Old Bones Give Up Ancient Secrets

TALK about old friends. MARINA EMMANUEL has been speaking with Malaysia’s premier archaeologist and her expert help about three very, very old residents of Malaysia.

PROFESSOR Datuk Zuraina Majid has three old friends and they have been quite a revelation to her, and the country as well.

They are literally old friends, the Perak Man, Niah 1997 and GTK 1.

While the Perak Man is said to be between 10,000 and 11,000 years old and GTK 1 some 8,000 years old, Niah’s age is yet to be determined.

The Perak Man and other matters old will be prominent in Zuraina’s coffee-table book, Archeology in Malaysia, to be launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

It was in June of 1990 that Zuraina first made the acquaintance of the Perak Man.

There he was in the main chamber of Gua Gunung Runtuh in Lenggong, the most complete skeleton found in the region, together with his stone tools and some food remains.

The discovery marked a new age in the development of prehistoric archaeology in Malaysia and it yielded data deemed important by the world on early man, culture sequence and the development of material culture.

Since then, archaeological digs in the Lenggong Valley have continued telling Malaysia and the world more stories about the Perak Man.

Zuraina and her team from the Penang-based Centre for Archaeological Research Malaysia have also been busy in Tingkayu and Bukit Tengkorak in Sabah, and the Niah Caves in Sarawak.

Niah 1997, discovered in the Niah Caves in that year and appropriately named, is a boy aged between 15 and 18 years, measuring 149cm in height.

“His bones and teeth showed a calcium-rich diet, while two caries and a cranial lesion suggested iron deficiency,” said Zuraina.

Niah was also wrapped up in layers of beaten reeds before he was buried.

“We are trying to obtain the antiquity range of Niah through the radio- carbon dating technique,” Zuraina said.

Clay remains were also found at the foot of the Niah, suggesting a burial offering to make the “journey” into the afterlife more comfortable.

The several bad deformities on the hand of Niah, according to consultant orthopaedic and sports surgeon Dr Aaron Lim, is a rare condition which affects multiple systems in the body.

“This congential deformity is known as thrombocytopenia radius syndrome,” says Dr Lim who was trained in Britain.

“The absence of one of the bones of the forearms results in a deformed and displaced forearm and hand on both sides.”

The deformity was one he had come across when he worked in Liverpool.

Her other notable old friend, GTK 1, was found in April this year when some archeology students, who used part of Gua Teluk Kelawar in the Lenggong Valley this year for their practical work, came across some teeth.

“The students were told to stop work, since the excavation required expert attention,” said Zuraina who put together a team of experts and headed for Lenggong in May.

“We found a very fragile and fragmented skeleton. It was that of a woman in her 40s. She was 148cm and lived about 8,000 years ago.”

GTK 1 was buried in a foetal position and occupied a very small burial space where food remains and stone tools were found.

Just like Dr Lim, Zuraina can also count on the services of other experts to help her.

Professor Abdul Rani Samsudin, the dean of USM’s School of Dental Sciences and the head of the university’s Craniofacial team, has thrown some light on the death of the Perak Man.

“Towards the end of his life when his immune system got weaker, a trivial infection of the expanding jaw cyst or tumour, must have tipped the balance of his health.

“The infection must have caused miserable pain, an inability to chew and swallow food, malnutrition and systemic sepsis (a severe illness caused by overwhelming infection of the bloodstream by toxin- producing bacteria).

“Therefore, the most probable cause of death for the Perak Man is septicimia (blood poisoning) secondary to an aggressive tumour in the lower jaw.”

On the analysis being carried out on the Niah 1977 and GTK 1, Rani says the jaw and skulls of both skeletons have been scanned at Hospital USM’s Department of Radiology.

“Information will be on the craniofacial aspects and dental anthropology, from which we hope to tell the dietary behaviour and and oral disease at that time,” he says.

Zuraina’s old friends apparently have a lot more stories to tell, stories about how ancient Malaysians lived.

Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim, the Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage, who recently visited USM, was suitably impressed.

He announced that he would forward a proposal to the Cabinet on the need for a national drive to assist archeological endeavours in Malaysia.

NOTE: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi visits USM on Sept 11 to launch Zuraina’s coffee-table book Archaeology in Malaysia.