Niah National Park

Niah National Park, located within Miri Division, Sarawak, Malaysia, is the site of the Niah Caves limestone cave and archeological site. History Alfred Russel Wallace lived for 8 months at Simunjan District with a mining engineer, Robert Coulson, who had explored what is now northern Sarawak for mineral ores. Coulson later wrote to Wallace about finding bones in a number of caves in Sarawak. On further enquiry, Wallace learned that one cave in question "was situated in the district between Sarawak and Bruni (Brunei), on a mountain some distance inland." In March 1864, Wallace favoured Coulson to explore the caves. However, later in May 1864, G. J. Ricketts, a British Consul to Sarawak was appointed to undertake the work. Ricketts did not remain in the post for long and subsequently Alfred Hart Everett was chosen to undertake the work. Everett surveyed 32 caves in three areas, including Niah/Subis (near Miri) and "Upper Sarawak Proper" (to the south of Kuching). In the 1950s, Tom Harrisson, the curator of Sarawak State Museum was searching for evidence of ancient human activity in Sarawak. He came across Niah Cave, which showed no evidence of ancient human activity in the area. However, he inferred that since the cave was cool and dry and there were millions of bats and swiflets which can used as food, ancient humans could have lived in the cave. Therefore, in October 1954, Harrisson with his two friends, Michael Tweedie and Hugh Gibb spent two weeks examining the Niah. They found evidence of long term human occupation, habitation, and burial. In 1957, the Sarawak museum organised a larger expedition with transport and equipment from Brunei Shell Petroleum and Sarawak Oilfields Ltd (Shell). Eathernware, shell scrapers, shell ornaments, stone pounders, bone tools, and food remains were found. Radiocarbon dating of the charcoal layers put the site at 40,000 years old, dating back to the Paleolithic era. The expedition team led by Barbara Harrisson discovered the "Deep Skull" in the "Hell Trench" (for its unusually hot condition) at 101 to 110 inches below surface in February 1958. It is a partial skull with maxilla, two molar teeth and a portion of the base of the skull. The skull is highly fragile and is not fossilised. The morphology of the skull is suggestive of belonging to a female in her late teens to mid-twenties. Near the skull, a complete left femur and right proximal tibia were found which belongs to the same individual.