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Outside Indonesia, variation in burial techniques can be observed at Niah Cave. In
the inhabited layers dated between 12,000 – 1,500 BC. Both folded and sitting burial
arrangements were found, and also secondary burial practices. The burial practices at this
Cave had were being performed until 2.000 years ago when the dead began to be put in
a casket and rolled inside a mat lying down in a flat position (Marliac and Simanjuntak,
1998). At the Cha Cave, Malaysia between 10,000 – 2,000 years ago, folded burial practices
were used. The dead were sprinkled with hematic powder and covered with stones. At
Kepah Cave (Malaysia), in a secondary burial practice, the corpse was also sprinkled with
hematic powder (Brooks et al., 1977, Harrison, 1957). At Lan Rongrien Niche (Thailand),
in the younger inhabited layers, the bodies were buried lying down flat on their back. In
secondary burial practice aged 3,720 years (approximately ±140 years ago) a number of
provisions, such as a sharpened axe and a legged pot, were buried in the grave along with
the dead (van Stein Callenfels, 1936).

The Arrival of the Austronesians
Around 4,000 – 3,000 years ago, depending on the area, Australo-Melanesians saw the
arrival of new settlers who brought with them their Neolithic culture. Physically, they could
be categorized as belonging to the Mongolic Race (Anderson, 1990). Present evidence
suggests that they might have come from two or more different routes at different times
(HUGO Pan-Asian SNP Consortium, 2009). The first route or “western route” is likely
older. This route was taken by newcomers from Indochina, and probably from the China
and Vietnam border. After passing down along the Malaysian Peninsula, they entered
Sumatra, Java and Kalimantan. They spoke a proto-version of Austroasiatic languages, a
language spoken by dwellers in mainland Asia, and related to Mon-Khmer and Munda.
Cultural evidence supporting the western migratory route include the existence of adorned
terracotta ceramics or decorated rope ceramics, shielding axes, and pickaxes. So far, the
distribution of these show that these people’s dispersal was confined to the western
part of Indonesia, with decorated rope ceramics found in Loyang Mendale, Takengon
(Simanjuntak and Fauzi, 2015), Silabe Cave (Wiradnyana and Taufikurrahman, 2011), and
Harimau Cave in South Sumatra, Buni in West Java (Simanjuntak and Forestier, 2004), Niah
Cave and other caves in Kalimantan (Sutayasa, 1972). The western migratory route was
proposed by linguists and archeologists (Plutniak et al., 2014). Subsequent evidence from
further research in these and other disciplines has continued to support this view (Duff,
1970, Geldern, 1945).

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