Megalithic evidences in East Malaysia, an introductory summary
Tom Harrisson’s 1973 introductory summary synthesises two and a half decades of fieldwork and excavation across Sabah and Sarawak to demonstrate that Borneo’s megalithic tradition was far more extensive, varied, and recently active than the prevailing scholarly consensus had allowed. The overarching thesis is that these stone monuments were not a single, ancient, externally diffused “cultural feature” but a locally generated response to settled irrigated rice-cultivation and the technological revolution of iron, one that had already entered organic decline long before colonial contact.
Summary
Harrisson sets out to correct what he sees as a body of confused thinking in Southeast Asian megalithic studies, explicitly rejecting five assumptions: that the megalithic is a cultural feature on its own; that it necessarily held great importance within group culture; that it has a single sequential origin; that it is necessarily very ancient in any one locality; and that it is directly related in origin or spread between localities (p. 124). His argument is that the visible megalithic scatter of the 1970s represents only a fragment of a once wider and richer activity, and that negative evidence—absence of stones in a given area—must be treated with extreme caution given the rapidity with which equatorial jungle obliterates such features (p. 132).
The core analytical move is to correlate megalithic manifestation with the presence of well-settled, well-fed societies practising irrigated cultivation on stable ground. Over 550 of the roughly 650 documented megaliths are directly connected to communities living in areas with irrigated rice-fields (p. 132). Harrisson proposes that the advent of iron—giving quick, sure control of the rain-forest for clearing and felling—was the enabling technological precondition, and that the megalithic developed as a “natural reaction” to the total local biotope rather than as a diffusion from any mainland source. He finds no clear evidence of Indian, Chinese, or other mainland features in the megalithic work or related ideas, noting instead “a rather noticeable tendency to local specialisation and diversity” (p. 133).
A distinctive contribution is the “crypto-megalithic” concept, developed in the appendix: highly mobile groups such as the Iban, who left no physical monuments, nonetheless carry dense megalithic references in their shamanic chant cycles and genealogies, suggesting that the stone tradition persisted in verbal form even where material expression had ceased (pp. 137–139). Harrisson draws on his own excavations at Jaong, the Kelabit highlands, and the Kadazan coastal plain, as well as associated ceramics, metal tools, gold-foil pieces, and Chinese stonewares, to anchor the dating and cultural associations of each assemblage.
Key Findings
- Approximately 650 megaliths had been documented in Sabah and Sarawak by 1973; over 550 were directly connected to communities in irrigated rice-field areas (p. 132).
- 133 Kadazan menhirs were located in situ in the coastal plain; the last were erected early in the twentieth century, when a government regulation on quarrying and transporting stone unknowingly ended the practice (pp. 124–125).
- In the Kelabit highlands, approximately 425 megaliths across eight types were recorded within an area of only about 600 square miles; associated ceramics from excavations date no earlier than 1000 A.D., with most probably placed after c. 1500 A.D. (pp. 126–127).
- The Sungei Jaong petroglyphs and cut blocks, associated with intensive iron-working, are provisionally dated “before 1000 A.D.” on the basis of ceramics ranging 700–950 A.D., making them the earliest megalithic yet demonstrated by Borneo field evidence (p. 128).
- The Tantric shrine at Santubong, excavated in 1966, dates rather before 1350 A.D. and may have originally surrounded a central menhir (p. 128).
- Harrisson’s reclassification of Kelabit stones into “ancient” (348) versus “within past century” (73) categories, based on local tradition verified by test excavations, shows that the most impressive structures—large dolmens, lines of menhirs, imposing rock carvings—belong to a remote past attributed to culture heroes such as Tokid Rini (pp. 134–135).
Conclusion
Harrisson’s definitive takeaway is that the Borneo megalithic died out organically, not through external suppression. In the lowlands, the advent of Islam offers one possible reason for the suppression of “pagan” cult, but no sign of Islamic penetration reached the Kelabit highlands until very recent times. Drawing an analogy with Easter Island—where the finest megalithic expression was overthrown before living memory regardless of outside influence—Harrisson argues that Borneo’s megalithic “flowered quickly and widely, then more slowly wound down and eventually out” (p. 135). The visible megalithic of the 1970s, he concludes, represents “thin shadows of a stronger past” (p. 132).
Context
- Harrisson was the long-serving director of the Sarawak Museum; the article draws primarily on the museum’s own excavation records (Jaong, Santubong, Kelabit sites) and on the Sabah Museum’s field documentation, with the bulk of the published literature on the subject having been produced by Harrisson and his associates over the preceding twenty-five years (p. 124).
- Historiographically, the article directly challenges van Heekeren’s 1958 assertion that Borneo “contains very few megalithic antiquities” (p. 125) and introduces the “crypto-megalithic” concept as a framework for understanding megalithic thought in mobile, monument-less populations—a contribution that extends beyond the physical record into the domain of oral tradition and shamanic liturgy.