Archaeologists discover prehistoric rock paintings
Archaeologists discover prehistoric rock paintings
SINGAPORE (AFP): A team of archaeologists said on Friday they
had uncovered 11 new caves with more than 500 prehistoric
handprints, paintings and other rock art in Kalimantan.
The discovery of 375 handprints in one cave was "one of the
most important finds" of the expedition, said Frenchman Luc-Henri
Fage, one of the mission's leaders who presented their findings
at a media conference here.
Another team leader, Jean-Michel Chazine, said the team found
11 caves with such handprints in the last five years. They
discovered 11 more during their latest trip to Kalimantan's
limestone mountains from May 23 to June 20, he said.
This was the team's eighth trip to Kalimantan. The prehistoric
paintings were first discovered in 1994 by Chazine and Fage.
The month-long expedition saw four French and one Indonesian
explorer covering 25 caves in a cliff called Gunung Marang. They
hope to return next January with more colleagues.
The handprints, dating back more than 10,000 years, cover
walls at the entrances of the caves and stretch across the walls
and ceilings inside.
They are mostly negative prints created by blowing red or
orange dye over the hand and creating an outline of it.
Some are also decorated with dots, lines and curves that link one
handprint to another. Both adult and child-sized prints were
found.
While the symbolism is still unclear, Chazine said that he
thought they were probably important to the initiation, healing
and other spiritual rituals of the prehistoric communities.
The team also found primitive paintings of human figures
dancing and wearing what appear to be special masks or head
dresses.
More importantly, these figurative paintings were painted over
some of the eroded handprints and suggest that they are younger
than the handprints.
Other rock paintings of prehistoric mammals as well as broken
ceramics, dating back up to 8,000 years and decorated with shell
carvings, were also unearthed.
With much of the rock art eroded by the elements, the team is
concerned about their preservation.
"The conservation of the paintings is very bad due to the
excess of light they receive and the development of what seems to
be bacteria eating the limestone," they said in a press
statement.
There are fears the situation could worsen with the Indonesian
Ministry of Culture and Tourism hoping to develop the caves into
attractions.
But Chazine said that the inaccessibility of the region would
keep tourists away for at least 10 years.
He added that the task at hand was to educate the locals not
to destroy the caves and their surrounding forest.