Stone figures such as these come from the central region of Sulawesi around Lake Poso. They relate closely to a group of large stone megaliths which are believed to date to at least the Neolithic period. While it is not thought that these smaller figures date back so far, they are so old that local inhabitants have no memory of their carving and revered them until recently as sacred images of their ancestors. They could however date to considerably earlier than the currently accepted dating period of the 18th or 19th century.These figures relate directly to early megalithic Southeast Asia and little is known of their carving or use. Usually quite crudely carved they demonstrate certain common Austronesian sculptural elements including the prominence of ribs (thought to represent some sort of x-ray effect rather than emaciation) and exaggerated genitalia.
