Broken Pots and Perfect Bodies:
Deliberate Fragmentation at the Niah Cave, Sarawak

The West Mouth of Niah Great Cave is famed for the 1958 discovery of a c.42,000 year old cranium of an anatomically modern human and houses the largest Neolithic cemetery in Southeast Asia. Early studies of the handmade ceramics emphasised the mass of broken pottery and the ‘disturbed nature of the deposits”, which was viewed as a common problem in Southeast Asia. No comment was made explaining why fragile human remains found in the same cave deposits were mysteriously untouched. Earthenware pottery from the site dates from c. 800BC – AD1450. Reconstructing these vessels demonstrated that the breakage and redistribution of pieces around the caves was far from accidental. Deliberate fragmentation of ceramics was part of the ritual use of the caves and, in some cases, happened independently of mortuary practice.

The handmade earthenware pottery from Niah does not fit easily within the predominant regional narratives employing sherds as proxies for population dispersal. It includes unique forms and decoration styles which developed and changed over time in parallel with patterns of breakage and redistribution. It is time to reconsider our views of breakage in Southeast Asian archaeology and recognise fragmentation as a deliberate act and not just the inevitable by-product of time.