Following a couple of ethno- and
archaeo-speleological surveys carried out, in the Indonesian part
of the Borneo Island and more precisely the Eastern Kalimantan
Province, an expedition organized last September on behalf of
Ministry of Tourism has just disclosed two sets of quite
exceptional ornated caves.
Located in the upper levels of gigantic
and steepy karstic outcrops, these two groups of caves provide
prehistoric paintings which are remarkable for their number, their
pictorial content inasmuch as their conservation
state.
Gua Masri - The first group comprises two caves
situated in the middle of a cliff about 30 meters one upon the
other and containing roughly 60 hand stencils whose disposition,
concentrated upon two to three panels only is obviously
intentionally organized.
Ilas Kenceng - An other group, 80 km westwards,
comprising three large rooms, is presenting a first amount of 200
figures including more than 140 hand prints.
More than 20 of them have anthropo-and
zoo-morphic features inasmuch as linear or punctuated lines inside
the stencils blanks. Moreover, painted on the roof of a
"laminoir", about one meter high, three bovine figures larger than
one meter are to be seen, which seems to be a clear representation
of an almost vanished wild small cow. That representation at
almost 1/1 scale, seems to be the first of that kind ever found.
The next two features would be deer's implied in a hunting scene
associating some par of hand stencils.
Paintings are located upon walls,
alcoves or niches, from one meter to more than ten meters upon
actual ground level. Depending on locations, some paintings are
covered by a more or less thick calcite layer. For exempla, one
hand print is covered by a calcite flow whose thickness is as
large as 15 cm which, whatever the formation conditions would have
been, is an indication of extreme age. Locations do not show yet
any specific disposition related to the entry or more or less dark
places.
Many anthropomorphic representations
often appear inside hand prints blanks and sometimes in autonomous
locations. In an especially remarkable case, anthropo- and
zoo-morphic features are associated with a curvilinear track
linking two hand stencils. The analogy with some expressions
present within the Australian aborigines representations appears
here to be very strong and ethnographic literature suggests to
read there some "initiatic trek". Some hand prints have internal
linear track evoking tattooing figures as still do the Mentawi
communities in Siberut Islands (South Sumatra) or as the "X ray"
drawings, frequently present in the Aborigines pictorial
expression.
Several superposition hand tracks show
a strong evidence for a chronology which is also revealed through
the variety of pigments. Apart the black color, we found at least
four different colors varying from black-brown to
light-red.
Within these two cave groups, the hand
prints disposition appears to be well-organized expressing
deliberated rhythms. One or more circular moves mixing right and
left hands are to be seen, showing clearly that ritual efficiency
was associated with artistically expression. That organization in
the display of these negative hand prints provides a very
different expression compared with what was known until now about
Rock Art in Indonesia.
Let us recall that until 1994, when we
discovered the first cave with unexpected prehistoric paintings,
the whole Borneo Island was considered by specialists as totally
lacking of Rock Art. It was thought that paintings would not
appear "before" West Sulawesi (Leang Burung and Maros Caves
mostly), eastward of Makassar Straits and Wallace
Line.
That affirmation was based upon the
fact that investigations had been carried out inside Sarawak,
Sabah and Brunei areas only.
Years after years, caves we have
discovered provided an enlarged display of pictorial expressions
and attested by the way that their utilization was not for regular
dwellings.
The discoveries which have been made
until now extend upon an area comprised between the sea and the
meridional bow of the Mangkalihat Range. This would enlarge the
extension on the two sides of Wallace Line of the same influence
area linking the eastern bottom of Insulinde. The formal analogy
between pictorial expression found in Australia and those which
have just been discovered reinforce at evidence that
possibility.
As a matter of fact, the diachronic
schemes of cultural influence between Continental Asia and the
Australian sub-continent become more under discussion. In
particular, the size of the extension but also the orientation of
the trend on both sides of Wallace Line has to be more carefully
approached and needs therefore more
investigations.
Starting probably before the arrival of
Austronesians into Borneo Island, that cultural impact or possibly
"Rock Art Culture", would correspond to the period when climatic
and marine changes occurred at the end of Pleistocene provoking
the geographic isolation of the local insular
communities.
The diversity and unicity of these new
discovered paintings (displayed on Internet:
www.speleo.com/borneo2.html) confirm that the huge size and the
strategic location of Borneo require an attention and an
investigation program much larger than what has been previously
and almost randomly gained.
The different investigations which are
currently carried out in the neighboring archipelagoes and
especially Sulawesi, should benefit from the discovery of these
Rock Art expressions which affords a new feature for the space
occupation and dwelling process in South East Asia
Island.
Jean-Michel Chazine
CNRS/CREDO-France