Ancient remains turn up in Malaysia and Borneo: 22-09-2008
Travellers in Malaysia and Borneo could be closer to the remains of ancient life than they thought after archaeologists revealed they had made two discoveries of complete sets of Neolithic human remains.
Believed to be more than 3,000 years old, the remains were found in prehistoric burial grounds in a mangrove swamp in Malaysia and in the Niah caves in Sarawak, Borneo.
The first consisted of three Mongoloid males, while the second was made up of one female and seven males bearing similarities to Australian Aborigines, according to the Sun.
Head of the Malaysian Centre for Archaeological Research Mokhtar Saidin told the newspaper that the discoveries were very important.
"These remains are very important as the skeletons are almost fully complete."
He explained that the remains gave vital hints about early societies and how they lived.
In 1991, the remains of an 11,000-year-old man were found in Perak, Malaysia, and remain the oldest set of remains discovered in the country to date.