3,000-year-old skeletons found in Indonesian cave

Melbourne: Archaeologists have discovered remains of 66 humans dating back to 3000 years in a cave in Sumatra island of Indonesia. The team which excavated the Harimau or Tiger Cave also found the first example of rock art in Sumatra besides the discovery of 66 human burials.

"Sixty-six is very strange," said Truman Simanjuntak from Jakarta-based National Research and Development Center for Archaeology, adding that he and his colleagues have never found such a big quantity of burials. "It means that this cave was occupied intensely by humans and they continued to occupy it for a very, very long time," he said. The findings shed new light on the complex cultural behaviours of Indonesia`s first farming communities, who lived in the limestone caves of Harimau and used them as a burial place and a `workshop` for tool-making activities. With much of the cave still to be excavated, researchers are excited about the secrets they might hold. "There are still occupation traces deeper and deeper in the cave, where we have not excavated yet. So it means the cave is very promising," Simanjuntak said. Simanjuntak visited University of Wollongong, Australia earlier this month to address researchers at the Centre for Archaeological Science (CAS). CAS researchers will likely date the findings from the cave. PTI