Social drivers of fortified settlements in Timor-Leste

In a number of publications, archaeologists Peter Lape and C.-Y. Chao have proposed a ‘climate change’ model to account for the emergence of fortified structures and ‘defensively oriented settlement sites’ in Timor-Leste. Specifically, they argue that during the late Holocene (post-AD 1000), processes of fortification were driven by severe and rapid climatic events associated with the El Niño Southern Oscillation effect (ENSO) (Chao 2008; Lape 2006; Lape and Chao 2008). The critical ENSO impact was decreasing, leading to variable rainfall and protracted droughts during the period beginning c. AD 1000, and rising to a peak period AD 1300–1400. The effect of variable rainfall, it is argued, resulted in food scarcity and gave rise to the construction of defensive fortifications, particularly in areas with permanent water flows that remained agriculturally viable during drought. According to Lape and Chao, people built forts to protect themselves against others who lived in more distant or adjacent regions and who were suffering food shortages. In the following paper, the utility of this climate-based model of settlement fortification is called into question and an alternative analysis is presented that foregrounds a range of prospective social drivers that might better explain the historical shift towards defensive settlements and the structural characteristics of their built forms. While not discounting the importance of environmental dynamics on Timorese livelihoods and residential choice, a factor that continues to play a significant constraining role in relation to Timorese food security, it is argued that the evidence points more to sociohistorical factors as drivers of change than any marked variations in rainfall patterns and agricultural production. Specifically, I argue that the novel and combined impact of Portuguese colonialism and Sulawesi-based Islamic trading interests from the middle of the sixteenth century set in train a transformative shift in Timorese social relations and residential patterns that gave rise to the emergence of fortified hilltop settlements. The paper sets out four central elements of that transformation and, importantly, argues not for a definitive or original date for fortification, for which strong evidence remains elusive, but rather for an historical period of time when the need for a defensive posture became irresistible.