50,000 YEARS OF STONE AGE CULTURE IN BORNEO — HARRISSON 525 



duced 4,000 pages of original work since 1947, has also dealt extensively 

 with the more elaborate excavations which we have gradually devel- 

 oped, particularly at the Niah caves, with personnel trained on the 

 lesser sites. Three papers have appeared in Man^ but I am only too 

 conscious of the fact that we have been so much engaged with the work 

 itself that we have tended to publish only locally. Nevertheless, the 

 material which I will now seek to summarize is largely available in 

 that print, including papers by foreign experts who have generously 

 assisted our project by studying material sent to them from Sarawak, 

 notably Dr. D. A. Hooijer and Professor G. H. K. von Koenigswald 

 from Holland ; Dr. D. Brothwell, the Earl of Cranbrook, Miss Mary 

 Tregear, Professor S. Tratman, and Dr. Calvin Wells in Britain; 

 Dr. Robert Griffing, Dr. R. Kerr, Dr. A. R. Griswold, Dr. W. S. Sol- 

 heim and Dr. Robert Inger from the U.S.A. This is also the moment 

 to express warm thanks to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, who 

 have made a series of very generous grants to the work ; to the Shell 

 Group of companies and the Chicago Natural History Musemn, who 

 have supported us in many ways in the field; and to the Sarawak 

 government for its continuing basic support. We have also had en- 

 couragement and good advice from Sir Wilfrid Le Gros Clark, F.R.S., 

 Dr. Kenneth Oakley, F.B.A., Dr. M. Burkitt, Dr. Richard Shutler, and 

 Professor W. W. Howells. Most of these mentioned above have come 

 to see our work on the spot. 



We began digging at Niah in 1954, by which time I had enough 

 trained staff and some initial financial support. By then we already 

 knew that the Great Cave covered over 25 acres. The first trial trench, 

 dug with Mr. Michael Tweedie and Mr. Hugh Gibb, showed rich hu- 

 man materials under a surface which indicated nothing. I have traced, 

 in the Saraioak Miiseum Journal for 1958, the strange story of early 

 searches in this cave, the first inspired by the great Alfred Russel Wal- 

 lace — who spent more than a year in Sarawak just over a century ago 

 and focused attention on the search for a Borneo "missing link." I 

 have also there explamed how this vast cavern with more than 2 million 

 edible bird's-nest swiftlets and nearly half a million bats (of seven 

 species), was lost to human knowledge and exploitation for several 

 centuries after the collapse of the China-Borneo trade in the Ming 

 dynasty ; how it was rediscovered by nomadic Punans, and again be- 

 came a socioeconomic center, first as a major source of bird's-nests, and 

 subsequently of bat guano for fertilizer. But the swiftlets and bats 

 live in the dark bowels of the caves, which through various chambers 

 run for miles through the Niah mountain. 



The main or west mouth of the Great Cave is about 200 yards wide 

 and up to 100 yards high. This is so light that it is free of guano, and 

 thus remained untouched until 1954. After initially proving the site 

 in 1954, it took some time to raise the large additional funds and out- 



