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Archaeological evidence that a late 14th-century tsunami devastated the coast of northern Sumatra and redirected history

ABSTRACT: 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. 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 ascendant 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 significant reconfiguration of the region’s political and economic landscape that shaped the history of the region in subsequent centuries.

SUBMITTER: Daly P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6587673 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:OBJECTIVES:To see whether a collection of portraits depicting inhabitants of a defined geographical region and covering several centuries is a useful source for studying the sociocultural significance and epidemiology of particular visible diseases, such as goitre, which is known to have been common in this region. DESIGN:Systematic review of portraits and description of visible signs of illness. SETTING:The Burgerbibliothek (archives of the burghers' community) in Berne, Switzerland. DATA SOURCES:3615 portraits; 2989 of individuals whose identity is known and 626 of individuals whose identity is unknown. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:Visible signs of illness evaluated by means of a standardised visual assessment. RESULTS:Visible signs of illness in portraits were common and appeared in up to 82% (451/553) of paintings from the 17th and 18th centuries. The most common findings were signs of goitre in women and overweight in men. In only the portraits where the neck region could be evaluated, 41% of women with known identities (139/343) had goitre compared with 24% of men with known identities (21/86). The prevalence of goitre was even higher in sitters whose identities were unknown: 63% in men (5/8) and 68% in women (82/121). Overweight in people with known identities was more common in men than in women (30%, 346/1145 v 44%, 811/1844). Overweight was most common in sitters aged >40 than in those aged 40 or younger. Other conditions, such as missing teeth, amputated limbs, or osteoarthritic deformations were surprisingly rare in the portraits under evaluation. CONCLUSIONS:Goitre and other diseases are under-represented in the people depicted in these portraits. Artistic idealisation is a likely explanation for this observation: what was reproduced depended on what was considered pathological or shameful at the time, and therefore depended on age and sex. Stigmatising details may have been omitted. Further, artistic skills and contemporary fashion may have influenced the way in which people were reproduced. People depicted are possibly not representative of the general Bernese population as they constituted a socioeconomically advantaged group.

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Archaeological evidence that a late 14th-century tsunami devastated the coast of northern Sumatra and redirected history

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