The Banda Islands, though insignificant in contemporary geopolitics, played an outsized role during the early days of the European exploration and colonization of Asia, Africa and the New World. As the world's sole source of the valuable spices nutmeg and mace, these nine tiny islands have attracted traders since at least 2000 years ago from China, South Asia and the Middle East. In the 16th century, European explorers discovered entire continents on their quest for these islands, which were first contacted in 1512 by a Portuguese expedition.

A century later, the islands were the site of one of the first experiments in plantation-style colonialism, and a primary source of income for the world's first modern multinational corporation, the Dutch East Indies Company. The events that took place during this period on Banda had enormous implications for the rest of the world, not to mention the Bandanese themselves, most of whom were massacred or enslaved by the Dutch by the 1620s.

Through archaeological survey and excavation, my research seeks to better explain what happened on Banda during this early contact and colonial period by looking into the unwritten past just before Europeans arrived. In particular, I believe that pre-European trade networks, settlement patterns, subsistence strategies and socio-political structures, if better understood, could help us explain why Europeans and Bandanese (and the many other ethnic groups present) acted the way they did. In doing so, we may better understand the particular course of colonial history, both in the Indies and the rest of the world.