From the time of the earliest European contact in the sixteenth century of the Common Era until
well into the twentieth century, the Bugis of South Sulawesi were organized into kingdoms.1 The
broad outlines of the political histories of the major Bugis kingdoms in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries are known from indigenous historical texts associated with those kingdoms
and, after 1605, from Dutch and other European archival records.

Indonesia has significant potential for the archaeological study, currently under development, of submerged landscapes in marine, river, and lake environments (Adhityatama and Yarista 2019). This article focuses on the site of Pontada, suspected of being a submerged ironworking village, which was discovered in 2016. In this article, we describe Pontada iron implements dating to the mid-second millennium A.D., placing them within the context of local smelting of Lake Matano iron ore by the late first millennium A.D. and the mid-second millennium A.D. rise of Luwu as a powerful political entity.

Proyek Pengeboran Danau Towuti adalah suatu kolaborasi internasional antara ilmuwan dari Amerika Serikat, Indonesia, Jerman, Kanada, Australia, Swiss, Singapura, dan Inggris. Proposal riset kami dilandaskan pada tujuan ilmiah yang telah dirumuskan pada Lokakarya Pengeboran Danau Towuti pada bulan Maret 2012 dan diikuti oleh 62 ilmuwan serta mitra industri dan pemerintahan.