ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the appearance of early polities and development of complex societies between the tenth and mid-fourteenth centuries along the northwest coast of Borneo, a region encompassing present-day Sarawak, Brunei and Sabah. Archaeological data from this region provides evidence for the existence of a number of coastal or semi-coastal complex societies in the first decade of the second millennium ce on the northwest coast, with the most significant in Brunei and the Limbang, Santubong and Gedong areas of Sarawak. The development of these early polities in this northwest region as well as in the island as a whole remains obscure, and it is fair to surmise that we know more about the prehistory of Borneo than its proto-historical period. 1
