Akar Nusa
Rows of oil palm stretch over gentle hills in Perak. Between the trunks lie huge pale rocks, some taller than a person. They look like they have fallen from the sky. In a way, they have.
The story
The Lenggong Valley in Perak holds some of the longest records of human life in Malaysia. One site, Bukit Bunuh, was found in 2001 during a mapping project. It is an open-air Paleolithic site that may cover up to 3 square kilometres.
Here, large rocks called suevite are scattered over the land. Suevite is rock made when a meteorite hits the earth and the heat and pressure melt and mix the ground. Researchers at Universiti Sains Malaysia report a stone hand axe embedded in this rock. Using a method called fission-track dating, they gave the tools an age of about 1.83 million years. If that is right, toolmakers lived here long before modern humans existed.
Please read this carefully. This date is still debated. The research team itself wrote a 2022 paper about the problems of dating the site. Other methods gave different answers, some much younger, some much older. For this reason, we say "may be" and not "is".
The valley also tells many younger stories. At Kota Tampan, stone tools lie beneath ash from the huge Toba volcano, which erupted about 70,000 years ago. In a cave called Gua Gunung Runtuh, a skeleton known as Perak Man was found in 1991. It is about 11,000 years old and is the oldest human skeleton found in Malaysia. Later, at Gua Harimau, people were buried about 3,000 to 5,000 years ago, with bronze axes and jewellery. UNESCO listed the Lenggong Valley as a World Heritage Site on 30 June 2012.
Where you can still see it today
- At Bukit Bunuh. Visitors can see giant suevite blocks among the oil palm, as described by volunteers of the Department of Museums.
- In the valley. Several sites sit close together. Local guides and museum visits are the best way to learn more.
- In books. Professor Zuraina Majid edited a large book in 2005 on Perak Man and other prehistoric skeletons of Malaysia.
What DNA can tell, and what it cannot
DNA does not reach this far back for the oldest tools. The makers, if the date is right, were not modern humans, and no family line today links to them. For that reason this story has no mother line, father line or region estimate attached.
Later stories in the valley belong to our own species. DNA still cannot decide race, religion or bumiputera status. What the valley shows is that this land has been home to toolmakers for a very, very long time.
