Page 62 - THE MELANESIA DIASPORA FILE CETAK ISI 10022017

Left & above: A number of
items of jewelry made from
shells found in the Braholo
cave and Song Keplek.

Above: Tools made from bone and Art in the form of scraping or engraving and carving of blocks of stone or coral is rare.
antler horn from Braholo cave and However, there are quite a number of such objects found in Tutari Hills, Sentani, and Papua.
Song Keplek.
On the surface of blocks of gabbro (a dark, coarse-grained plutonic rock of crystalline
texture, consisting mainly of pyroxene, plagioclase feldspar, and often olivine), found
in an extensive are of land on the hills there is evidence of such scraping and sculpting
art depicting animals, plants, humans in a standing position with bent legs spread, tools
such as axes with wooden handles, and geometric designs (Ballard, 1992, Wilsen, 2003).
The existence of this rock art speaks of the cognitive capacity of their creators. The exact
chronological order of this art is not known, but based on the complexity of the designs it
is probably from the protohistoric period.

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