Lenggong Valley (Malaysia) No 1396
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Literature consulted (selection) Lenggong Valley Barker, G.W.W., et al., ‘The ‘human revolution’ in lowland tropical Southeast Asia: the antiquity and behaviour of (Malaysia) anatomically modern humans at Niah Cave (Sarawak, Borneo)’, No 1396 Journal of Human Evolution, 52(3): 243-61, 2007. Gamble, C., and Stringer, C., Potential Fossil Hominid Sites for Inscription on the World Heritage List: A Comparative Study, ICOMOS, Paris, 1997. Official name as proposed by the State Party Sanz, N., and Keenan, P. (eds), Human Evolution: Adaptions, Archaeological Heritage of the Lenggong Valley Dispersals and Social Development (HEADS), World Heritage Thematic Programme, World Heritage Papers 29, Paris, Location UNESCO, 2011. The State of Perak Malaysia Stringer, C.B., ‘Evolution of early modern humans’ in The Cambridge encyclopedia of human evolution, Cambridge; New York, NY, Cambridge University Press, 1992. Brief description The lush Lenggong Valley on the Malay Peninsula Wolpoff, M.H., Paleoanthropology, Knopf, distributed by contains artefactual evidence in open-air and cave sites Random House, New York, c1980. spanning all the periods of hominid history outside Africa. A meteorite strike 1.83 million BP preserved Palaeolithic Technical Evaluation Mission tools at Bukit Bunuh, and a catastrophic Toba volcanic An ICOMOS technical evaluation mission visited the eruption 70,000 BP caused abandonment of a workshop property from 11 to 16 September 2011. site containing multiple tool types at Kota Tampan. Other workshop sites date from 200,000-100,000 BP at Bukit Additional information requested and received Jawa, 40,000 BP at Bukit Bunuh and 1,000 BP at Gua from the State Party Harimau. Perak Man (10,000 BP) was found in Gua A letter was sent to the State Party on 9 September 2011 Gunung Runtuh cave site. Together these sites represent asking for clarification regarding the selection of sites and one of the longest records of early man in a single locality relationship to the Niah Caves; length of cultural in the world. sequence; property boundaries; ownership; protection; current conservation and management. A response was Category of property received from the State Party on 25 October 2011 and the In terms of categories of cultural property set out in information provided has been incorporated into relevant Article I of the 1972 World Heritage Convention, this is a sections below. serial nomination of four sites. Date of ICOMOS approval of this report In terms of the Operational Guidelines for the 14 March 2012 Implementation of the World Heritage Convention (January 2008), paragraph 47, the property is nominated also as a cultural landscape. 2 The property Description 1 Basic data The nominated property comprises four sites in two clusters totalling 398.64 ha. The clusters are located on Included in the Tentative List the Perak River separated by Lenggong town. Each 4 January 2010 cluster is surrounded by its own buffer zone which together total 1786.77 ha. The Lenggong Valley is located International Assistance from the World Heritage between the Titiwangsa mountain range on the east and Fund for preparing the Nomination the lower Bintang range on the west. The Perak River with None its little islands and tributaries flows through the valley, which is today essentially an agricultural landscape Date received by the World Heritage Centre including rubber and palm oil plantations threaded with 31 January 2011 traditional villages and dotted with limestone massifs. Pockets of tropical rainforest associated with the Background limestone outcrops are considered to be remnants of the This is a new nomination. Belum-Temengor tropical rainforest which once extended 60 kilometres from the north. Geological evidence Consultations indicates that the Perak River has changed its course at ICOMOS has consulted its International Scientific various times, resulting in gravel deposits, and creating Committee on Archaeological Heritage Management and lakes at Lenggong and nearby Lawin and Gerik in the several independent experts. ancient past. A meteorite impact 1.83 million years ago blocked the river and diverted its course. During the period 157 of much lower sea levels 40,000 years ago the valley was group of material is of human origin, no human fossils part of a tropical savannah. Over a period of two million have been found at the site so there is lively debate about years the valley provided gravel suitable for prehistoric whether the tools were made by pre-modern Homo stone tool making and limestone caves for shelter. The erectus or by Homo sapiens. There is no doubt the site is Lenggong Valley is described in the nomination dossier as and will remain a site of international importance in the big a relict cultural landscape comprising river gravels, the debates about the origin of our species. Bukit Bunuh meteorite impact crater, open-air stone tool workshop sites, limestone massifs and their caves. Cluster 2 Cluster 2 is located further up the river to the north of Cluster 1 Cluster 1, north of Lenggong town and comprises three Cluster 1 is located north of a bend in the Perak River and sites: the limestone outcrop containing the cave Gua consists of one overall site which includes the open-air Harimau; the open-air workshop site at Bukit Jawa and a stone tool workshop sites at Bukit Bunuh and Kota third site which consists of the limestone massif Bukit Tampan approximately 1 km apart located on the ancient Kepala Gajah containing the caves Gua Gunung Runtuh, lake shore and gravel river terraces. It also includes the Gua Teluk Kelawar and Gua Kajang. The buffer zone of Lenggong Archaeological Museum and the University of this cluster also contains three other limestone massifs, Science Malaysia Archaeological Field Station, located Bukit Gua Badak, Bukit Batu Tukang and Bukit Gua near the Kota Tampan site. Dayak which have caves known to contain cultural remains. Bukit Bunuh Located today in an oil palm estate, the meteorite impact Bukit Jawa crater at Bukit Bunuh measures approximately 3.45 km in The open-air in situ stone tool workshop site at Bukit Jawa diameter. Suevite rocks created at the site by high was located on the shores of an island in the ancient lake pressures and temperatures from the impact contain 200,000-100,000 BP. The technique of tool-making using embedded stone hand axes chronometrically dated to anvils and hammer stones was similar to but not as 1.83 million BP by the fission-track method. These hand technically developed as those found at the later Kota axes are the oldest or among the oldest so far discovered Tampan site. Tools were mostly made from locally outside Africa. An in-situ workshop with stone available quartz, but finds of sandstone tools led to the assemblages has also been excavated here, with finds discovery of a nearby sandstone source at Bukit Suring (in dating to 40,000 BP, including one hand axe made from the buffer zone). suevite. Bukit Kepala Gajah ICOMOS considers that the use of CT scanning to reveal This large karst outcrop occupies an area of six square the contours of the hand axe partially embedded in the kilometres at its foot, with a summit 258 metres above sea rock melted by the meteorite’s impact is innovative and level. It contains more than 20 caves, of which 4 have yielded important supporting evidence for the identification been excavated. Three of these revealed prehistoric of these objects as shaped by hominids. burials: Gua Gunung Runtuh, Gua Teluk Kelawar and Gua Kajang. Kota Tampan This workshop site is presently on a hill slope but was on Gua Gunung Runtuh a shore of the ancient Chenderoh Lake during the Perak Man was found in this cave, which has three Pleistocene, 70,000 BP. The evidence of the ancient lake chambers and was first excavated in 1990. The cave was can be read in the landscape as high terraces, landslide used for habitation and burial purposes from around scars, paddy field valleys indicating streamline remnants 13,000 BP until 2,600 BP. Perak Man is South-east Asia’s of the ancient lake and ancient lake outlets. As an oldest most complete human skeleton, radiocarbon dated undisturbed Palaeolithic stone tool workshop, the to 10,120 BP and identified as Australomelanesoid, a association of artefacts (raw materials, finished and hominid type occupying the western part of the Indonesia unfinished tools, and tool-making debris) is clearly visible. archipelago and continental South-east Asia at the end of Its sudden abandonment was apparently due to the the Pleistocene and early Holocene but now largely catastrophic Toba volcanic eruption, indicated by the confined to east Indonesia, Melanesia and Australia. The presence of volcanic ash. The assemblage of artefacts smaller left arm and compensatory curvature of the spine found at this site has revealed and made possible the exhibited by the skeleton indicate a genetic deformity identification and classification of multiple tool types with known as Brachymesophalangia type A2. The burial was specialised functions, indicating a lithic technology in accompanied by stone tools, animal bones and shells. South-east Asia as sophisticated as anywhere else in the Similarities in lithic technology and tools with those world. As such this site is an important global reference produced at Kota Tampan suggest that there was little site for Palaeolithic stone tool-making. cultural change between the two sites, which are separated by around 60,000 years, indicating that the ICOMOS notes that this site has particular importance in Kota Tampan population around 70,000 BP was already the debates about the expansion of Anatomically Modern anatomically modern man, making tools that earlier Humans out of Africa. While there is no doubt that the hominids could not. 158 Gua Kajang corridor through which early man passed intermittently Located approximately 8 km from Lenggong town, Gua over a long period of time on his way from mainland Kajang is a natural limestone tunnel through the Bukit South-east Asia to Australia.