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National Geographic : 2005 Aug
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preserved, along with drawings of animals and humans. About half the hands were covered with dots, lines, chevrons, or other patterns. I counted more than 50 combinations (see page 45). "They look like tattoos," I said to Chazine. "Or maybe body painting," he replied. Such practices still occur in Borneo and elsewhere to identify an individual's membership or status. At the center of the ceiling was the cave's tour de force: 11 hands, each decorated with a dif ferent pattern, linked in a design that evoked a family tree (pages 32-4). Not far away, two hands, connected by a broken line, framed the figure of a Vizard, or perhaps a crocodile. "We're dealing with shamanistic practices 42 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC * AUGUST 2005 Multicolored masterpieces leap from the rock: In Ilas Kenceng cave, hands cluster in a bouquet; in Liang Karim, dots representing honeybees swarm in a hive; and in Gua Tewet (opposite) Fage sketches on a plastic sheet an unknown Ice Age animal to record its beauty, undiminished by time. here, I'm sure of it," Chazine said, "though I don't know what kind. This jagged line evokes passage from the harsh living world into the world of spirits, which only a shaman can enter and return from." Chazine had not come back to Kalimantan just to marvel at such paintings, however. As an archaeologist his job was to learn who created this art and when. Until now he hadn't found any signs of occupation in the best painted caves no pottery or animal bones from campfires. But that didn't surprise him. In his mind, a lofty eagle's nest like this was better suited for sacred rituals. "Does one eat in a cathedral?" he asked. Instead Chazine had chosen a cave closer to the river to excavate first. That's where he and his team went the next day. With its huge porch over looking the water, Gua Tengkorak, or "cave of the skulls," was large enough to hold dozens of people. Indeed, ceramic funeral pots from a more recent culture had been found at the foot of one wall, along with charred human and animal bones. For the next two weeks, Chazine, Julien Espagne,
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