The Lost Forest

by John Francis Kinsella

  Chapter 21

  AN EXPEDITION SETS OUT

  Pierre Ros was the head of Anthropological Research at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, and more in particular he directed all field work and excavations. He was short, round, red faced and sported a small bristling moustache, he enjoyed life, and especially good food and wine. He bubbled over with energy; he was talkative, full of good humour and unable to support a single moment’s silence in the presence of others, frequently speaking before he reflected on the diplomacy or pertinence of what he said. Fortunately his English was not all that the BBC would have desired, and the meanings of his words were often lost on his listeners, which left him time to backtrack with infectious joviality.

  However, before any other consideration he was one of the world’s great specialists on human evolution and his experience of field work automatically led to him being appointed by Lundy to lead the expedition to Borneo, which would be conducted under the official auspices of the French Ambassador in Jakarta, Dominique de Pazowski. Pierre had almost forty years experience and had participated or directed many expeditions to Africa, the Middle East, China and other less known hominid fossil sites around the world.

  Pierre Ros naturally adhered to the evidence that modern humans, Homo sapiens, emerged in the Horn of Africa, and more precisely in the Awash region of Ethiopia, about 160,000 years ago, before appearing some 100,000 years later in large numbers. They migrated outwards to the north and south, into the territories of existing populations of Homo erectus in Africa and Asia, and with Homo neanderthalis in Europe.

  However, he did not entirely accept the prevailing theory of extinction of the different hominid ancestors that had preceded modern man. He believed in the possibility of compatibility between early Homo sapiens and his close non-sapien contemporaries, and as a consequence of their cohabitation, Pierre Ros believed, may have interbred with those he met as he migrated out of Africa into Eurasia, resulting in a certain degree of assimilation. This did not mean the disappearance of existing populations nor did it imply that all isolated groups died out at once.

  One of the difficulties amongst scientists in the world of palaeoanthropology was that everyone wanted to find something older, more sensational, headline breaking news, a discovery that would make a reputation for a lifetime, an honoured sinecure. However the announcement of such discoveries was fraught with dangers. A typical example was the premature announcement on the dating of a sandstone rock-shelter in northern Australia. Scientists suggested that the stone artefacts found in the shelter were in sediments between one hundred thousand and one hundred and eighty thousand years old. It was a startling revision in theestimated date of man’s arrival in Australia. Later it seemed those artefacts were only 10,000 years old, making a lot of red faces or bitter scientists.

  However, fossil evidence of the confrontation between different species of early man remained very scarce. Israel, in contrast to modern times, provided an insight into the possible co-habitation of different early human populations, but there was little concrete evidence of such interbreeding, that was until another discovery, the skeleton of a child of possible mixed descent, in the Lapedo Valley of Portugal. The so-called hybrid had the facial characteristics of a modern human and the body of a Neanderthal.

  To the mind of Pierre Ros the borneensis skull appeared to show a possible, though controversial, mixture of Homo erectus and early Homo sapiens, an idea that he uncharacteristically kept to himself.

  Ennis received a copy of the Memorandum of Understanding from Lundy, between the Musée de l’Homme and the Institute of Human Palaeontology with the Indonesian Centre for Archaeology in Jakarta. At the same time Aris transmitted copies of the documents giving official approval for the expedition from the BPPT, the State Ministry for Research and Technology in Jakarta for a scientific team to undertake, in the Pegunungan Hilir Hills, adjoining the frontier area north of east of Pontianak in West Kalimantan, a Franco-Indonesian research programme, the official object of which was the study of forest biology, primate habitats and human interaction. Pusat Arkeologi, the Indonesia Research Centre for Archaeology was nominated as joint coordinator together with the French CNRS. There were also letters from the National Museum of Indonesia, the Minister of Home Affairs, and the Minister of Education and Culture, backing the work to be undertaken in the province. The project would be monitored by an office, which Aris described as a branch of the BAKIN, the National Intelligence Coordinating Body, to avoid accidental incursions over the border in one sense or another.

  Pusat Arkeologi was joined by another specialist organisation, the IRD, a French public science and technology research institute working with Pusat Arkeologi and the University Gadjah Mada at a number of prehistoric archaeological sites, in the Province of Palembang in Sumatra.

  Finally there was a scanned image of the official letter, signed by the Minister of Forests, addressed to Pt. Indah Hutan, a company owned by Aris, providing them with an authorisation to carry out research work relative to forestry matters in that region with a special emphasis on the definition of areas to be set aside as special reserves for the conservation of local biodiversity.

  In Pontianak the capital of the Province of West Kalimantan, the Governor issued a memorandum instructing the District and Sub-District Heads to provide logistical assistance and labour if necessary.

  Relations between Malaysia and Indonesia had been complicated by the political situation in Jakarta resulting in the border crossing between Sarawak and West Kalimantan being closed several times. The nearest official crossing point to the expedition’s camp was at Entikong, where Pontianak could be reached by road.

  The border between the two countries had been the source of different problems over the years and a Malaysia-Indonesia General Border Committee had been set up under the auspices of ASEAN, whose role to resolve border disputes in accordance with international laws and procedures, so as to prevent encroachment into either of the two countries. The Indonesians had set up a program to demarcate and protect border posts under the control of the Ministry of Defence and the Indonesian Armed Forces.

  Indonesia based its claim on a treaty of 1891, between colonial rulers Holland and Britain that defined the border. However, the present day Malaysia government disputed certain points in treaty.

  Border markers had been made during the colonial period after an agreement signed between the British administration and Netherlands but there were problems in the interpretations of the agreement. Some of the demarcation stones had been lost and their positions could not be determined

  From the Malaysian side the Sarawak Border Scouts were responsible for border control and security over the region, the problem was that the border between the Malaysian states and Indonesia was two thousand kilometres long and the inhabitants of the region could cross the national border at will.

  The Indonesian Minister of Defence, had claimed that ‘rogue’ elements involved in illegal logging were responsible for shifting markers along the border of Indonesia and Malaysia in Borneo, and the government intended to take measures to prevent illegal crossing. For security, a list of foreigners participating in the field team was to be transmitted to the office of the Governor of the Province, who would be responsible for providing the local upcountry permits, in coordination with police and military authorities.

  ‘Do you know the leader of the Pusat Arkeologi team?’ Ennis asked Lundy.

  ‘Yes, Murtopo is getting on in years but he’s very competent, not the kind of man to make problems, it’s a diplomatic thing, after all it’s their country,’ Lundy explained to Ennis.

  ‘I’ve read a few articles about him, he’s made quite a few discoveries in Java,’ said Ennis, ‘Aris has talked about him too.’

  ‘He heads the Laboratory of Bioanthropology and Palaeoanthropology at Gadjah Mada, and by the way they have got some pretty good equipment that could be useful to us.’

  ‘Anthropology is very important to Indones
ia,’ Lundy explained, “and the IRD has a long standing programme with them, after all there’s not so many places in the world where so many fossils of early man have been found.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘One other thing you should know, the ambassador wants to be kept up to date on all progress.’

  That was normal but it did not please Ennis, he found Dominique de Pazowski to be arrogant, overblown with his own self importance, which was not an unusual trait in the French diplomatic corps, the ambassador disapproved of the agreement signed between Ennis and Lundy on a subject that he felt fell under his prerogatives. At their meeting at the embassy in Jakarta Pazowski had given Ennis an unpleasant lesson on protocol when Ennis had the misfortune to arrive without Lundy, who had been delayed by the demonstrations at the university where he had been meeting with Professor Murtopo. Ennis sensed Pazowski would be the source of more than a few problems.

  The dig was scheduled to take place over a period of three months starting at the beginning of May, which gave them two months to prepare the expedition. Aris had intimated to Ennis that they were extremely lucky to have obtained the permit in view of the worsening crisis in Indonesia; it was becoming more and more difficult to get the necessary authorisations for research work as the authorities were distracted by the political and financial scandals that were erupting from all sides.

  However, though the financial difficulties of the country remained omnipresent and though they had not affected the Suharto regime, there were ominous rumblings from the opposition, which appeared to be too weak and disorganised to cause any immediate problems.

  It was the last Saturday of March when Aris met him from his flight in Jakarta in an uncertain atmosphere. The situation seemed to be steadily worsening, it was clear that the Suharto regime was in serious difficulties, the last weeks had been filled with riots and violence on the university campus and on the streets of the capital.

  As they entered into the city it was not at first obvious that there was any unrest, the crowd appeared to going about its daily business and the traffic was just as snarled up as ever. However, as they approached the city centre Ennis saw a pall of smoke in the distance, it appeared to be hanging over the Glodok district and he could not avoid noting the presence of a great number of police and military personnel.

  The targets of the rioters had been businesses and homes owned by ethnic Chinese, who though they represented only four percent of Indonesia’s population were a dominant force in the country’s commerce and industry, controlling a large part of the nation’s general commerce and wealth.. Riots directed against the ethnic-Chinese minority were frequent and dated back to the colonial era with many Indonesians resenting their wealth, and when times were hard targeted them as scapegoats.

  Over the previous days, Chinese stores had been burnt and many Chinese had taken refuge in the local police stations. The rioters were apparently out again, and authorities had reinforced the security measures with hundreds of additional troops to patrol the streets.

  In the background the political pressure was building-up, their objective was to force Suharto to step down, not running for a seventh consecutive term as President. It did not worry Ennis too much; he had been hearing rumours for years on what was called ‘after Suharto’. However, this time the economic menace was great, following the collapse of the Thai Baht, which was a potential danger for the whole region.

  Suharto had used his leadership to build up his family business with the help of his so called ‘cronies’. The business consisted of the tentacular interests of his late wife Ibu Tien, and their five children, Tommy, Bambang, Siti, Hart and Billy together with Suharto’s son-in-law, head of the Indonesian armed forces. Their combined fortune through a web of business holdings, property and bank accounts was estimated at fifteen billion American dollars.

  With the growing Asian economic crisis the Indonesian Rupiah was in free fall against the US dollar, and the near collapse of the Jakarta stock market was threatening all of the country’s major banks with failure and the bankruptcy of a great number of businesses both large and small.

  The advance members of the team headed by Pierre Ros had flown directly from Singapore to Pontianak, where they were met at the airport by Aris’s local office manager and the governor’s representatives. They were were also greeted by a thick haze that hung over the surrounding countryside and the city itself, making their eyes water and reducing visibility to a hundred metres or so.

  “This has been going on for at least the past week,” said the office manager, “It’s the dry season and farmers have started burning to clear land for the next crops.”

  It was a recurring problem each year during the dry season in Borneo and even though land clearing by fire was banned by the government, the local authorities were incapable of controlling such a vast territory with the fires getting regularly out of hand.

  The political situation had been tense in Pontianak but in general the streets had been relatively calm although the large Chinese population was watching with anxiety how things would develop, always with the thought that in periods of unrest and dynastic change they were amongst the first victims. More than five hundred thousand Chinese had perished at the fall of Sukarno, the first president of Indonesia, and his regime in the sixties.

  The group consisted of twenty foreign and Indonesian specialists assisted by thirty odd archaeological students from Gadjah Mada and local workers. A temporary headquarters had been set up in an office put at their disposition by Aris near the city centre with accommodation in the Hyatt hotel. Once they had made the necessary arrangements the main group would move up to a field camp that was being prepared near the village of Lanjak about five kilometres from the Indonesian side of the border with Sarawak.

  A week later the first part of the field team flew up to Putussibau whilst their equipment followed by road, a bone breaking journey of six hundred kilometres. From Putussibau they then travelled the remaining one hundred kilometres by boat through a landscape of rice paddies and lowland forest to Benuamartinus and finally by Landcruiser to Lanjak.

  The region was a mixture of highland and lowland forests, bordering on the national parks of Lanjak-Entimau that straddled the border of Sarawak and Kalimantan Barat. Lanjak and Entimau were peaks in the Boven-Kapuas Mountains, Lanjak being 1,281 metres high. The parks were part of an international programme between Malaysia and Indonesia to preserve the biodiversity of the rainforests. On the Malaysian side the park covered 187,000 hectares, on the Indonesian side the park was much larger covering 600,000 hectares.

  The access to the border area was limited to river navigation by longboats, which meant that the transport of personnel and equipment was particularly delicate. The area was almost entirely covered by primary rainforest, a sanctuary in which nature had remained undisturbed for millions of years; it was the home to reptiles and strange land crabs as well as many species unknown to science including a great number of plants and insects. The forest was almost impenetrable a witness to the extraordinarily diversity of life.

  The provincial Director of Forests was a member of the family of the army general Try Sutrisno who had been the previous vice-president of the country. It was a comfort to know that the Military and Police held the Province of Kalimantan Barat in a firm grip with little risk of serious unrest during the expedition.

  Wars, politics and missionaries had worked their ravages on forest peoples during the twentieth century. The Dutch were content to leave the forests to the natives as they made money from their plantations but with WWII the Japanese arrived and fought in vain against the British in an attempt to control the jungles. After independence the army of Sukarno had fought his war of ‘confrontasi’ in the jungles of Borneo during the sixties against British and their newly created state of Malaysia that included Peninsula Malaysia together with Sarawak and Sabah.

  However, the most successfully and destructive were the Christian missionaries who converted
the unfortunate forest tribes to the enlightened ways of Western beliefs in their many different forms, destroying, forever, an ancient culture and folklore, in the same manner as missionaries had done in other so called underdeveloped regions of the world.

  Returning to the distant past the greatest enemy of Homo erectus had been Homo sapiens when they arrived on the shores of Borneo by boat, they were peoples not unlike those of modern times, who now live in longhouses or who roam the forests like the nomadic Penans.

  How they would have considered erectus is not difficult to imagine, hunting them for trophies to hang in their dwelling places. Amongst the first arrivals were groups not unlike the proto-Malays, a small dark skinned wiry haired people that still live in certain regions of the Malay Peninsula, these were followed by other migrants who arrived from what is today Southern China in the late Palaeolithic, assimilating or pushing the existing peoples deep into the mountain forests where certain still live today.

  Ros shared the ideas of certain scientists who advanced the theory that there was assimilation between the later forms of erectus and the waves of new arrivals. However, there was very little concrete evidence to show that they could have mixed.

  He reasoned that since Homo erectus used stone tools he almost certainly used other materials such as wood and bone, of which very little evidence had resisted time because of the harsh equatorial climate. Elsewhere erectus learnt to use fire and then developed his technology, making stone tools which enabled him to prepare fine blades for his multiple needs, from butchering to preparing hides for clothing and shelter. He certainly used wood to make weapons, tools and structures, or as in twentieth century Papua New Guinea, using bamboo to replace stone for many of his needs, whatever the case no trace remains today of these wooden tools which were swallowed by the ravages of time in the all consuming rainforests.

  With such skills he was perfectly adapted to his forest home, living in perfect harmony with nature, using plants as food and medicines, collecting fruit, nuts and roots, hunting game and fishing in the innumerable rivers and streams.

  At the end of the Neolithic period the world’s population of humans was so small in comparison to other species of large mammals, such as savannah type herbivores, that until the later part of the nineteenth or early part of the twentieth century continued to roam freely in their natural habitats in the millions, and even tens of millions.

  It was not therefore surprising that early humans who lived in small family groups, having large territories, left very few fossils behind them. In Borneo, which was amongst the last places to be conquered by modern man, it is not surprising that his predecessors had found a safe niche, where they continued to live long after the rest of their species had disappeared from the face of the earth.

  Homo erectus had lived on earth for a period of almost two million years, and it is quite reasonable to think that he had survived a few thousands of years longer in Borneo, one of the most isolated places on earth, a protective Garden of Eden to those who knew how to live in harmony with nature.

  Pierre Ros concluded that if they had found the remains of one specimen it was entirely logical that others could be found in the gravel of the river beds or in caves in the nearby mountain ranges of central Borneo.