Research on the oldest skeletal remains found in peninsular Malaysia is rounding up, although the gender of the skeleton still remains unknown. There’s also the curious intention to put the remains back to the site it was found – I don’t know if this is a reburial or a special holding centre.
Research on oldest skeleton in Malaysia coming to an end, says director
The Star, 28 October 2011
The remains of what archaeologists believe to be the oldest skeleton ever found in the country – dating back 16,000 years – will be returned to the site where it was found in Gua Bewah, near here.
To date, local researchers have yet to verify the gender of the remains but they have named the skeleton “Bewah Man†after the cave, near Tasik Kenyir, where it was discovered two years ago.
The skeleton is currently being kept under lock and key at the Terengganu State Museum here, where some 15 archaeologists and scientists had been toiling daily to unlock its mystery.
Full story here.
It’s strange they haven’t determined the sex yet. Did they actually get help from US experts? And do we have any idea how much of the skeleton they found. Seems they only found the dental parts quite recently.
As for returning the bones to the cave, it seems they are “constructing the appropriate casing for the special remains” so this could be as a display rather than a reburial. But whatever they do, I hope the site will be made secure and safe from thieves and vandals.
The Malaysian government will be very careful to show that the Malays were the first to be in the Malay Peninsula. History books are being written with a view to supporting the “Bumiputra claimâ€.
I read a book –by G Coedes “The making of SE Asiaâ€, (not being an expert on the subject) that suggests that the Malay is but a combination of Chinese and Indian. That is, that what we call a Malay man’s forefathers were from China or India. It’s a mixed breed and carries on till today. There are Thai, Bugis, Arab, Indonesian, Vietnamese, India Malays.
Many Hindu civilizations found in Kedah and Johor have been covered up because of evidence of Indian civilizations. So I doubt that the government will call US or other Western experts but will hide the evidence under lock and key and apply the Official Secrets Act to the evidence!
Malaysian history is made up.We all know that. Hang Tuah was Chinese and not a Malay. History in Malaysia always changes when obstacles surface showing that the indigenous community in Malaysia is not Malay which consequences speaks for itself.
Malaysia was a Hindu nation in the so-called civilized period[Malacca]and then Christianity arrived after 1411. The Malaysian government’s suggestions must be “taken with a load of salt”. They cheat the public-no foreigners would be invited to inspect the skeleton lest the world reaalizes that the Bumiputra concept is the figment of imagination of another oppressor who wants to justify his existence like Hitler once did.