We observe a shift in the technological usage of bone – from a minor component to a medium of choice – during the second half of the Last Termination and into the Holocene. As one step in the process of re-evaluating and contextualising such innovations, in this paper we explore the role of prehistoric bone technologies within the Southeast Asian sequence, where they have at least comparable antiquity to Europe and other parts of Asia. One of the apparent markers of human modernity that has been sought in the global Palaeolithic record, prompted by finds in the European sequence, is innovation in bone-based technologies.

While tracking developments at the large scale, the grand narrative, remains important, there is growing appreciation that to achieve a comprehensive understanding of human behavioural evolution requires an archaeologically regional perspective to balance this. Recent work undertaken in Africa and increasingly Asia, however, now suggests that the European evidence may tell a story that is more parochial and less universal than previously thought. The European Palaeolithic sequence – the most extensively studied – was for a long time the yard-stick against which records from other regions were judged. They demonstrate that by the end the Pleistocene rainforest foragers in Borneo were producing composite technologies that probably included fishing leisters and potentially the bow and arrow.ĭecades Palaeolithic research viewed the development of early modern human behaviour as largely one of progress down a path towards the ‘modernity’ of the present. The results of this study have implications for our understanding the function of the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene bone tools recovered from other regions of Island Southeast Asia.

These artefacts were recovered from secure and 14C dated stratigraphic horizons. The position of both gives strong indication of how these cartilaginous points were hafted and gives insight into their potential function.

Excavations by the Niah Cave Research Project (NCP) (2000–2003) towards the rear of the archaeological reserve produced several bone points and worked stingray spines, which exhibit evidence of hafting mastic and fibrous binding still adhering to their shafts. Renewed archaeological investigation of the West Mouth of Niah Cave, Borneo has demonstrated that even within lowland equatorial environments depositional conditions do exist where organic remains of late glacial and early post-glacial age can be preserved.

Population of sarawak