ABSTRACT
Firstly, historical accounts of a great lake, or inland sea, located in southwest Sulawesi, and outlined in Pelras' study of the La Galigo texts, are evaluated against recent considerations of Gremmen's palaeoenvironmental work in this region. In addition, the relationship between the Lake Tempe and Rawa Lampulung cores relative to the evidence for saline influences is questioned, and the people conclude that it is only with further high-resolution borehole surveys at both locations that these relationships can be assessed. The borehole surveys were carried out as part of a research project on the landscape history of the upper Cenrana valley and the Tempe depression by the Origin of Complex Society in Southwest Sulawesi (OXIS) project. Despite local informant reports that at times Lake Tempe extends up to the edge of Padaelo, the sedimentary sequences revealed during coring about 0.8 km east of the settlement showed little in the way of 'characteristic' lacustrine sedimentation processes.
