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Recent archaeological discoveries in Malaysia, 1964: Borneo

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Recent archaeological discoveries in Malaysia, 1964: Borneo

Tom Harrisson, Curator of the Sarawak Museum, reported in 1965 on the major archaeological advances made across Borneo during 1964, a year that marked the opening of the first complete excavations in Sabah and the confirmation of a critical radiocarbon date at Niah Caves. The overarching significance of the work lies in establishing that Sabah’s prehistoric sequence is fundamentally distinct from the well-documented Sarawak record, with strong affinities to the Celebes and Moluccas rather than to the Malay Peninsula or western Borneo.

Summary

Harrisson’s account opens with the substantial behind-the-scenes work of cataloguing the Sarawak Museum’s ceramic collections—some 2,500 whole pieces and over a million sherds—before turning to the fieldwork that defined the year. The most consequential development was the decision, based on a long-term cave study begun in 1952 and information from the Geological Survey, to open the first full excavations in Sabah at a group of caves on the Segama River. A joint Sabah-Sarawak team under Barbara Harrisson and Michael Chong examined seven sites between Lahad Datu and Ulu Segama, concentrating on two adjacent caves of very different character. One was a recent burial cave containing over 1,000 carved and lidded coffins, analysable in relation to the living culture of the Orang Sungei peoples and to Celebes affinities. The other, sealed under six inches of guano, yielded an eighteen-inch deposit of unusual pre-recent richness spread over some 400 square feet, producing the first bronze tools found in situ in Malaysia or Indonesia, distinctive trapezoidal polished stone tools, stone arrowheads paralleling Celebes material, and earthenware unlike any known Sarawak prehistoric type. The absence of porcelain, stoneware, or glass placed the assemblage provisionally before 600 AD, at the threshold of iron and the China trade.

Elsewhere in Borneo, the clearing of the Sungei Jaong site in the Sarawak River delta revealed a group of previously unknown petroglyphs—curious human figures under twelve inches high, pecked onto sandstone boulders in a mangrove creek fifteen miles below Kuching—mapped and photographed but still unassociated with any comparable material in Malaya or Borneo. At Niah, the receipt of a Carbon-14 date of c. 780 AD from a wooden “death ship” coffin in the Painted Cave provided critical confirmation of Harrisson’s theories on early iron and imported ceramics in West Borneo, placing the burial squarely in the middle of the T’ang dynasty. Excavations in the deep pit (“Hell”) continued, now calculated to reach possibly 100,000 BC, while a two-month reconnaissance along the Sekaloh tributary, undertaken in cooperation with the P.W.D. ahead of road construction, uncovered new rock shelters with finely preserved wood carvings, whole Chinese export ceramics of Sung and Ming dates, and secondary burials with pig—something previously unencountered in Borneo.

Key Findings

  • The first complete excavations in Sabah were opened at caves on the Segama River, east coast, in 1964, following a cave survey programme begun in 1952 (p. 245).
  • The Tapadong Cave deposit (18 inches deep, ~400 sq ft) yielded the first bronze tools found in situ in Malaysia or Indonesia: a socketed bronze axe and a cire perdue cast for a bronze gouge (p. 245).
  • A Carbon-14 date of 1180 ± years BP (c. 780 AD) was obtained from a wooden “death ship” coffin in the Painted Cave, Niah, confirming the mid-T’ang dynasty horizon for early iron and imported ceramics in West Borneo (p. 246).
  • The Niah “Hell” deep pit was calculated to reach possibly 100,000 BC, with the 100”–144” sector widened to approximately 1,000 square feet to permit deeper work in 1965 (p. 246).
  • Over 30,000 glass beads were recovered from secondary jar burials at Song on the Rejang River, supplementing a museum bead series already exceeding 500,000 items (p. 244).
  • Stone tools of a crescentic adze form were obtained in situ at 2,000 feet on the Akar River and at 3,500 feet at Bario, confirming stone-age habitation of the far interior uplands (p. 247).

Conclusion

Harrisson’s definitive takeaway is that the first Sabah collection is of a distinctive character that “seldom matches anything in the large range found south in Sarawak over the past 15 years,” pointing instead to Neolithic and early metal-age connections with Celebes, the Moluccas, and possibly further east. The 780 AD Niah date and the pre-600 AD Segama horizon together anchor a chronological framework for Borneo’s transition into the iron age and the China trade, while the upland stone tools extend the known range of prehistoric occupation into the high interior.

Context

  • Harrisson wrote as Curator of the Sarawak Museum, reporting on work funded by the Gulbenkian Foundation and supported by the Sabah government; the article is a contemporary institutional progress report rather than a retrospective analysis (p. 245).
  • The Borneo section is the first half of a combined article; the second half (pp. 248–255) is by B. A. V. Peacock and covers Malayan discoveries including the Dong-s’on drum burial at Kampong Sungai Lang, Selangor.

References