Scientists have actually successfully dated the charcoal illustrations in Gua Sireh Cave in Sarawak, revealing stories of Indigenous resistance to frontier violence between advertisement 1670 to 1830. The art work, created with bamboo charcoal, portrays scenes of hunting, combating, and dancing, shedding light on the areas history of dispute and colonization. Above is the outdated rock art. Credit: Andrea Jalandoni
Scientists from the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, in collaboration with The Sarawak Museum Department, have become the very first to date illustrations of Gua Sireh Cave in Sarawak, uncovering a sad story of dispute in the process.
The popular Gua Sireh limestone cavern, located in western Sarawak on the island of Borneo in Malaysia, boasts many charcoal illustrations on its chamber walls, drawing hundreds of visitors yearly.
Around 55km southeast of Sarawaks Capital, Kuching, the website is handled by the Bidayuh (local Indigenous individuals) in cooperation with The Sarawak Museum Department, with the drawings portraying Indigenous resistance to frontier violence in the 1600s and 1800s AD.
Radiocarbon ages for the drawings date them in between 280 and 120 cal BP (AD 1670 to 1830), referring a duration of increasing conflict in the area when the Malay elites controlling the area exacted heavy tolls on Indigenous hill people, consisting of the Bidayuh.
Mohammad Sherman Sauffi William from the Sarawak Museum Department and Jillian Huntley harvesting sample GS3. Credit Paul S.C. Taçon.
To the very best of the groups knowledge, these radiocarbon dates are the very first chronometric age determinations for Malaysian rock art. Study co-lead, Dr Jillian Huntley said the primary step was establishing what had been utilized to make the illustrations.
” We wanted to verify the images were drawn with charcoal, as there are a restricted variety of compounds you can really radiocarbon date,” she said.
” We were taking a look at the decay isotopes of carbon, which meant the material needed to be carbon-bearing, and our analyses (with collaborator Dr Emilie Dotte-Sarout at the University of Western Australia) figured out charcoal from various types of bamboo had been utilized. Being made use of limestone, theyre extremely well protected.”
Digital fly-through of Gua Sireh Cave. Credit: Andrea Jalandoni
The art at Gua Sireh becomes part of a wider distribution of black drawings discovered from the Philippines through main Island Southeast Asia across Borneo and Sulawesi to Peninsular Malaysia. They are believed to be connected with the diaspora of Austronesian-speaking individuals.
Previous dating work, also led by the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, has developed comparable drawings in the Philippines that were made as early as ~ 3500 cal BP and ~ 1500 cal BP in southern Sulawesi.
” Black illustrations in the region have been produced countless years,” Dr Huntley stated.
” Our work at Gua Sireh indicates this art type was consumed to the recent past to tape-record Indigenous individuals experiences of colonization and territorial violence.”
An infographic revealing the dated rock art. Credit: Digital tracing and design by Lucas Huntley.
Co-lead Distinguished Professor Paul Tacon stated the group knew from previous operate in the area that northwest Borneos rock art (the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak) is controlled by illustrations of people, animals, ships, and abstract geometric/linear style.
” At Gua Sireh, individuals are drawn wearing headdresses– some equipped with knives, guards, and spears, in scenes showing activities such as hunting, butchering, fishing, dancing and combating,” he stated.
” We had hints about their age based on topics such as introduced animals, but we really didnt understand how old they were, so it was tough to analyze what they might mean.”
Bidayuh descendant and curator at The Sarawak Museum Department Mr. Mohammad Sherman Sauffi William said understanding of the dates had actually been notified by the oral histories of the Bidayuh who have continuing custodial responsibilities over the site today.
” The Bidayuh recall Gua Sirehs use as a sanctuary throughout territorial violence in the early 1800s when a very extreme Malay Chief had actually required they hand over their children,” he said.
” They declined and pulled away to Gua Sireh, where they at first held off a force of 300 armed males trying to get in the cavern from the valley about 60 meters below.
” Suffering some losses (two Bidayuh were shot and seven taken prisoner/enslaved), they saved their kids when many of the tribe escaped through a passageway at the back of the biggest entrance chamber which leads numerous meters through the Gunung Nambi limestone hill.
” The figures were drawn holding unique weapons such as a Pandat which was used solely for fighting or defense, as well 2 short-bladed Parang Ilang, the primary weapons utilized during warfare that marked the first decades of white guideline in Borneo.”
The study was moneyed by the Australian Research Council and Griffith University.
