Year: 1972
Type: article
Abstract: BACKGROUND TillS paper surveys and summarizes to date the archaeological work carried out in Sarawak, and to a lesser extent in Sabah and Brunei, since 1945 when I began archaeological activity in west Borneo.These three territories were each separate colonies under British rule during most of that period, but Sarawak and Sabah are now states in east Malaysia, and Brunei is an independent state under British protection.Most of the work has been done through the Sarawak Museum, of which I was curator and government ethnologist from 1947 to 1967, but there are museums now in operation in both Brunei and Sabah.(As emeritus curator of Sarawak Museum and consultant to His Highness the Sultan, I am in close touch with archaeological activities in Sarawak and visit Brunei every year to discuss museums and related matters.)This paper is based partly on information not yet published, but I have also had recourse to the many but scattered published reports of excavations done through the Sarawak Museum, the Brunei government, and the Sabah government from 1947-1970.Other material is in press.For a useful and readable survey concerned mainly with the Sarawak River delta sites, see Te-k'un Cheng's Archaeology in Sarawak (Cheng 1969).With the assistance of the Sarawak Museum and the cooperation of the present curator, Benedict Sandin, I will contribute to a forthcoming issue of the Sarawak Museum Journal a full bibliography of Borneo archaeology.I am spending part of each year at Cornell University reanalyzing and writing up the Borneo excavations.Two volumes entitled Excavations of the Prehistoric Iron Industry in West Borneo have been published (Harrisson and O'Connor 1969), as has Gold and Megalithic Activity in Prehistoric and Recent West Borneo, also two volumes (Harrisson and O'Connor 1971).A large number of papers on work in Borneo have been published internationally, and approximately one thousand pages of text have been devoted to that subject in the Sarawak Museum Journal.The 1966 issue, for example, contained twelve archaeological papers, including specialist studies by Lord Medway, the Earl of Cranbrook, ].E. Hill, ].L. Reavis, and myself.Despite this appreciable and developing body of publications, results of most of the fieldwork remain unpublished, particularly with reference to the Niah caves.
Author: Tom Harrisson
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2243928249