Pawon Man

I did not post yesterday because I had to work until late at night. By the time I got home I was too tired to even open my computer. But here's the continuation of the previous posts about the prehistoric Bandung tour.

As I said in the previous post, the Pawon Cave was home of the prehistoric residents of Bandung as evidenced by the discovery of human fossils there. The above photo is of the replica of one of the fossils found. It is placed in the exact location where the original fossil was excavated and found. The authentic fossil has been removed and is now stored in Bandung Archeological Office at Cileunyi in the east of Bandung.

Up until today, five prehistoric human skeletons have been found in the cave. The fist one was excavated in 2003. The rest was discovered in the subsequent excavations up until 2009. Studies that have been conducted on these skeletons estimate that are 7000 years old, and belonged to a group of humans that lived in the area from about 9,500 up unril 5,600 years ago. They also reveal that all of them died young, between the age of 17 to 35 years old, probably because of their diet.

The artifacts found alongside these skeletons and around the area indicate that they roamed far and wide and had practiced some form of trades. Many of the household stone tools they used were not made from materials available locally. They may have been brought in from Dago Pakar in the north of Bandung, where ample similar tools were discovered and believed to be made, and probably even from areas as far away as Garut in the east of Bandung where the stone of the type used to make the tools was found.

The posture of the skeleton, which resembles that of a fetus in the womb, also give clues about how these ancient human community treated their dead and what they might have believed.

Replika fosil manusia Pawon yang ditemukan di Gua Pawon dalam ekskavasi arkeologi yang dilakukan antara tahun 2003 sampai dengan tahun 2009. Fosil asli telah dipindahkan dan disimpan di Balai Arkeologi di Cileunyi, Bandung. Manusia Pawon diperkirakan hidup di kawasan ini 9500 hingga 5600 tahun yang lalu.

Inside the Pawon Cave

The first place that we visited after the lunch was Gua Pawon (Pawon Cave). Unlike the Sang Hyang Poek, the Pawon Cave is a large, multi-story, and multi-chamber cave with a naturally-occuring inside courtyard and garden. It's like a huge apartment of the ancient time. Indeed, it was. The discovery of household and hunting weapon artifacts and human skeleton fossils confirmed that this place was a dwelling place of the prehistoric Bandung Plateau residents some 10,000 years ago.

We entered the cave from what experts believe to be the kitchen located at the lower level of the cave after a short track and climb from our basecamp, which is only about a few hundrerd meters from the cave. 'The kitchen' is probably where the name of this cave is derived from. Pawon, the name of the cave, in Sundanese (the native language of the West Javanese people), means kitchen. Legend-wise, this cave is also believed to be the kitchen where the foods for the wedding of Sangkuriang were prepared.

From the kitchen -- the entrance -- we climbed further through a small 'alleyway' onto the second floor and another chamber that faces what looked like a courtyard garden. Here, our tour leader gave more explanations about the cave.

Here is 'the door' (the opening) in the second floor of the cave that leads to the courtyard garden.

And the courtyard garden seen from a chamber believed to be the main hall or the common room of the ancient cave dwellers.

There's also a big window in this chamber from which we can see the beautiful green valley underneath. I suppose our ancestors loved a room with a view too. :)