1927.38.8

Collection type

Object

Description

Hammer stone with finger pits. [MN 14/05/2010]

Geographical reference

Malaysia

Asia > South-eastern Asia > Malaysia

Perak, Gunong Pondok, cave of Gua Kerbau

Person

Field collector Ivor Hugh Norman Evans

PRM source Taiping Museum

Date

Date collected

By 1927

Acquisition information

Donated: 1927

Materials and processes

Material Stone, Process Hammered

Dimensions

Length: max 82 mm, Depth: max 52 mm, Depth: max 35 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 1927.38.8

Research and responses

Ivor Hugh Norman Evans published a report on his excavation at the rock shelter in a 1922 article 'A Rock-Shelter at Gunung Pondok' in volume 11 of the Journal of the Federated Malay States Museums. [MN 14/05/2010]

This collection was examined by Dr Huw Barton as part of the Fell funded project Characterizing the World Archaeology Collections. He noted that the site of Gunong Pondok "was first identified by L. Wray who noted deposits of bone and shell in 1880, however, he does not appear to have conducted excavations here. W.M. Gordon dug some exploratory test pits in 1921 but did not produce a report, though a summary based on site visits was published by Evans (1922). Controlled excavations were later undertaken by P. Callenfels of the Netherlands East Indies Archaeological Service and Ivor H. Evans, Perak Museum, in 1926 and 1927 (Evans 1927, 1928). The objects in the Pitt Rivers collection appear to date to the 1927 excavation. The site is also notable as it represents one of the first attempts to formally describe the unifacially worked pebble tools, now known as ‘sumatraliths’, that are typical of the Hoabinhian Industry (Tweedie 1953: 12). While the site has never been dated by radiocarbon or other absolute methods, based on the assemblage recovered, David Bulbeck (2003) estimates the site to date from the early to late Holocene." [AS 12/07/2010]

Notes made on the Malaysian and Myanmar collections by Dr Huw Barton, May 2010 as part of the Fell funded Characterizing the World Archaeology Collections. It was noted: Material from Gunong Pondok. Malaysia Box 7. Taiping Museum 1927.38.1-.17. Six items including tobacco tin containing eight small flakes [1927.38.10-.17] from rock shelter at Gunong Pondok, Perak. 1927. ... Two small pounders [1927.38.7 and 1927.38.8] made from pebbles of white metamorphic stone that contains a lot of mica. Described on their labels as hammerstones with finger pits, but more likely to be some kind of small anvil, possibly for food/nut processing. [MJD 05/08/2013]

Associated publications

See Evans, I.H.N. (1927) Papers on the Ethnology and Archaeology of the Malay Peninsula (Cambridge) and Evans, I.H.N. (1922) A rock shelter at Gunong Pondok. Journal of the Federated Malay States 9, 267–70. [AS 13/07/2010]

Search terms: Tool, Hammer-stone