Telling Stones - Megaliths on Sumatra

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Dominik Bonatz
• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology
• Term: since 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 401380411

“Telling Stones 2.0” is the one-year-long extension of the project “Telling Stones – Megaliths on Sumatra”, which since 2019 conducts the systematic documentation of all megaliths and megalithic buildings on Sumatra and its offshore island Nias. The aim is the transfer of collected data into georeferenced online database. Due to travel restrictions during the pandemic, not all regions with important megalithic remains could have been completely surveyed. Therefore, during the follow-up project, documentation work has to be completed on the Pasemah-Plateau and in Pugung Raharjo in South-Sumatra and on Nias Island. All gathered data will be evaluated in a regional as well as over-regional perspective to interpret the megaliths in their chronological development and spatial context. The data will be combined to complete the heuristic frame for the social interpretation of megalithic cultures on Sumatra and Nias.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants