Southeast Asian Archaeology from a Rock Art Perspective (with annotations)

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited by the Friends of the Museum Singapore and the Asian Civilisations Museum to give a talk on their Fridays with Friends series. There have been a couple of requests for a video link, and while they don’t post the videos on their website they have given me a copy of the recording so that I can put it up online. Thanks to Mary Scott and Laura Socha making this possible.

There were more than a few questions about the sites featured, so I thought It might be a good idea to make a list of annotations and links for anyone who wanted to find out more. The slides can be also be found on my academic pages here and here. This lecture will also be on the Online Lecture Library as well.

• 00:38 The SPAFA Journal and the Southeast Asian Archaeology site (this site)
• 02:28 Earlier variations of ‘the rock art of Southeast Asia’ talk can be found here, here and here. For this version I’ve tried to revamp my material much more significantly. After a decade of talking about how rock art is a relatively ‘new’ area of research, this talk focuses much more on recent research in the region and what it means for future archaeological discoveries.
• 04:55 Tham Chang in Phu Phrabat Historical Park in Udon Thani, Thailand
• 05:55 The Kanam rock art site in Pursat province. Kyle Latinis has written about it here
• 06:30 Chauvet and Lascaux are in southern France, Altamira is in Spain. I was referring to this book calling Chauvet as the birthplace of art.
• 07:06 Leang Bulu Sipong 4, from Aubert et al. (2020), Earliest hunting scene in prehistoric art
• 08:48 Batu Caves rock art: Daly, D. D. (1879) Caves at Sungei Batu in Selangor. Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3, 116-119; Pataw Engravings from Burma (Myanmar): Forchhammer, E. (1892). Report on the Antiquities of Arakan, and a more recent paper by Gutman et al. (2007) Rock art and artisans in the Lemro Valley, Arakan, Myanmar; Laem Tai Raed rock paintings from Krabi: Lunet de La Jonquière, E. t. E. (1912). Essai d’Inventaire Archaeologique du Siam. Paris: Bulletin de 1a Coamission Archaeologique du I’Indochine.
• 09:41 Rock carvings from Sapa, Vietnam: Goloubew, V. (1925). Roches gravées dans la région de Chapa. Bulletin de l’Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient, 25, 423-433.
• 10:00 This infamous scene is from the movie Prometheus.
• 11:10 (top left) Lubang Jerijeh Saleh in Indonesian Borneo, Aubert et al. (2018) Palaeolithic cave art in Borneo; (top right) Ban Tha Si in Lampang, Thailand, Surinlert et al. (2018) Comparison of rock painting sites in the Pratu Pha Valley, Lampang Province, Thailand; (bottom left) Padalin Caves from Shan State, Myanmar, Aung Thaw (1971) The “Neolithic” culture of the Padah-lin Caves; (bottom right) Lene Hara, Lautem, East Timor, O’Connor et al. Faces of the ancestors revealed: discovery and dating of a Pleistocene-age petroglyph in Lene Hara Cave, East Timor.
• 13:45 The story about the monk and the rock art site can be found in this paper, Tan et al. (2016) “What Rock Art?” Stories from Northeast Thailand; the image of Williams-Hunt is found in Williams-Hunt, P. D. R. (1952). An Introduction to the Malayan Aborigines. Kuala Lumpur: Government Press; The Ambersibui site was recently reported here.
• 16:54 Non Sao Ei and Tham Wua are both in the Phu Phra Bat Historical Park. My work on the Pha Taem site is published as The Cliff Paintings of Pha Taem, Luang Prabang, Lao PDR. Rock Art Research, 35(1), 62-78; The Lene Hara paintings can be found in O’Connor et al. (2003) Nine new painted rock art sites from East Timor in the Context of the Western Pacific Region.
• 22:30 The rock engraving site in Laos has yet to be published – thanks to M. Ravenscroft for sharing these images with me; the Painted Cave in the Niah Caves complex was first reported by Harrisson, T. (1959). New archaeological and ethnological results from Niah Caves, Sarawak. Man, 59, 1-8; recent work on the Sema Stones of Phnom Kulen can be found here.
• 23:27 It’s a little out of date now, but the most recent sweeping overview of rock art in the entirety of Southeast Asia is my 2014 work Rock Art Research in Southeast Asia: A Synthesis; my Rock Art of Southeast Asia page is an extension of this work. The AFP/Bangkok Post article can be found here.
• 26:10 van der Hoop, A. N. J. T. à. T. (1932). Megalithic remains in South-Sumatra. Zutphen: W.J. Thieme and Cie.
• 26:57 Evidence for the oldest human remains in Southeast Asia, O’Connell et al. (2018) have a good overview When did Homo sapiens first reach Southeast Asia and Sahul?
• 30:25 Kealy, S., Louys, J., & O’Connor, S. (2018). Least-cost pathway models indicate northern human dispersal from Sunda to Sahul. Journal of Human Evolution, 125, 59-70.
• 31:54 Papers are linked here: Leang Jerijeh Saleh, Leang Timpuseng, Leang Bulu Sipong 4, Lene Hara
• 35:20 Benton, M., Macartney-Coxson, D., Eccles, D., Griffiths, L., Chambers, G., & Lea, R. (2012). Complete Mitochondrial Genome Sequencing Reveals Novel Haplotypes in a Polynesian Population. PLoS One, 7(4), e35026; Lipson, M., Loh, P.-R., Patterson, N., Moorjani, P., Ko, Y.-C., Stoneking, M., . . . Reich, D. (2014). Reconstructing Austronesian population history in Island Southeast Asia. Nature Communications, 5, 4689.
• 36:29 Burley et al. (2019) Small islands, strategic locales and the configuration of first Lapita settlement of Vanua Levu, northern Fiji; Hung et al. (2007) Ancient jades map 3,000 years of prehistoric exchange in Southeast Asia
• 37:40 Austronesian Painting Tradition, see Ballard, C. (1992). Painted rock art sites in Western Melanesia: Locational evidence for an ‘Austronesian’ Tradition. In J. McDonald & P. Haskovec (Eds.), State of the art: Regional rock art studies in Australia and Melanesia (pp. 91-106). Melbourne: Australian Rock Art Research Association; O’Connor et al. (2018) Ideology, Ritual Performance and Its Manifestations in the Rock Art of Timor-Leste and Kisar Island, Island Southeast Asia. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 28(2), 225-241.
• 38:08 Rock art sites: Kisar island, Kaimear Island, Lene Kici 1, Lene Cece
• 38:56 Khan Chan Ngam in Nakhon Ratchasima province, Thailand
• 39:40 My PhD research on rock art sites that later become religious shrines can be found here and here.
• 40:45 Kbal Spean in Siem Reap, Cambodia and Khan Mak Houk in Champassak, Laos
• 42:15 The Art of Not Being Governed; Antiquity, Archaeological Processes, and Highland Adaptation; the Sa Pa Rock Field; Shewan et al. (2020) Isotopic insights into the jar-and-coffin mortuary ritual of the Cardamom Mountains, Cambodia
• 42:56 Kanam rock art site
• 43:21 Pha Taem National Park in Ubon Ratchasima, Thailand
• 43:35 Viking Cave in Krabi, Thailand: Ships and Maritime Activities in the North-eastern Indian Ocean: re-analysis of rock art of Tham Phrayanaga (Viking Cave), southern Thailand
• 43:55 Pak Ou Caves in Luang Prabang, Laos: The Curious Case of the Steamship on the Mekong
• 44:22 Gua Badak in Perak, Malaysia: Evans (1927) Negrito Cave Drawings at Lenggong, Upper Perak. Journal of the Federated Malayan States Museums, 12, 105-106.
• 44:42 Vandalism or rock art? The rock art of Gua Tambun is well-documented, but not the vandalism. There was a conference paper about it in 2010, but I don’t think I have uploaded the presentation; James Low, whose carving is on the Cherok Tok Kun inscription, reports it in 1848. An account of several inscriptions found in Province Wellesley, on the Peninsula of Malacca. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 17(2), 62-66; the recent (and older) rock art of Lae Won rock shelter is described here.
• 46:09 Pha Mon Noi is part of the Pha Taem National Park in Thailand.
• 46:40 Gua Dayak is in the Lenggong Valley in Perak, Malaysia. Mokhtar Saidin, & Taçon, P. S. C. (2011). The recent rock drawings of the Lenggong Valley, Perak, Malaysia. Antiquity, 85, 459–475; Pha Taem of Laos is described in my recent work, The Cliff Paintings of Pha Taem, Luang Prabang, Lao PDR. Rock Art Research, 35(1), 62-78.
• 47:31 I had to skip a few slides, but here are the rock art sites that are open to the public: Sa Pa Engraved Rock Field (Vietnam), The Angono-Binangonan Petrogylphs (Philippines), Phu Phra Bat Historical Park (Thailand), Painted Cave (Niah Caves, Malaysia), and the Singapore Stone at the National Museum of Singapore.
• 49:09 The last site is from Poeung Komnou in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Jessup, H. I. (2008). The Rock Shelter of Peuong Kumnu and Visnu Images on Phnom Kulen. In E. A. Bacus, I. C. Glover, & P. D. Sharrock (Eds.), Interpreting Southeast Asia’s Past: Monument, Image and Text (Vol. 2, pp. 184-192). Singapore: NUS Press.