부산대학교 도서관

This paper reviews the state of zooarchaeology in Sarawak in the new century and presents preliminary observations on the establishment of a database system to register and curate some 750,000 zoological specimens from archaeological digs in Sarawak. Following the initial exploration of caves in Sarawak by A. H. Everett in 1873-1879, there was a long hiatus until Banks reported on megaliths in the Kelabit country. Tom Harrisson arrived at the Sarawak Museum in 1947; he fi rst visited the Niah Caves in that year but actual fi eld excavations in Niah Caves only began in 1954 and were carried through to 1962 by Tom Harrisson himself. By 1957, Lord Medway, who started as technical assistant for the project, was so engrossed in the zooarchaeology of excavated materials from the Niah caves that he spent much of his time studying them. He has continued this work until today. The last research before the turn of the century was a study on the pre-ceramic levels of West Mouth Niah by Zuraina Majid. The shortage of data and difficulties in identification of our zooarchaeological materials, arising partly from the huge task of curating the archive of specimens, has resulted in the general disinterest of local Malaysian biologists to add research and cultural value to our archaeological resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]