The cultured rainforest: Long-term human ecological histories in the highlands of Borneo

Anthropologists used anthropological and ethno-historical methods including participant observation and the gathering of oral histories and stories to collect information on present-day and past forest life as people remember or imagine it, and the practical and cosmological aspects of people's relationship with the natural environment; and on how objects are being used today and were used in everyday life and as grave goods in cemeteries in the recent past. Work on objects involved drawing on museum collections, including those made by Monica Janowski in the late 80s for the British Museum and Sarawak Museum. Archaeologist members of the project team conducted surveys and excavated selected monuments to reconstruct the lives of past forest dwellers. Palaeoecologist members studied fossil pollen in sediment cores from archaeological sites to document the long-term history of the rainforest and human impacts upon it. The botanist on the team looked at the distribution of fruit tree species across the landscape, a marker of human activity.

Distinct cycles of forest clearance and regrowth have been detected, and evidence of human settlement going back 4500 years has been discovered. Fieldwork has highlighted the profound differences between the ways in which Kelabit farmer-foragers and Penan foragers in the present day see their respective 'proper' relationships with the landscape. While the Kelabit aim to mark the landscape (constructing megalithic monuments, cutting ditches, making rice padi fields and cemeteries), the Penan aim to leave nothing but their personal traces, a kind of aura of their having been there, with a minimal physical expression. Both groups believe that forest spirits have the role of guardians of the forest, punishing those who misbehave in relation to the living environment.

In a region where no systematic archaeological study has been undertaken, the team has identified a wide range of funerary monuments, settlement forms, and other landscape constructions dating to the last 1000 years, some of the locations being linked by origin myths and genealogies to the present-day Kelabit. Analysis of sediment cores has suggested that they are a good guide to the intensity of land use in their localities in recent centuries, possibly back to c.1000 years ago. Radiocarbon dating of charcoal samples from the core locations provided the first scientific evidence for the potential antiquity of human-landscape interactions in interior Borneo, indicating that human occupation in the Kelabit Highlands stretches far beyond the Metal Age (the beginning of which in Borneo is commonly dated to around 500 BC). In fact, pollen and phytoliths analysis combined have demonstrated likely manipulation/cultivation of the sago palm Eugeissona at least 2800 years ago in Pa'Dalih and 1300 years ago in Bario. The cultivation of rice may also have been taking place during the same period, but evidence for this remains speculative. In the last 600 years disturbance indicators increase and evidence for rice cultivation becomes more pronounced in the Kelabit Highlands. Rice and banana cultivation are represented in the phytolith record at Pa'Buda in more recent times. During the 11th and 13th century, an explosion of trade took place between the China and Indo-Malaysian archipelago, in forest products, metals, gemstones and spices, and by the 14th-15th century, Islamic sultanates had become established in Brunei. This time period seems to corresponds to when rice cultivation and disturbance indicators increase in the Kelabit Highlands and may represent both increased trade and the period when rice became a symbol of wealth and status for the people of the Highlands.

Building on research in the Kelabit Highlands since 1986 by Monica Janowski, anthropological studies included in-depth discussions with informants of archaeological material, and genealogical work closely linked to excavation of past settlement sites and cemeteries. There was also a close focus on the relationship between the practical and the cosmological relationship with the environment, particularly as expressed through the legend of the Kelabit 'culture hero' Tuked Rini. Social networks and relationships represented by Kelabit material culture were also examined, from basketry obtained from Penan, to the plants in house gardens. Anthropological studies have clearly demonstrated how, in recent centuries, the forest is both a centre of ecological richness and knowledge richness, supporting the 'cultured rainforest' premise.