| Abstract: |
For more than a decade, archaeological literature on the Southeast Asia Palaeolithic has question the status of Kota Tampan as an archaeological site and one with a Middle Pleistocene date, as proposed by Walker and Sieveking in 1958 and 1962. Among those who questioned the validity of their findings, were Harrison (1975), Verstappen (1975), Shutler (1984), Hutterer (1985), and Bellwood (1985). Such doubts on the only Palaeolithic site in the peninsula, meant that the next earliest site that is acceptable is Gua Cha, Kelantan, a Neolithic site of a relatively recent date (Figure 1). Such doubts affect the time depth of prehistory in the peninsula. It would take us only as far back as Gua Cha, 8,000 years ago, at the earliest, instead of the middle Pleistocene Kota Tampan, 200,000 500,000 years ago, as suggested by Walker and Sieveking. In terms of Southeast Asian prehistory, doubts thrown on Kota Tampan meant that the contribution from the few Palaeolithic sites in Southeast Asia is significantly reduced. Thus, Southeast Asian Palaeolithic was in dire need of strong data. Challenged by the seriousness of the problem in Southeast Asian prehistory, in particular Malaysian prehistory, we decided to search for sites in the Kota Tampan area that would help solve the problems of whether or not early man did live in Kota Tampan and if he did so, when. These were the doubts raised in the archaeological literature.
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