via Quaternary Science Advances, January 2024: Another paper by Samper Carro et al. on the Matja Kuru 2 cave in Timor-Leste which offers crucial insights into the region’s occupation dynamics from the Late Pleistocene to the late Holocene. MK2’s archaeological assemblage includes stone, ochre, shell, and bone artifacts, alongside vertebrate and invertebrate remains. Complex cave deposit challenges and a lack of clear stratigraphy are addressed using spatial distribution methods and GIS analysis. The study reveals significant shifts in subsistence and social behavior over time, from intense use around 38,000 to 35,000 years ago to changes in the Neolithic period marked by pottery and domestic animals.
The cave site known as Matja Kuru 2 (MK2) in Timor-Leste was first occupied ∼40 kya. Of the caves investigated thus far in Timor-Leste MK2 is unique in being located proximal to a large freshwater lake, Ira Lalaro, providing the opportunity to examine changing occupation dynamics in a lakeside environment from the Late Pleistocene through to the late Holocene. We present the analysis of the Matja Kuru 2 assemblage including the stone, ochre, shell and bone artefacts, and the vertebrate and invertebrate remains. We discuss the challenges posed by cave deposits in tropical Island South East Asia which often preserve little in the way of identifiable stratigraphy. Such caves also present challenges in terms of disentangling what components of the faunal assemblage were deposited as meal refuse by humans, as opposed to by other predators or as a result of natural deaths. We suggest a method for assisting with this taphonomic conundrum.
