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.