| Abstract: |
This paper identifies and evaluates the lines of evidence for dating the Guar Kepah site, a group of three shell midden mounds located on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, along the border between the state of Kedah and Penang, and to the south of the Muda River. The paper investigates available Holocene sea level evidence and radiocarbon dates for shell middens sites located near the Straits of Malacca in order to test the assumption that the Guar Kepah site is relatively younger than the Sumatran shell midden sites. As the post-Pleistocene high sea level differs in timing and magnitude across the Indo-Pacific, the hypothesis that the Guar Kepah site was exploited between four to five thousand years ago based on the Holocene high stand (Bulbeck 2005) requires further substation and research, particularly on the geomorphology of nearby rivers and sclerochronological study of the shells to identify procurement patterns.
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