The Occurrence of Pre-historic Kitchen Wastes at Gunung Panjang, Ipoh, Perak and Their Bearings on the Age of the Gua Tambun Pre-historic Rock Paintings. Mohd Shafeea Leman 1, Mokhtar Saidin 2 & Islahuda Hani Sahak 3 1 Program Geologi, Fakulti Sains dan Teknologi, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan. 2 Pusat Penyelidikan Arkeologi Global, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Pulau Pinang. 3 Jabatan Geologi, Universiti Malaya, 50200 Kuala Lumpur. Extended abstract Introduction Kinta Valley limestone karst host many caves bearing a number of important geological heritage sites. These geological heritage sites not only revealed geological resources and geological processes but also contained historical relics, cultural and archaeological artefacts (Islahuda Hani Sahak et al 2009). Among most famous archaeological remains in Kinta Valley is the Gua Tambun pre-historic rock painting that is located on the southwestern cliff of Gunung Panjang, a few kilometres east of the Ipoh City Centre (Figure 1). This painting has been considered as the most extensive and most important ancient rock arts ever recorded in Malaysia, hence it has drawn various topics of discussion among local as well as international archaeological communities. Most of the discussions are however, concentrated on the interpretations of painting images and their conservation issues (Adnan Jusoh 2007, Tan & Chia 2011), with very few reports on scientific aspects of the painting. All earlier reports have similar views that most of these images were painted by hematite. This paper will report about the discovery of kitchen wastes around the Gua Tambun and their bearing on the plausible age of the painting. Figure 1. Location of Gunung Panjang (left) and the pre-historic paintings (right).
Geology of Gua Tambun Gua Panjang is a large karstic hill, nearly 2 kilometres long and elongated roughly in northwest-southeast direction (Figure 1). It is mostly made up of light grey marble belonged to the Devonian-Permian Kinta limestone. Despite of its metamorphic nature, traces of sedimentary features such as bedding planes are still observable along the cliff (Figure 2E). The special site for the pre-historic paintings is located at latitude 04 o 36 07.26 north and longitude 101 o 08 50.18 east, along the southwestern cliff face. These ancient paintings spread along the cliff wall for 30 metres wide, from elevation of 2.5 to 15 metres above the narrow rather undulating platform representing the floor of the limestone shelter named as the Gua Tambun. The floor of this shelter is located about 40 metres above the green field belonged to the Malaysian Royal Air Force Headquarters (Figure 2A). A nearly vertical staircase is provided by the Museum Department to reach up to the limestone shelter or Gua Tambun. The Paintings The surface of the cliff that formed the screen for the painting has apparently been unevenly tarnished by various shades of secondary colours, mostly brown, thus have given blurring effects to the original paintings (Figure 2B). In places several paintings have been erased by white patches of bleached wall resulted from the dissolution of limestone by running water. These staining and bleaching effects have made it very difficult for one to trace the whole paintings exactly as they were originally painted. Based on their analysis, Tan & Chia (2011) have classified all these paintings into several motifs, i.e. zoomorphic, anthropomorphic, geometric, botanic, and abstract. Adnan Jusoh (2007), Islahuda et al. (2009), Tan & Chia (2011), among others have identified the use of hematite (FeO) for most of the painting. As a matter of fact Tan & Chia (2011) have also noted the presence of hematite fragments at the floor of the cave but could not elaborate further with regards of the origin of these fragments. Quaternary Travertine Deposit During recent visit to the Gua Tambun, the authors have also encountered pieces of hematite fragments as well as some apically truncated gastropod shells belonged to the species of Brotia costula. Some samples of shells were collected from the floor of the Gua Tambun. At the foot of the Gunung Panjang there are several caves which have partially been filled with travertine deposits as well as recent mud. Located about 80 metres north of the staircase, there is an interesting small cave in which outcrop of travertine deposits were observed. This 1.6 metres travertine deposits is made up of several beds of thin compact travertine interbedded with several thicker beds of more porous calcareous sediments, sometimes showing internal sedimentary features of planar and cross beds (Figure 2C). Within these beds there are scattered apically truncated gastropod shells of Brotia costula, mostly in complete form with some smaller fragments, probably belonged to the same species (Figure 2D). These nearly complete gastropod shells (apart from being anthropogenically truncated) show weak orientation (Figure 3), but tend to be accumulated in particular horizons within the thicker beds (Figure 2C). Most interestingly, within these thicker porous beds there are a few small hematite fragments up to 4 centimetres long, and also fragments of baked red clay
(Figure 2D, 3). Some samples of gastropod shells from this travertine deposit were collected for age dating purpose. A B C D E Figure 2. Photographs representing outcrops related to the Gua Tambun Pre-Historic paintings; A Southwestern face of Gunung Panjang showing the position of the pre-historic kitchen wastes (C) in relation to the Gua Tambun painting wall (B); B stained and weathered painted surface of Gua Tambun; C outcrop of the travertine deposit showing thin compact travertine alternately interbedded with thicker porous calcareous sediments (shell beds); D Porous bed showing abundant consumed shell remains (kitchen wastes) and several hematite fragments; and E traces of bedding planes observed within the Kinta Limestone marbles.
Figure 3. Hand specimens of porous calcareous sediments with weakly aligned shells of Brotia costula, fragments of hematite and baked red clay. Age date of Brotia costula Several samples of Brotia costula from both the travertine deposits at the foot of Gunung Panjang and at the floor of the Gua Tambun shelter (some 40 metres above the former) were sent to the Beta Analytic Radiocarbon dating laboratory in Florida, USA for dating analysis. As a results, based on Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating techniques, the shells from the foot of Gunung Panjang has been dated back to 9980 ± 50 years before present while the age of the shells from the floor of Gua Tambun is only 5330 ± 40 years (before present here refers to the date of processing, i.e. June 13, 2011). Interpretation First of all, data presented may not necessarily correct as these shells are found within the limestone area. According to Chia (2007), the data given for samples taken from limestone area might show much older age owing to contamination from older carbonate. However, presuming that both ages are correct, the age of the travertine deposit probably represents true age of pre-historic kitchen waste since there was very little evidence of reworking to the shells. Brotia costula alone is a common fresh water snail, but their presence with all apical parts being consistently truncated showed that these shells were all belonged to food remains or kitchen wastes left by pre-historic human. Their presence in particular horizons with a weak alignment seems to indicate that these kitchen wastes were dumped into or caught by weakly flowing water. The presence of hematite fragments in the same bed indicates that this mineral is already available since around 9,980 years ago (or perhaps even older), and thus readily available be used for painting by the same people who consumed the snail. This is about the same age with the Perak Man (a Palaeolithic Man) discovered at Gua Gunung Runtuh, near Lenggong, Perak (Mokhtar Saidin 2010). The age given by the shells from the floor of the Gua Tambun i.e. around 5530 years old is much younger than the age of the travertine deposit at the foot of Gunung Panjang. The presence of kitchen product at 40 metres above the ground would certainly raised some questions with regards of the eating behaviour of the pre-historic community i.e. the reasons for them to bring and processed their food at a much higher ground. There is a need to provide better sampling in order to explain this issue. Furthermore, this age could not represent the true age for the painting as the
hematite found there might not be related to the in-situ sediments as mentioned earlier by Tan & Chia (2011). Meanwhile, the presence of baked red clay fragments may indicate that this ancient community has already capable in producing pottery. However, the date given for the horizon is far too old compared to the oldest records of pottery in Malaysia, i.e. around 4,000 years ago although an anomalous age of 6,890 had also been recorded in the vicinity of Lenggong, Perak (Chia 2007). Is it possible for the pottery technology to have had started since the Palaeolithic Age? Summary AMS ages given to gastropod shells of Brotia costula are 9980 ± 50 and 5330 ± 40 years for the travertine deposits at the foot of Gunung Panjang and at the floor of Gua Tambun, respectively. The occurrence of hematite within the same bed indicate that hematite was readily available to be used as the painting material perhaps since 10,000 years ago or even much earlier. However, these data alone cannot precisely date the age of the pre-historic paintings at Gua Tambun. More data with better sampling techniques are needed in order to get a closer date for the paintings. Acknowledgement The fieldwork for this project was carried out under the tenure of the UKM Project No: UKM-GUP-PLW-08-11-141-2008. This paper is supported by the special HiCoE Research Grant Project No: XX-08-2012 awarded to Lestari UKM. The dating of samples was supported by Pusat Penyelidikan Arkeologi Global of Universiti Sains Malaysia. References Adnan Jusoh 2007. Gua-gua batu kapur Lembah Kinta dari perspektif arkeologi. In Mohd Shafeea Leman, Che Aziz Ali & Ibrahim Komoo (eds.) Geological Heritage of Malaysia Conservation of Geoheritage and Protection of Environment, Lestari UKM Publication, Bangi, 169-190. Chia, S. 2007. Scientific study of prehistoric pottery in Malaysia. In Mokhtar Saidin & Chia, S. (eds.) Archaeological Heritage of Malaysia. USM PPAG Publication, Penang, 81-95. Islahuda Hani Sahak, Mohd Shafeea Leman, Ros Fatihah Muhammad & Mohd Irwan Ariff 2009. Potensi pembangunan lestari sumber geowarisan Lembah Kinta. In Che Aziz Ali, Mohd Shafeea Leman, Kamal Roslan Mohamed & Ibrahim Komoo (eds.) Geological Heritage of Malaysia Towards Proclaiming Geoheritage Resources, Lestari UKM Publication, Bangi, 216-240. Mokhtar Saidin 2010. Bukti PraSejarah di Malaysia. Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, Kuala Lumpur. Tan, N. H. & Chia, S. 2011. Current research on rock art at Gua Tambun, Perak, Malaysia. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 31, 93-108.