Retired, but still active. Involved in Indonesian Archeology since the early 1970's, mainly in Sumatra. Interested in the spread of Buddhism, mediaeval inter-regional trade, Indic influences and trade ceramics.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019
Significance We demonstrate that a tsunami in the late 14th century CE destroyed coastal sites al... more Significance We demonstrate that a tsunami in the late 14th century CE destroyed coastal sites along a critical part of the maritime Silk Road and set in motion profound changes in the political economy of Southeast Asia. Our results provide a precise chronology of settlement and trade along a historically strategic section of the Sumatran coast and are robust physical evidence for the rise of the Aceh Sultanate. Tragically, coastal areas impacted by the late 14th century tsunami were devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. This makes our findings relevant to debates about hazard mitigation and risk reduction. This example shows that archaeological, historical, and geological data are relevant in discussions about the long-term sustainability of communities exposed to geological hazards.
This file contains the supplementary online material to: R. Michael Feener, et al. "ISLA... more This file contains the supplementary online material to: R. Michael Feener, et al. "ISLAMISATION AND THE FORMATION OF VERNACULAR MUSLIM MATERIAL CULTURE IN 15TH-CENTURY NORTHERN SUMATRA," Indonesia and the Malay World: https://doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2021.1873564
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2019
Significance We demonstrate that a tsunami in the late 14th century CE destroyed coastal sites al... more Significance We demonstrate that a tsunami in the late 14th century CE destroyed coastal sites along a critical part of the maritime Silk Road and set in motion profound changes in the political economy of Southeast Asia. Our results provide a precise chronology of settlement and trade along a historically strategic section of the Sumatran coast and are robust physical evidence for the rise of the Aceh Sultanate. Tragically, coastal areas impacted by the late 14th century tsunami were devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. This makes our findings relevant to debates about hazard mitigation and risk reduction. This example shows that archaeological, historical, and geological data are relevant in discussions about the long-term sustainability of communities exposed to geological hazards. Archaeological evidence shows that a predecessor of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami devastated nine distinct communities along a 40-km section of the northern coast of Sumatra in about 1394 CE. O...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 2019
Archaeological evidence shows that a predecessor of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami devastated nine... more Archaeological evidence shows that a predecessor of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami devastated nine distinct communities along a 40-km section of the northern coast of Sumatra in about 1394 CE. Our evidence is the spatial and temporal distribution of tens of thousands of medieval ceramic sherds and over 5,000 carved gravestones, collected and recorded during a systematic landscape archaeology survey near the modern city of Banda Aceh. Only the trading settlement of Lamri, perched on a headland above the reach of the tsunami, survived into and through the subsequent 15th century. It is of historical and political interest that by the 16th century, however, Lamri was abandoned, while low-lying coastal sites destroyed by the 1394 tsunami were resettled as the population center of the new economically and politically ascen-dant Aceh Sultanate. Our evidence implies that the 1394 tsunami was large enough to impact severely many of the areas inundated by the 2004 tsunami and to provoke a sig...
This study presents a distinctive type of Muslim gravestone found on the northern coast of Sumatr... more This study presents a distinctive type of Muslim gravestone found on the northern coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, that dates to the 15th century. These grave markers, locally known as plang-pleng, provide evidence for the formation and disappearance of an early form of vernacular Muslim material culture in Southeast Asia. We documented over 200 of these gravestones during a large-scale archaeological landscape survey. In this article, we present a typology of these gravestones based upon shape, morphology and ornamentation. We then discuss their geographical distribution and periodisation based on examples with dated Arabic inscriptions. Our results show that these gravestones were initially a cultural product of the historic trading settlement of Lamri dating from the early 15th century. By the middle of the 15th century, variations of these stones started to appear widely near the Aceh river. The plang-pleng tradition was displaced in the early 16th century by the batu Aceh graveston...
We review published literature and historical texts to propose that three periods of official Chi... more We review published literature and historical texts to propose that three periods of official Chinese maritime bans impacted the composition and circulation of trade ceramics along Asian trade routes: Ming Ban 1 (1371-1509), Ming Ban 2 (1521-1529), and Qing Ban (1654-1684). We use ceramics collected during a landscape archaeology survey along 40km of coast in Aceh, Indonesia to show how the three ban periods manifest in the ceramic record of settlements along an important stretch of the maritime silkroad. All three ban periods overlap with reductions in the quantity of Chinese ceramics. Within several decades of the start of Ming Ban 1, people in Aceh began importing ceramics from production centers in Burma and Thailand as a substitute for Chinese ceramics. Following Ming Ban 2, there is an increase in imports from Chinese production centers, albeit from new kilns sites. While brief, the Qing ban resulted in an almost immediate influx of ceramics from Japan and Vietnam, which maint...
We present archaeological evidence for a trading settlement dating from the 13th to the mid-16th ... more We present archaeological evidence for a trading settlement dating from the 13th to the mid-16th century ce on an elevated headland in Lamreh village about 30 km east of Banda Aceh, on the northern coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. We propose this site was part of historic Lamri, known from documentary sources as an important node in the maritime "silk road" between the 9th to 16th centuries ce. Our landscape archaeological survey revealed large concentrations of ceramics on the headland that span from the early 13th through the mid-16th century, some of them of imperial quality. Several of the Muslim grave markers at this site are of a distinctive type and date across nearly the entire range of the 15th century. Geological evidence suggests low-lying parts of Lamri were destroyed by a major tsunami at the end of the 14th century. However, our data show that activity on the elevated headland continued until the site was abandoned in the mid-16th century. The lack of material culture dating from the 9th to 13th centuries suggests that earlier textual references to Lamri referred more generally to a broad stretch of the north Sumatran coast, with the headland in Lamreh village emerging as the geographic centre of historic Lamri after the turn of the 13th century.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019
Significance We demonstrate that a tsunami in the late 14th century CE destroyed coastal sites al... more Significance We demonstrate that a tsunami in the late 14th century CE destroyed coastal sites along a critical part of the maritime Silk Road and set in motion profound changes in the political economy of Southeast Asia. Our results provide a precise chronology of settlement and trade along a historically strategic section of the Sumatran coast and are robust physical evidence for the rise of the Aceh Sultanate. Tragically, coastal areas impacted by the late 14th century tsunami were devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. This makes our findings relevant to debates about hazard mitigation and risk reduction. This example shows that archaeological, historical, and geological data are relevant in discussions about the long-term sustainability of communities exposed to geological hazards.
This file contains the supplementary online material to: R. Michael Feener, et al. "ISLA... more This file contains the supplementary online material to: R. Michael Feener, et al. "ISLAMISATION AND THE FORMATION OF VERNACULAR MUSLIM MATERIAL CULTURE IN 15TH-CENTURY NORTHERN SUMATRA," Indonesia and the Malay World: https://doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2021.1873564
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2019
Significance We demonstrate that a tsunami in the late 14th century CE destroyed coastal sites al... more Significance We demonstrate that a tsunami in the late 14th century CE destroyed coastal sites along a critical part of the maritime Silk Road and set in motion profound changes in the political economy of Southeast Asia. Our results provide a precise chronology of settlement and trade along a historically strategic section of the Sumatran coast and are robust physical evidence for the rise of the Aceh Sultanate. Tragically, coastal areas impacted by the late 14th century tsunami were devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. This makes our findings relevant to debates about hazard mitigation and risk reduction. This example shows that archaeological, historical, and geological data are relevant in discussions about the long-term sustainability of communities exposed to geological hazards. Archaeological evidence shows that a predecessor of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami devastated nine distinct communities along a 40-km section of the northern coast of Sumatra in about 1394 CE. O...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 2019
Archaeological evidence shows that a predecessor of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami devastated nine... more Archaeological evidence shows that a predecessor of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami devastated nine distinct communities along a 40-km section of the northern coast of Sumatra in about 1394 CE. Our evidence is the spatial and temporal distribution of tens of thousands of medieval ceramic sherds and over 5,000 carved gravestones, collected and recorded during a systematic landscape archaeology survey near the modern city of Banda Aceh. Only the trading settlement of Lamri, perched on a headland above the reach of the tsunami, survived into and through the subsequent 15th century. It is of historical and political interest that by the 16th century, however, Lamri was abandoned, while low-lying coastal sites destroyed by the 1394 tsunami were resettled as the population center of the new economically and politically ascen-dant Aceh Sultanate. Our evidence implies that the 1394 tsunami was large enough to impact severely many of the areas inundated by the 2004 tsunami and to provoke a sig...
This study presents a distinctive type of Muslim gravestone found on the northern coast of Sumatr... more This study presents a distinctive type of Muslim gravestone found on the northern coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, that dates to the 15th century. These grave markers, locally known as plang-pleng, provide evidence for the formation and disappearance of an early form of vernacular Muslim material culture in Southeast Asia. We documented over 200 of these gravestones during a large-scale archaeological landscape survey. In this article, we present a typology of these gravestones based upon shape, morphology and ornamentation. We then discuss their geographical distribution and periodisation based on examples with dated Arabic inscriptions. Our results show that these gravestones were initially a cultural product of the historic trading settlement of Lamri dating from the early 15th century. By the middle of the 15th century, variations of these stones started to appear widely near the Aceh river. The plang-pleng tradition was displaced in the early 16th century by the batu Aceh graveston...
We review published literature and historical texts to propose that three periods of official Chi... more We review published literature and historical texts to propose that three periods of official Chinese maritime bans impacted the composition and circulation of trade ceramics along Asian trade routes: Ming Ban 1 (1371-1509), Ming Ban 2 (1521-1529), and Qing Ban (1654-1684). We use ceramics collected during a landscape archaeology survey along 40km of coast in Aceh, Indonesia to show how the three ban periods manifest in the ceramic record of settlements along an important stretch of the maritime silkroad. All three ban periods overlap with reductions in the quantity of Chinese ceramics. Within several decades of the start of Ming Ban 1, people in Aceh began importing ceramics from production centers in Burma and Thailand as a substitute for Chinese ceramics. Following Ming Ban 2, there is an increase in imports from Chinese production centers, albeit from new kilns sites. While brief, the Qing ban resulted in an almost immediate influx of ceramics from Japan and Vietnam, which maint...
We present archaeological evidence for a trading settlement dating from the 13th to the mid-16th ... more We present archaeological evidence for a trading settlement dating from the 13th to the mid-16th century ce on an elevated headland in Lamreh village about 30 km east of Banda Aceh, on the northern coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. We propose this site was part of historic Lamri, known from documentary sources as an important node in the maritime "silk road" between the 9th to 16th centuries ce. Our landscape archaeological survey revealed large concentrations of ceramics on the headland that span from the early 13th through the mid-16th century, some of them of imperial quality. Several of the Muslim grave markers at this site are of a distinctive type and date across nearly the entire range of the 15th century. Geological evidence suggests low-lying parts of Lamri were destroyed by a major tsunami at the end of the 14th century. However, our data show that activity on the elevated headland continued until the site was abandoned in the mid-16th century. The lack of material culture dating from the 9th to 13th centuries suggests that earlier textual references to Lamri referred more generally to a broad stretch of the north Sumatran coast, with the headland in Lamreh village emerging as the geographic centre of historic Lamri after the turn of the 13th century.
This file contains the supplementary online material to: R. Michael Feener, et al. "ISLAMISATION ... more This file contains the supplementary online material to: R. Michael Feener, et al. "ISLAMISATION AND THE FORMATION OF VERNACULAR MUSLIM MATERIAL CULTURE IN 15TH-CENTURY NORTHERN SUMATRA," Indonesia and the Malay World: https://doi.org/10.1080/13639811.2021.1873564
This research paper entitled "The Scots in Java, 1811-1816: An Episode from the History of the 78... more This research paper entitled "The Scots in Java, 1811-1816: An Episode from the History of the 78th Regiment of Foot (Ross-shire Buffs): The Storming of the Yogyakarta Court / Keraton, 20 June 1812" was written by my late colleague, E. Edwards MacKinnon (1939-2023), who served as NCO with the Seaforth Highlanders, the post-1881 successor Regiment of the 78th Highland Regiment, in the late 1950s. I have expanded and edited his paper to give further details and illustrations relating to the British operations against the Court of Yogyakarta in south-central Java in June 1812, which resulted in the fall of the court in a three-hour military operation at dawn on Saturday, 20 June1812. The military history related here is given from the perspective of the 78th Highland Regiment of Foot (Ross-shire Buffs), whose regimental history was published in 1901 by Major Henry Davidson, and complements what is already known about this operation from Major William Thorn's 'Account of the Conquest of Java with the Subsequent Operations of the British forces in the Oriental Archipelago' (London: Egerton Military Library, 1815). This version of Ed MacKinnon's paper has been updated on 5 September 2023 following the launch of the AMUK-1812 festival (23-28 July 2023) in the Kampung Ngadinegaran, Yogya, site of the residence of the former Yogya commander, KRT Sumodiningrat (c. 1760-1812), whose body was mutilated by the Secretary to the Yogyakarta Residency, John Deans (post-c.1840, Deans-Campbell, 1786-1868)..
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Papers by Edmund Edwards McKinnon