Transcription
We always see Niah as an archaeological site, not more than that. But actually, we try to change that mindset, change that thinking. Yeah, it's not just archaeology, it's more than that. Be research, maybe we can find a new species of plants or animals or mammals.
Actually, to tell the truth, I built my passion from my favorite movie, Indiana Jones. My name is Sherman Sofie. Currently, I'm Head Section for Archaeology and Strong Emerging Department. So, my background is political science student with history. As I said, I'm an archaeologist by profession. So, my work is actually on to preserving and conserving all the cultural heritage on archaeological sites in Sarawak. We have three regions: southern, central, and northern region. So, currently, as you see here in the storage for archaeology, we're doing a co-documentation of the boxes. The most challenging part is right now we have seven staff in the archaeology section. So, we're going to cater about 1,200 square kilometers throughout all Sarawak.
Before that, we have fully the Niah Cave about a million years ago. It's a formation from the sea, actually, because when you go to Traders Cave, you see the information that it's submerged under water. So that's why we have the Sunderland and Sahulan. If you see our newly excavated area, the Traders Cave, we found oyster shells. When we carbon-dated it, it is more or less about 80,000 years old. This is the collection from the new excavated area on Traders Cave in 2018. All of this finding already been documented and already been counted for. And these are the shells, more or less around 65 to 80,000 years ago.
In the 50s, the Traders Cave is worth nest, traders including the swiftlet and great guano. So, most of them, they still climb for the harvest of bird's nest. But in 1975, when the Niah Cave been declared as a national park, so the bird's nest halted their work. As a seasoner, most collectors are locals from Bintulu and Miri. For me, what I can say is they are very brave. They go high up, much more than 100 meters above, and then just one man with a balean pole going up.
Archaeology in Sarawak only starts systematically since Tom Harrison appointed as the Curator for Sarawak Museum in 1947. But before that, how he found the info about guano is actually from the writings and the reports from a heart. Everett Johnson tracked back all the notes and everything in 1947. He go to Niah Cave in 1952. He do a very simple excavation, but he come back in 1957 with Baba Harrison. So that is for extensive archaeology digging for 10 years. So in February 1958, they found the Deep Skull. What have you inside here is the 40,000-year-old Deep Skull, the cranium part, or the part of the head, and then part of the jaw. This on the upper part. By that time, it was a significant finding. It's actually triggered the archaeology around the world to find something older than the Deep Skull.
The most fascinating part in Niah Cave is the Great Mouth Burial Site. It's a huge mass burial, Paleolithic and Neolithic era. And then you see the difference of the burial types also. We have seven, that I said before, the flex, the sitting, the mutilated, and burnt. Much more to be learned from them about their lives by that time. On the Neolithic era, they have 370 individuals that buried there. You know that more that they're living surrounding the Niah Cave complex, especially the monsoons.
The interesting about Better Catch is rock painting. Actually, the rock art, actually we have done individual book drawing research with Griffith University. So we have about 120 of it. But the special one is about the boats and journey to the afterlife. So telling the story that they end their journey in the lifetime on that period, but they continue their journey to the afterlife. So if you see here is a wooden. So they know the technology how to build a boat by the time about one thousand to two thousand years ago. Quite large, it's usually for an adult-sized human. And then it's a secondary burial. We're going to do further research on this one.
Recently, we do a new site research at the Traders Cave with the University of New South Wales, Australia, including University Sains Malaysia also to have a collaborator together with our major department. So there we found another old from the Deep Skull is about 55,000 years old. The archaeology is not only at the Niah Cave complex. We have the whole lot of Mountsulu Beast, what we call the Niah National Park. On our strategy plan for five years, we are going through the cultural health management, preserving and conserving. We're going to change the fans, we're going to mark much more adequate spaces, information panels, and everything. So the tourists can go there, know which one is Paleolithic, Neolithic. Because one, we have the UNESCO listing, so tourists will come, research will come. The expectation is going to be a lot more what we have now. So that's why we need to plan ahead before we go on that stage.
For me, I very support, thankful, and I appreciate the Sarawak government want to dominate the Niah Cave as a World Heritage Site, UNESCO in Malaysia. We are the only one mixed site. We have culture, we have nature. It is going to be a good collaboration between the state agency, and it can boost up tourism, can boost up research, and everything. It will give Sarawak to the international level.