The West Mouth Neolithic Cemetery, Niah Cave, Sarawak

Abstract

Excavations between 1954 and 1967 in the West Mouth, Niah Cave (Sarawak) uncovered the largest Neolithic cemetery in South-east Asia with over 150 burials. Subsequent work at the site in the 1970s and most recently by the Niah Caves Project (2000–2004) brought the total to 170, comprising 89 primary burials and 79 secondary burials, and two ‘multiple’ burials. The size of cemetery and the scale of the archaeological data are unprecedented in South-east Asian Neolithic archaeology and offer a unique opportunity to investigate the cemetery's origins, development, and history in detail. Analysis of the demographic structure of discrete spatial burial groups within the cemetery and their short term burial sequences are combined to interpret the history of changing burial practice in terms of different social/settlement groups using the cave as a communal place of burial. A new suite of radiocarbon dates are used to date the West Mouth Neolithic cemetery to between 1500 and 200bc. Six phases of burial are defined and the associated transitions of ritual practices are discussed. In particular, a transition from primary to secondary burial occurred aroundc.1000bc, which subsequently intensified into the practice of cremation. This process was likely associated/fuelled by an intensification of economic activity to support more elaborate secondary burial funerals. Two further cycles of primary and secondary burial followed, before the main cemetery ceasedc.200bc. A Post-Neolithic phase of possibly 14 burials (five primary flexed burials and nine secondary burials) is proposed to follow, which while continuing aspects of Neolithic mortuary behaviour, is considered on isotopic data to represent a group of hunter-gatherers living in a closed-canopy environment

The Pain Haka burial ground on Flores: Indonesian evidence for a shared Neolithic belief system in Southeast Asia

“…These may reflect temporal differences in the cemetery use, especially with regard to the use of jars for burial. Flexed burials at Pain Haka fit into the category of later, 'loosely flexed' burials as defined by Lloyd-Smith (2012). The organic wrapping and jars found at Pain Haka were also observed in the West Mouth Neolithic cemetery (Lloyd-Smith & Cole 2010).…”

“…The discovery of a large Neolithic burial ground with jar-burials at the open-air site of Pain Haka, on north-eastern Flores Island, Indonesia, provides a rare opportunity to investigate certain aspects of later Holocene communities inhabiting the East Nusa Tenggara islands. We present here the mortuary practices and associated material culture within the cemetery, and compare Pain Haka with other contemporaneous cemetery sites, and particularly the Niah West Mouth cemetery in Sarawak (Harrisson 1967;Lloyd-Smith 2013). Finally, we propose that some similarities in mortuary practices between these sites attest to the rapid spread across ISEA of a pan-regional belief system, intrinsically linked with the introduction of pottery as part of the mortuary ritual.…”

“…There appears to be substantial regional variation in its duration and in the relative timing of the introduction of metal from Mainland South East Asia (MSEA) (Lloyd-Smith 2013). Metal objects were also being incorporated into existing cultural processes such as burial rituals in a still largely Neolithic context (Szabó et al 2008;Lloyd-Smith 2013).…”

“…In ISEA, burial grounds dating from as early as c. 4000 BP have been found from Taiwan to Indonesia. Many of these sites were excavated before modern archaeological techniques were practised, and the preservation of the human skeletal remains was poor (Van Heekeren 1956;Harrisson 1958Harrisson , 1967Chao 2000;Latinis & Stark 2005;Mahirta 2006;Simanjuntak 2006;Hung et al 2013;Lloyd-Smith 2013). The appearance of jar-burials within cemeteries from both MSEA and ISEA has been considered by some authors as evidence for profound social changes that swept across the region during the later Holocene (Higham 1996;Bellwood 2007;Hung et al 2011).…”

Subadult Age at Death and Health Status at Niah Cave, Borneo (1500–200 bc)

“…Niah Cave is the largest known Neolithic cemetery in Southeast Asia and consists of several connected limestone cave structures situated in a tropical rainforest environment (Barker et al ., ; Harrison, ; Lloyd‐Smith, , ) (Figure ). The Pleistocene ‘Deep Cave Skull’ demonstrates that occupation of Niah Cave spanned from Late Pleistocene to Late Neolithic (Barker, ; Brooks et al ., ; Harrison, , , , ).…”