| Abstract: |
Introduction: The portion of the title of this paper in quotes is the title of an important early paper of Heine-Geldern's (1937) that precipitated a major controversy on the date and origin of theso-called Dongson Culture. The major antagonist to Heine-Geldern's presentation was Bernard Karlgren (1942). Though I was acquainted with Heine-Geldern's general argument, I did not read this paper until the time of writing the original of this article. I had read Karlgren's answer to Heine-Geldern with considerable care many years ago, so I had a fair idea of its contents. I was surprised at the impact Heine-Geldern's paper made on me, even though I was now in disagreement with many of the points that it made because of much of the new data, and the new dates, from Southeast Asia and China. Before the summer of 1965, when we started receiving the startling new dates for Non Nok Tha in northeastern Thailand (Solheim 1968), I had strongly leaned toward Heine-Geldern's interpretation of Dongson as opposed to that of Karlgren, even though I suspected that many prehistorians were convinced by Karlgren's arguments. It is unfortunate that, when a portion of a major work is found to be in error, it often happens that that whole work is considered useless, or is simply forgotten. In the so-called hard or exact sciences, a new paradigm replaces an old and accepted one and, perhaps properly, the old paradigm becomes merely of historical interest. In the social sciences, and certainly in prehistory, a successful paradigm is not necessarily wholly correct or completely false. Considering that Heine-Geldern's reconstruction of Southeast Asian prehistory was a successful paradigm that was widely accepted for more than 30 years, just because certain portions of this paradigm no longer fit with the new data is no reason to toss it into the pigeonhole of a historical curiosity. Heine-Geldern's arguments in this article were based on elements of design and art patterns
from these he developed relationships over wide areas and postulated movements of people to explain the presence of the similar geometric elements and patterns. (Erika Kaneko, a former student of HeineGeldern's in Vienna, has told me [personal communication, 1978] that "although in his written statements Heine very often used the term migrations or movements of people, in his lectures, discussions and conversations he often used terms like 'contacts' or 'intercommunications.'")Unless we wished to depend to a considerable degree on the "psychic unity of mankind" as the explanation for the similarities pointed out by HeineGeldern, we still must explain these similarities through some sort of contacts or communication between peoples. They will not go away by our ignoring them. I do not here attempt to explain the similarities of design for the total area presented by Heine-Geldern. I only point out that they are worthy of explanation, and I do present an explanation (hypothesis) for these similarities for a portion of the area he covered. I summarize briefly the thesis presented in "L' Art prebouddhique" (1937) and the history and development of this thesis both before and after publication of the article. I then point out briefly where the new archaeological data do not fit Heine-Geldern's reconstruction. I finish this paper with a brief framework of my proposed new paradigm for Southeast Asia, South China, and Pacific prehistory with the hope that others might be interested in reexamining the western portion of Heine-Geldern's considerably larger reconstruction as well as considering, questioning, and adding to my suggestions. All of this has to do withmy middle and late Extensionistic Period (Solheim 1975:151) or, in Heine-Geldern's terminology, the late neolithic, bronze, and early iron age of Southeast Asia.
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