528 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964 



Table 1. — Preliminary Niah phaseology 



1 See Man, 1959. 



I should emphasize the apparent absence (at No. 6 in table 1) of 

 those distinctive struck pebble tools usually attributed to the Mesolithic 

 in Malaya and Indonesia and name "Hoabinliian" after the type site 

 in Vietnam. I am mildly sceptical about the "Hoabinhian" as gen- 

 erally accepted; in any case, it is — as at present defined — strikingly 

 absent at Niah. 



The situation at Niah is not, clearly, unique. Further cave explora- 

 tion in Borneo will surely yield similar results. But there are certain 

 conditions that are desirable to produce a site of this richness. For 

 one thing, a cave floor must be well above sea level, to avoid effects of 

 prehistorical changes in level and also massive floods from the great 

 rivers — which have continued even in historical times. It was also 

 a big attraction to early man to have a cave literally teeming with 

 protein in the form of edible birds and bats. 



Yet the extent to which a place like Niah became a center of stone 

 age civilization has only been barely indicated above. As well as the 

 work in the West Mouth, in the last 5 years we have been exploring 

 the whole limestone formation of the Niah massif. We have found 

 literally scores of other caves of archeological value. One of these, 

 first identified from the air, involved a group of skilled climbers m 

 5 days' preparation and ladder building before they could reach it 

 high up in the cliff. It proved to be a cave almost as impressive as 

 the West Mouth itself ; and a first scratch at the surface produced posi- 

 tive human results. We have so far excavated extensively in 5 other 



