Rock paintings reveal deep history

Rock paintings reveal deep history

By Bernard Estrade

JAKARTA (AFP): The discovery of a series of rock paintings in lost caves along Kalimantan island has opened up new perspectives on the prehistoric era in the region between Southeast Asia and Australia.

Pictures and notes taken from the limestone caves in the region northwest of Sangkuliran in the Indonesian province of East Kalimantan offers analogies with rock art found in the region stretching up to Australia.

The similarities could throw light on contacts and influences of aboriginal communities to the west of the Makassar strait more than 10,000 years ago when a fall in the sea level allowed freer movement.

However, explorers, scientists and researchers from a Franco- Indonesian team which made the discovery, has counseled utmost caution on the findings so as to avoid controversy.

Jean-Michel Chazine, ethno-archeologist from France's national center for scientific research, CNRS, who, along with speleologist Luc-Henri Fage carried out expeditions in one of the remotest regions, tries hard to suppress enthusiasm.

"The number, quality of conservation and variety of motifs are completely new for Borneo (Kalimantan). The diversity and uniqueness of the paintings demand urgent attention and a much bigger investigation than what has been conducted so far," Chazine said.

"The researches under way in neighboring areas could profit from the discovery of these paintings which throw new light on the position of space in insular Southeast Asia," he said.

Chazine said it was highly probable that the profusion of hands depicted in a fan-like design bear a "striking analogy to the representations made by the Australian Aborigines."

Traces of some stenciled hand evoke tattoos "which are very frequent in the Aborigines' pictorial expression," he said.

The dating of the paintings awaits finalization and is currently put at anywhere between 6,000 to 20,000 years ago.

Moreover, it is yet to be ascertained whether there is an indigenous style in Kalimantan or if there are links to the art in neighboring areas.

The work on the paintings, in which Pindi Setiawan of the renowned Institute of Technology of Bandung has a big role, began about 10 years ago. Fage had quite by chance found some charcoal designs in Kalimantan in 1988.

The first expedition, along with Chazine, mounted in 1992, showed central Kalimantan was indeed populated 3,000 years ago.

Since then, they have returned every year except last year when a gigantic fire ravaged the region and early this year amid elections and political instability.

But when the team, backed by Indonesia's tourism ministry recommenced its work in September, it was in for a big surprise.