
The dynamic palaeoenvironmental history of the Aru Islands is elaborated by Geoff Hope and Ken Aplin in Chapter 2.
The Aru Islands volume came out 10 years after the first field season.
In the more isolated areas of Maluku, such as in inland Tanimbar and the Aru Islands, the traditional music and dance continue to be practised in their agricultural and life-crisis ceremonial contexts of ancestor and nature veneration, while in some villages (e.g., Wowanda in southern Tanimbar) segments of these ceremonial dances have been choreographed and their music arranged for long, staged ceremonial shows for audiences.
East of the Kai archipelago lies the Aru island network.
