XXV. PRELIMINARY REPORT ON CAVE 

 EXPLORATION, NEAR LENGGONG, UPPER PERAK. 



By Ivor II. N. Evans, b.a. 



Early in 1917 I visited Lenggong, in Upper Perak, with a 

 view to excavating certain "l the caves and rock-shelters, 

 which are common in the neighbourhood of that place. Some 



exploration of such sites had already been conducted bj 

 Mr. L. Wray, then Curator of the Perak Museum, in the years 

 1886, 1891, and at some later date (not stati .1 , th< 1 aves thai 

 he dealt with being situated in Gunong Cheroh, near Ipoh. 

 His finds, though sufficiently interesting, did not throw any 

 gre.it amount of light on the question of the early inhabitants 

 of the Peninsula. To sum up his work, he proved that some 

 of the rock -she Iters and caves of the Peninsula were formerly 

 occupied, for a considerable time, by a people who lived largely 

 on the flesh of wild animals (and broke theii bones to obtain 

 the marrow), while they consumed quantities ol fluviatile 

 mollusks: who used mealing stones and red haemal ite paint : 

 and were, in some manner, able to possess themselves of a few- 

 valves of a species of marine shell (Cyrena sumatrensis ) . 



A stone celt, that is a natural stone of convenient shape 

 ground to a sharp edge, was disi overed during thelater excava- 

 tions at a depth of two feet. Mr. Wray concluded from the 

 finding of this specimen that the people w ho inhabited tb 

 were not necessarily the makers of stone implements, " but 

 only that they were contemporaneous with the maker- of the 

 implements, from whom they sometimes obtained one by 

 barter or otherwise, in the same way as the modern Sakai get 

 iron axes and chopping-knives from the Malays." This may. 

 of course, have been so: but, if the makers of the stone 

 implements preceded the inhabitants of the caves fa point 

 which his excavations did nol ive-dwellei may have 



met with the aforesaid implement lying on the surface of the 

 soil and have taken it home with him, just as 1 he Malays do 

 with these lithic relics at the present time. 



On the day after my arrival at Lenggong, I visited the 

 (01,1 Kajang, 1 natural tunnel which pierce, a limestone hill. 

 A pith leading from near Len ;gon \ to K Lmpong Gelok passes 

 through it. At the entrance facing Kampong Gelok there are 

 two largi on either side of the cave-mouth. These 



are rock-shelters of ju 1 the tvpe which were, and are, usualh 

 I by 1 ave-dwi llet s. I made an inspei tion oi the floor 

 of the shelter on tin- left, which was the deeper of the two, mid 

 found a large number of the shell; of fluviatile mollusks 

 (belonging to the genus Melanin) 111 ■> hollow worn in it 



1 Xnst , V,.! xxvi, pi jfi 47 Journal 

 oi Hi/ /■' U S M 1 ( 



