THE CAVE DWELLEES OF PERAK.* 

 By L. Wray, Jun. 



As far as the writer lias been able to ascertain the only 

 published account of explorations of cave deposits in Malaya 

 is that describing those carried out by Mr. A. Hart Everett 

 in Sarawak, Borneo, between the years 1878 and 1879. The 

 Royal Society and the British Association voted =£50 each, and 

 d£200 was contributed from private sources towards the expenses 

 of the investigation, which was carried on under the auspices of 

 a committee appointed by the British Association, consisting 

 of Mr. John Evans, Sir John Lubbock, Major - General Lane- 

 Fox, Mr. George Busk, Professor W. Boyd Dawkins, Mr. 

 Pengelly and Mr. A. W. Franks. 



Mr. Everett examined some twenty caves in all, but the 

 results obtained were stated to be of " no special interest either 

 from an anthropological or a geological point of view. The 

 animal remains discovered were all of recent species, the 

 human bones are probably of no very great antiquity, and none 

 of the few objects of human manufacture which have been 

 found can be regai'ded as of palaeolithic age." One small V- 

 shaped fragment of stone, seemingly artificial, was found, and 

 a few chips of quartz which might have been produced l)y 

 human hands. There would appear to be little evidence that 

 the caves examined were ever inhabited for long periods by 

 human beings. The top layers seem in some caves to have 

 contained remains of recent date but the lower layers appear to 

 have been very barren. 



The limestone hills in which these caves are situated are 

 stated by Mr. Everett to be siibstantially indentical with 

 those of the Malay Peninsula, and the caves which he ex- 

 cavated were regular caves in the ordinary sense of the term. 

 Now it has been found in Perak that the deposits in similar 

 caverns are also practically free of evidences of human habit- 

 ation, but that the caves known as " rock shelters," that is 

 shelters formed by an overhanging rocky cliff, are full of vast 

 accumulations of shells, bones, chai'coal, burnt earth, and otlier 



* This paper was read before the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and 

 Ireland on the 14th April, 1896, and published in Vol, XXVI, No. 1 of the Journal 

 ol the Institute, 



