Past Human Activity and Geomorphological Change in a Guano-Rich Tropical Cave Mouth: Initial Interpretations of the Late Quaternary Succession in the Great Cave of Niah, Sarawak.

This article focuses on matters related to past human activity and geomorphological change in a Guano-Rich Tropical Cave Mouth. The Great Cave at Niah is huge and complex. It is developed in the Subis Limestone of Sarawak in northern Borneo. Although the first excavations of the Great Cave were already noted, it only became widely known from the excavations in the West Mouth by archeologists Tom and Barbara Harrisson in the 1950s and 1960s. The deposits yielded the "Deep Skull"--remains of an anatomically modern human associated with radiocarbon dates of ca. 40,000 B.P. from associated charcoal suspected a later Pleistocene age, while the integrity and interpretation of these caves were questioned.