site. From about 4,000 to about 2,500 years ago the occupants of these caves made simple but good pottery and were probably Austronesian-speaking ancestors of some of the present day peoples of Borneo. The culture that followed, found in many more sites and dated between a.d. 1 and 1000, shows relationships to sites on the shores of the Sulu and Celebes Seas and wider areas, including similarities to the Niah Cave sites, but not a close resemblance. Finally, in the top levels, were remains like those reported by the Harrissons.

The report given at a conference in 1986 (1990) gave a more detailed account of the unusual flaked stone tools of the Tingkayu Industry. The book edited by Bellwood (1988) starts with the only detailed account of the expeditions from late 1979 to early 1987. This could be considered an almost final report of the fieldwork and research done during this period and involved a number of specialists presenting chapters on their work. A short postscript (1988, 276) concerns the content of probably the latest report (1989).

The final fieldwork in 1987 was in a series of rock shelters at Bukit Tengkorak. The new surprise from these sites, dated between 2,935 and 2,049 years ago, was that much of the obsidian used to make the common flake tools at the sites came from the Talasea obsidian sites in New Britain in Western Melanesia (Bellwood 1988, 149–151). This site was an important source for obsidian traded by people of the Lapita Culture in Melanesia. Obsidian from this source has been found as far south and east as Fiji and the Isle de Pines south of New Caledonia, where it existed during the same time period as at the Bukit Tengkorak sites.

Archaeological research in Brunei, again, was started by Tom Harrisson. On a visit in 1951 Tom selected three areas for tests to be made in the general area of the tomb of an early sultan of Brunei. What were thought to be southern Sung, Ming blue and white, and Sawankhalok stoneware from Thailand were recovered. In 1952 a small trench was dug and in 1953 an excavation was made. The report on this work (Tom and Barbara Harrisson 1956) was the first archaeological report for Brunei. The recovered materials supported the legend that this was the area of the capital of the Sultans of Brunei and strongly supported that this had been a flourishing trading center for several hundred years before Islam came to Brunei.

Two programs needed to be completed in Brunei before Brunei archaeology could truly get under way. First, there needed to be a local person trained to be in charge, and second, there needed to be a physical base from which this work could be done. It was decided that Pengiran Shariffuddin should be trained for this work, that a national museum would be built for the base at the edge of the Kota Batu site, and that Shariffuddin would be the first curator of this museum. Shariffuddin first spent several years working with the staff of the Sarawak Museum and then studied in England, where he earned both parts of the Museum’s Association Diploma (Tom Harrisson 1967a, 91; 1967b, 147). In 1967 a temporary museum building became available and Shariffuddin took over as director.

In 1968 an excavation at Sungai Lumut, forty-five kilometers north of Brunei town, was undertaken by the museum. The site was totally disturbed by farming, but produced a considerable quantity of South Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai shards of porcelain and stoneware of primarily fourteenth- and fifteenth-century origin. One surprising result was that very little local earthenware was recovered in proportion to the high fired ceramics (Harrisson, B., and Shariffuddin 1969).

No excavation other than the 1956 testing had been done at Kota Batu by 1970. In 1968, however, a 122-meter drainage ditch was dug and 6,230 ceramic shards were recovered, without stratigraphic information. A detailed report was made by Barbara Harrisson in 1970 on this collection for comparative purposes with sites in Sarawak and the Philippines.

As of 1971 Brunei was the only country in Southeast Asia from which no Stone-age or Early Metal Age finds had been found. Tom Harrisson (1971c) remarked on this in an appeal to the public to help in locating early stone artifacts.

Dating of the Kota Batu site was enriched by a series of C-14 dates (Tom Harrisson 1971d).