Foraging-farming transitions at the Niah Caves, Sarawak, Borneo

The Niah Caves in Sarawak, Borneo, have captured evidence for people and economies of 8000 and 4000 years ago. Although not continuous on this site, these open two windows on to life at the cultural turning point, broadly equivalent to the transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic. They have much in common, inferring that the occupants, perhaps belonging to an older maritime dispersal, had a choosy appetite for the Neolithic package. Keywords: Borneo, Niah Caves, Neolithic, Mesolithic, farming, foraging
Introduction For more than two decades our present understanding of the prehistory of Island Southeast Asia (Figure 1) has been shaped fundamentally by Peter Bellwoods arguments that the foraging-farming transition [...]