FEEL THE PREHISTORIC EXPERIENCE SANGIRAN SITE & PREHISTORIC MUSEUM: 2010

FEEL THE PREHISTORIC EXPERINCE

SANGIRAN SITE & PREHISTORIC MUSEUM

Are you an archeoligist or do you like and interest about archeology?

There is an archeological museum in Java, Indonesia that call Sangiran. This area has an area of 48 km ² and is located in Central Java, 15 kilometers north of Surakarta in Solo River valley (Sungai Bengawan Solo) and is situated at the foot of Mount Lawu. Sangiran administratively located in Sragen regency and district of Karanganyar in Central Java. In 1977, Sangiran determined by the Minister of Education and Culture of Indonesia as a cultural reserve. In 1996 this site is listed in the UNESCO World Heritage Site (cultural World Heritage number 593 by UNESCO on December 5, 1996 in Merida, Mexico.)

In 1934 anthropologist Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald began research in the area. In the following years, the results of excavations of fossils from the first human ancestor, Pithecanthropus erectus ( "Java Man"). There are about 60 more fossils of other Meganthropus palaeojavanicus fossils have been found on these sites.

Sangiran in the museum located in this region are also presented ancient human history since about 2 million years ago until 200,000 years ago, that is from when the late Pliocene to late middle Pleistocene. In this museum there is a collection of 13,086 ancient human fossils and the ancient human site stood the most comprehensive in Asia. It can also be found in vertebrate fossils, animal fossils water, rocks, sea plants and fossil stone tools.

In the first study, Sangiran is a dome called Sangiran Dome. Top of the dome is then opened through a process of erosion to form a depression. At that depression can be found in soil layers that contain information about life in the past.

The ancient archeological site of Sangiran still keeps a hidden mystery to reveal. Up to now, there have been fifty kinds of hominid fossils discovered in Sangiran. It is 65 percent of the discoveries of hominid fossils in Indonesia or 50 percent of discoveries in the world. The total numbers of fossils discovered in Sangiran are approximately 13,809 pieces which 2,934 of them are presented in the display room and the rest 10,975 pieces are kept in the storage room. The other hominid fossils of Sangiran are kept in Bandung Geology Museum and Yogyakarta Paleoanthropology Laboratory. Based on the fossils discoveries, Sangiran Site becomes the most important prehistoric human civilization site. It is the right place to study human evolution. The site is also the most comprehensive one in the world.

Source :
http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_Fosil_Sangiran
http://sangiran.sragenkab.go.id

Excavations here from 1936 to 1941 led to the discovery of the first hominid fossil at this site. Later, 50 fossils of Meganthropus palaeo and Pithecanthropus erectus/Homo erectus were found – half of all the world's known hominid fossils. Inhabited for the past one and a half million years, Sangiran is one of the key sites for the understanding of human evolution.

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Justification for Inscription

The Committee decided to inscribe the nominated site under cultural criteria (iii) and (vi) as one of the key sites for the understanding of human evolution that admirably illustrates the development of Homo sapiens sapiens from the Lower Pleistocene to the present through the outstanding fossil and artefactual material that it has produced.

Long Description

Sangiran is one of the key sites for the understanding of human evolution. It illustrates the development of Homo sapiens sapiens from the Lower Pleistocene to the present through the outstanding fossil and artefactual material that it has produced.

The archaeological site of Sangiran is situated 15 km east of Solo. The geological stratigraphy of the Sangiran area covers 2 million years, from the late Pliocene to the recent periods. The Lower and Middle Pleistocene Ievels have produced considerable fossil and artefactual material. Fifty early human fossils (Pithecanthropus erectus/Homo erectus) have been found, representing 50% of all the known hominid fossils in the world, together with numerous animal and floral fossils such as rhinoceros, elephant ivory, buffalo horn, deer horn and many others.

Palaeolithic stone tools (Sangiran flakes) found at Ngebung include flakes, choppers and cleavers in chalcedony and jasper and, more recently, bone tools. The site has also produced Neolithic axes. This evidence indicates that hominids have inhabited the area for at Ieast 1.5 million years. The Palaeolithic tools can be dated to around 800,000 BP, and the sequence of cultural material from this period through to the Neolithic illustrates continuous evolution of man in relation to the ecosystem over a long period.

The geology of the Sangiran Early Man Site is sedimentary in origin, beginning with the late Pliocene. It was deformed into a domed anticline by diaper intrusion. The summit was subsequently eroded by river action, turning it into a recessed, reversed dome. Early hominid fossils occur in successive formations, starting with the Pucangang (0.5-1.5 million years BP), but more particularly in the Kabuh (0.25-0.5 million years BP) and Notopuro (11,000-250,000 years BP). Nowadays, it is an unfertile hill and the region is now entirely devoted to peasant agriculture.

Ever since von Koenigswald found flake tools in the Ngebung village in 1934, the site has made an immense contribution to the study of evolution over the past million years by illustrating the evolution of Homo erectus. Homo erectus is important to the study of the early history of mankind before the emergence of the modern Homo sapiens. Fossils of Homo erectus have been found from time to time in a site covering 8 km by 7 km since 1936 to the present day.

Not only has the Sangiran site contributed to the understanding of the family tree of mankind, it has also thrown much light the evolution of culture, of animals, and of the ancient environment. Large quantities of human and animal fossils, along with Palaeolithic tools, have been found on the Sangiran site in a geological-stratigraphical series that has been laid down continuously for more than 2 million years.

Sangiran Map

Links : http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/593#links