Human remains from rock-shelters and caves in Perak, Pahang and Perlis and from Selinsing
W.L.H. Duckworth, a Cambridge-trained physician and physical anthropologist, published this osteological survey in 1934, presenting his analysis of fragmentary human remains recovered from rock-shelters and caves across Perak and from a submerged site near Kuala Selinsing. His central thesis is that these cave-dwellers—comprising both pygmy-statured and taller individuals—belong to a dolichocephalic, slender-limbed racial type he identifies as “Dravidian” or “Pre-dravidian,” linking them to the Veddas of Ceylon, the Nicobarese, the Palaiyans of southern India, the Wadjak of Java, and even Australian aborigines.
Summary
Duckworth examines skeletal material collected by Ivor Evans and others from four Perak cave sites—Gua To Long in Gunong Sennyum, Gua Kajang at Lenggong, Gua Kerbau in Gunong Pondok, and Bukit Chuping—alongside cranial fragments from a submerged locality near Kuala Selinsing. The Perak material is in a state of extreme fragmentation and commingling, with bones dispersed across cave floors and packed in plaster-of-Paris slabs, making definitive allocation of limb bones to crania nearly impossible. Despite these difficulties, Duckworth identifies two broad physical types among the cave occupants: a more numerous group of small, dolichocephalic individuals with slender limbs and massive jaws bearing large teeth, and a less well-represented group of taller individuals whose head form remains uncertain due to the paucity of associated cranial material.
The analytical core of the article is a series of comparative tracings and measurements that Duckworth uses to exclude the Semang (Negrito) on the grounds of their brachycephalic head-form, and to affiliate the Perak cave-dwellers instead with a wider “Australoid” or Dravidian stock. He supports this affiliation through craniometric comparisons (cephalic indices, calvarial dimensions), dental morphology (large molars, edge-to-edge incisor bite, extreme attrition possibly indicating artificial filing), and the distinctive slenderness of the long bones, which he places in a graduated sequence alongside Nicobarese and Australian femora. The Bukit Chuping material is of particular interest because it appears to represent only two skeletons, allowing a more confident association between a small skull (175 × 128 mm) and a long femur (estimated 470 mm, implying a stature of approximately 1700 mm)—a combination Duckworth argues is genuine rather than an artefact of misallocation, citing Kloss’s record of a Senoi Sakai of Sungkai at 1698 mm as corroborating evidence that such stature was attainable among peninsula jungle tribes.
The Selinsing collection, comprising cranial fragments from fifteen individuals recovered from shallow marine deposition, is treated more briefly. Duckworth notes the presence of barnacles and oyster shells on several specimens, the abrasive weathering of limb fragments, and the relatively “recent” appearance of two juvenile skulls. On the basis of these taphonomic observations and the similarity of the adult crania to recent comparative specimens, he cautions against assigning great antiquity to the collection, suggesting its age may be limited to “a matter of decades.”
Key Findings
- The Gunong Sennyum calvaria has a cephalic index of 61, a maximum calvarial width of 117 mm, and a glabello-occipital length of 173 mm, representing an extremely dolichocephalic and small skull (p. 153, p. 158).
- The Lenggong individual is estimated at approximately 5 ft. 2 in. stature, with a femur and humerus of remarkable slenderness closely resembling those of a Nicobarese islander in the Cambridge Collection; the hip-bone measures 140 mm front-to-back and 125.5 mm in maximum height (pp. 154–155).
- The Gunong Pondok No. 4 Box femora, with an oblique length of 467.5 mm, indicate a stature of nearly 5 ft. 7 in., placing this individual well above the Lenggong example and within the range of Australian aborigines (p. 157).
- The Bukit Chuping No. 1 skull measures 175 mm in glabello-occipital length and 128 mm in biparietal width (cephalic index 73.1), yet is associated with femoral shafts estimating a maximum femoral length of 470 mm and a stature of approximately 1700 mm (pp. 158, 162–165).
- Dental attrition in the Gunong Pondok specimens is so extreme in the anterior teeth that Duckworth attributes it to artificial filing, a practice known in south-east Asia, citing Koganei’s 1922 study of artificial dental deformation among Jōmon peoples (p. 160).
- Of the eight measurable Selinsing crania, only one has a cephalic index over 80 (brachycephalic); one registers exactly 80, and the remainder fall below that figure, contradicting Evans’s earlier characterization of the collection as brachycephalic (p. 167).
Conclusion
Duckworth concludes that the Perak cave-dwellers, whether of pygmy or near-average European stature, fall “naturally and definitely within the confines of a group of humanity spread over a large area of south-eastern Asia and traceable even into Australia,” united by dolichocephalic crania, large jaws with large teeth, and remarkably slender limb bones. He identifies this type with what other writers have termed “Dravidian” or “Pre-dravidian,” and suggests—without overclaiming—that some present-day Perak Malays may represent a subdivision of the same stock.
Context
- The specimens were examined at Cambridge; Duckworth’s comparative references draw on the Cambridge anthropological collection (including Nicobarese, Australian, and New Caledonian material) and on published measurements from the Federated Malay States Museums, the Calcutta Museum, and the University of Adelaide.
- The article sits within the 1930s colonial-era programme of physical anthropology in Malaya, in which European-trained specialists were called upon to interpret skeletal material collected by colonial administrators and museum staff (here, Ivor Evans and P.V. van Stein Callenfels). Duckworth’s racial typology—using terms like “Dravidian,” “Australoid,” and “lowly features”—reflects the classificatory frameworks of his period and would not survive subsequent decades of population-genetic and post-colonial critique.