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Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Within Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger populations.

The landmass of Sulawesi includes four peninsulas: the northern Minahasa Peninsula, the East Peninsula, the South Peninsula, and the Southeast Peninsula. Three gulfs separate these peninsulas: the Gulf of Tomini between the northern Minahasa and East peninsulas, the Tolo Gulf between the East and Southeast peninsulas, and the Bone Gulf between the South and Southeast peninsulas. The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island and separates the island from Borneo.

Etymology

The name ''Sulawesi'' possibly comes from the words ''sula'' ("island") and ''besi'' ("iron") and may refer to the historical export of iron from the rich Lake Matano iron deposits. The name came into common use in English following Indonesian independence.

The name ''Celebes'' was originally given to the island by Portuguese explorers. While its direct translation is unclear, it might be considered a Portuguese rendering of the native name "Sulawesi".

Geography

Sulawesi is the world's eleventh-largest island, covering an area of . The central part of the island is ruggedly mountainous, such that the island's peninsulas have traditionally been remote from each other, with better connections by sea than by road. The three bays that divide Sulawesi's peninsulas are, from north to south, the Tomini, the Tolo and the Boni. These separate the Minahassa or Northern Peninsula, the East Peninsula, the Southeast Peninsula and the South Peninsula.

The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island. The island is surrounded by Borneo to the west, by the Philippines to the north, by Maluku to the east, and by Flores and Timor to the south.

Minor islands

The Selayar Islands make up a peninsula stretching southwards from Southwest Sulawesi into the Flores Sea are administratively part of Sulawesi. The Sangihe Islands and Talaud Islands stretch northward from the northeastern tip of Sulawesi, while Buton Island and its neighbors lie off its southeast peninsula, the Togian Islands are in the Gulf of Tomini, and Peleng Island and Banggai Islands form a cluster between Sulawesi and Maluku. All the above-mentioned islands and many smaller ones are administratively part of Sulawesi's six provinces.

Geology

The island slopes up from the shores of the deep seas surrounding the island to a high, mostly non-volcanic, mountainous interior. Active volcanoes are found in the northern Minahassa Peninsula, stretching north to the Sangihe Islands. The northern peninsula contains several active volcanoes such as Mount Lokon, Mount Awu, Soputan and Karangetang.

According to plate reconstructions, the island is believed to have been formed by the collision of terranes from the Asian Plate (forming the west and southwest) and from the Australian Plate (forming the southeast and Banggai), with island arcs previously in the Pacific (forming the north and east peninsulas). Because of its several tectonic origins, various faults scar the land and as a result the island is prone to earthquakes, including the deadly 2018 and 2021 quakes.

Sulawesi, in contrast to most of the other islands in the biogeographical region of Wallacea, is not truly oceanic, but a composite island at the centre of the Asia-Australia collision zone. Parts of the island were formerly attached to either the Asian or Australian continental margin and became separated from these areas by vicariant processes. In the west, the opening of the Makassar Strait separated West Sulawesi from Sundaland in the Eocene c. 45 Mya. In the east, the traditional view of collisions of multiple micro-continental fragments sliced from New Guinea with an active volcanic margin in West Sulawesi at different times since the Early Miocene c. 20 Mya has recently been replaced by the hypothesis that extensional fragmentation has followed a single Miocene collision of West Sulawesi with the Sula Spur, the western end of an ancient folded belt of Variscan origin in the Late Paleozoic.

Prehistory

The oldest evidence for humans on Sulawesi are stone tools produced by archaic humans, dating from over 200,000 to 100,000 years ago, that were found at the Talepu site in southwestern Sulawesi.

Before October 2014, the settlement of South Sulawesi by modern humans had been dated to c. 30,000 BC on the basis of radiocarbon dates obtained from rock shelters in Maros. No earlier evidence of human occupation had at that point been found, but the island almost certainly formed part of the land bridge used for the settlement of Australia and New Guinea by at least 40,000 BC. There is no evidence of ''Homo erectus'' having reached Sulawesi; crude stone tools first discovered in 1947 on the right bank of the Walanae River at Barru (now part of Bone Regency), which were thought to date to the Pleistocene on the basis of their association with vertebrate fossils, are now thought to date to perhaps 50,000 BC.

Following Peter Bellwood's model of a southward migration of Austronesian-speaking farmers (AN), radiocarbon dates from caves in Maros suggest a date in the mid-second millennium BC for the arrival of a group from east Borneo speaking a Proto- South Sulawesi language (PSS). Initial settlement was probably around the mouth of the Sa'dan river, on the northwest coast of the peninsula, although the south coast has also been suggested.

Subsequent migrations across the mountainous landscape resulted in the geographical isolation of PSS speakers and the evolution of their languages into the eight families of the South Sulawesi language group. If each group can be said to have a homeland, that of the Bugis – today the most numerous group – was around lakes Témpé and Sidénréng in the Walennaé depression. Here for some 2,000 years lived the linguistic group that would become the modern Bugis; the archaic name of this group (which is preserved in other local languages) was Ugiq. Despite the fact that today they are closely linked with the Makassarese, the closest linguistic neighbors of the Bugis are the Torajans.

Pre-1200 Bugis society was most likely organized into chiefdoms. Some anthropologists have speculated these chiefdoms would have warred and, in times of peace, interbred. Further, they have speculated that personal security would have been negligible and head-hunting an established cultural practice. The political economy would have been a mixture of hunting and gathering and swidden or shifting agriculture. Speculative planting of wet rice may have taken place along the margins of the lakes and rivers.

In Central Sulawesi, there are more than 400 granite megaliths, which various archaeological studies have dated to be from 3000 BC to AD 1300. They vary in size from a few centimeters to approximately . The original purpose of the megaliths is unknown. Approximately 30 of the megaliths represent human forms. Other megaliths are in form of large pots (''Kalamba'') and stone plates (''Tutu'na'').Sangadji, Ruslan: ''C. Sulawesi's Lore Lindu park, home to biological wealth'', The Jakarta Post, 5 June 2005
, retrieved 11 October 2010

A burial of a woman associated with the hunter-gatherer Toalean culture dating to 7,000 years ago has yielded DNA that has provided rare insight into early migrations in and through the region.

Oldest known cave art

In October 2014, it was announced that cave paintings in Maros had been dated as being approximately 40,000 years old. One of a hand was 39,900 years old, which made it "the oldest hand stencil in the world". Dr. Maxime Aubert, of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, said that was the minimum age for the outline in Pettakere Cave in Maros, and added: "Next to it is a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old, and this is one of the oldest figurative depictions in the world, if not the oldest one."

On 11 December 2019, a team of researchers led by Dr. Maxime Aubert announced the discovery of the oldest hunting scenes in prehistoric art in the world that is more than 44,000 years old from the limestone cave of Leang Bulu' Sipong 4. Archaeologists determined the age of the depiction of hunting a pig and buffalo thanks to the calcite 'popcorn', different isotope levels of radioactive uranium and thorium.

In March 2020, two small stone 'plaquettes' were found by Griffith University archaeologists in the Leang Bulu Bettue cave, dated to a time between 26,000 and 14,000 years ago. While one of the stones contained an anoa (water buffalo) and what may be a flower, star, or eye, another depicted astronomic rays of light.

In January 2021, archaeologists announced the discovery of cave art that is at least 45,500 years old in a Leang Tedongnge cave. According to the journal ''Science Advances'', the cave painting of a warty pig is the earliest evidence of human settlement of the region. An adult male pig, measuring 136 cm x 54 cm and what is likely a Sulawesi or Celebes warty pig (Sus celebensis), was depicted with horn-like facial warts and two hand prints above its hindquarters. According to co-author Adam Brumm, there are two other pigs that are partly preserved and it appears the warty pig was observing a fight between the two other pigs.

History

A bronze Amaravathi statue was discovered at Sikendeng, South Sulawesi near Karama river