Découverte de peintures rupestres à Bornéo

Abstract

Discovery of rock art in Borneo. The Indonesian part of Borneo appeared to have not had any archaeological investigation before 1992 when definitive discoveries confirmed that its past was more complex than expected. Following the first discoveries on both sides of the central Müller Range, an extensive inventory program within the Eastern karstic Bornean outcrops was undertaken, providing significant cultural remains. The unexpected discovery in 1994 of rock art paintings, although the archaeological literacy did stress its absence, initiated changes in the prehistory of that area. This peculiar rock art appears to present not only every characteristic of world common rock art, but more over unique until now, differences. In particular, a very high number of negative hand prints were clearly deliberately positioned and not connected with any other representation. This would confirm a real combination between efficiency and aesthetic preoccupations. Moreover, in contrary to other rupestre expressions, it was possible to count a very large number of differentiating motives inside the hand stencils themselves, producing evidence of cultural and aesthetic features. The lack of any similarity with the usual Austronesian rock art pictures, some representation of vanished bovide, and the thickness of overleaking calcite let us to think that they would have been produced previously. The analogies with Aborigenous Australian rock art suggest if not a direct kinship at least a common cultural ancestry before the end of the Pleistocene.