The West Mouth, Niah, in the Prehistory of Southeast Asia.
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THE SARAWAK MUSEUM JOURNAL |
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Title :
The West Mouth, Niah, in the Prehistory of Southeast Asia. |
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Author :
Zuraina Majid |
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Abstract:
This is a study of the preceramic levels at the West Mouth of the Great Cave, Niah, Sarawak. It also examines the material remains from the site in the context of the prehistory of mainland and insular Southeast Asia, the area defined for our purposes as including Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. The West Mouth is a particularly important stratified site as it contains evidence of the longest known duration of human (Homo sapiens) habitation in Southeast Asia. The whole sequence (including the ceramic levels) may span the period from approximately 40,000 years ago to 2,000 years ago. The West Mouth site was excavated intermittently between 1954 and 1967 by the Sarawak Museum under the direction of the late Tom Harrisson. Work was resumed on the site by the Museum and the present investigator in 1977. This study describes and analyses the entire West Mouth collection, the great bulk of it consisting of the materials excavated by Harrisson. This chapter has two objectives. One is to identify the issues and the problems in the Palaeolithic research in Southeast Asia. We will include in the discussion all sites of tne Pleistocene as well as the preceramic sites of the Holocene. We will also focus on a discussion of the finds from various sites that are contemporaneous with the West Mouth. With the context thus established,our second objective will be to outline the aims, data, and scope of the present study.
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| DOI: XXXX |
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How to cite:
Majid, Z. (1982). The West Mouth, Niah, in the Prehistory of Southeast Asia. Special Monograph No.3. The Sarawak Museum Journal, XXXI (52): 1-200 |
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References
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