Dumpster Diving into the Stone Age:

The Archaeology of the River Kwai

December 2012 - January 2013

Winging to the next adventure in December my plane passed  over the route of last summer’s Explorers Club Flag #176 paleontological expedition with Phil Currie down

Alberta’s Red Deer River. Brrrr.  Damned glad I’m leaving that four letter word—s-n-o-w—behind….

The study of early man along Thailand’s River Kwai started in a most unlikely manner.Dutch POW and archaeologist H. R.Van Heekeren was literally slaving away on the infamous Thai-Burma Death Railway when he  stumbled upon stone age tools. 

He noted the site, managed to survive the war which 2,490 fellow Dutch POWS didn’t, and  returned as part of the 1960-61 Thai-Danish Prehistoric Expedition.

It surveyed  20 sites along the river, which the railway had followed, and excavated  two, including Ban Kao which proved to be “fantastically rich,”   producing  700,000 potsherds alone. The most startling aspect to me about the Ban Kao discoveries  is the beautiful, highly polished carnelian and agate beads seen in the museum of that name. Early man early developed a sense of self decoration and beauty  and was often buried with bracelets and beads. Why did we develop a sense of beauty?  Where in Darwin does that increase our chances of  survival? The excavations also turned up the first stone implements in Thailand, consisting of choppers flaked on one side only, similar to this hand axe below, one of many such we found.

 

  While  Harvard Professor H.L.Movius   identified this type as the same  made by Homo Erectus in Java and China about 500,000 years ago, and postulated  Thailand  as the migratory route leading to those countries (and, incidentally, there were other hominids in surrounding countries prior to this), carbon dating of related material on the River Kwai placed axes of this design at 10,000 BP. I'm confident our finds are in accordance with this because this design is of the Hoabinhian culture which was predominant across mainland Southeast Asia during this period (18000BP to the Neolithic).

Movius was right in that this is the natural route into Thailand. When India slammed into Asia 70,000,000 years ago, jacking up the Himalayas, it also pushed up their smaller, but still daunting, limestone karst cousins forming a fence along the Burma-Thai border and down into Malaysia. The Kwai-Three Pagodas Pass route was the way of the earliest trade and culture from India and beyond.

In 1975 a study was done prior to the building of the dam  near the top of the river in which  23 more archaeological caves were surveyed, concluding man, as mentioned, had been in the valley for at least 10,000 years.  The Thai Fine Arts Department returned in 1976 and again in 1980-81, surveying a further dozen or so caves. In 1984-5 Dr. Ian Glover was on the Ban Don Ta Phet cave excavation up the Kwai where all the stone tools displayed at the National Museum in Bangkok originated. This mystery tool has been stumping us and our experts. Ritual use?

The amalgamated conclusions remind me of a taffy pull, with dates and migration routes (another study sees early man in Thailand as having come down from China) being stretched in all directions.  Certainly, dates are flexible and one doesn’t just flip a switch and everyone reverts from, say, Neolithic to Bronze Age in an instant. But the National Museum estimates that man has been in Thailand for up to a million years, that this early Paleolithic period lasted until about 10,000BP (Before Present). The Mesolithic in  Thailand stretched until about 6,000BP with the Neolithic, or New Stone Age with the introduction of rice growing, from then until about 4,000 years ago. While the Bronze Age started about 7,000 year BP in the rest of Thailand, it  only reached the Kwai  at the 4KBP date - an indication of how flexible and overlapping these eras are. Indeed, one cave in Vietnam had Neolithic polished tools in conjunction with Iron Age ware. The Iron Age itself on the Kwai is dated from 500 BCE. The two big tools above, surrounded by later Neolithic polished adzes, are Hoabinhian sumatralithic handaxes (unifacial discoids)  from the Hoabinhian culture overlying (primarily) the Mesolithic. Confused?  That’s ok. Another reading and it’ll make more sense, or check out Charles Higham’s Early Cultures of Mainland Southeast Asia.  He’s the Father of  mainland Southeast Asian archaeology (though he was as puzzled by the mystery tool 2 pictures back as we were when I emailed him a jpg).  All the tools above came from our Hintok Camp cave.

The goals of this expedition were two fold: to continue excavations for both POW and lithics here at the Hintok River Camp site, and to continue our  investigation of the Death Cave. That's Capt. Norm Baker, Thor Heyerdahl's first mate, by the thoroughly undramatic Hintok cave entrance, though we simply call him Capt. Hook, or Hook. If you look carefully behind Hook you'll recognize that the Hintok Cave - basically a limestone drain hole - is on the edge of this:

(The cave is off to my left 50 feet, the Kwai behind me a stone's throw.) From May 1943 to February ’44 Hintok Camp was a squalid British POW camp of 300 in which 79 died, a far higher percent than the normal 20% prisoner death rate.  From here it was a steep 250 foot climb to work on the railway. 

It’s  a tough slog for a healthy, reasonably fit person, requiring rest stops to get your breath. The rails were removed after the war over much of the line. Hook with Martin Saunders and Sir Rod behind him.

Down the line 2-3 kilometers is Hellfire Pass, the most dramatic cutting on the entire 250-mile-long railway, so named because of the oil lamps that lit up the worksite at night. Sir Rod and wife Twee singlehanded cleared this of growth - including the steep sides - years ago, as well as long stretches of line (though here often with Martin).

Today, Hintok River Camp is an upmarket tourist resort which pays homage to its predecessor in name and theme, with an old jeep on site as well as a guard tower, the entrance fenced with railway ties.   The Masai Mara-like  safari tents are reminiscent of the POW’s bell tents.

 

 

 Mind you, our comfort level in the field was somewhat improved, thanks to the generosity of  Suparerk Soorangura. A major player in the Thai tourist scene, he owns this and 15 other individually themed resorts throughout Thailand, follows our work with great interest, and pledges to refurbish a large building on site as a museum displaying our finds.  And they’re substantial, both POW and early man..

This is looking up from near the bottom towards the steep entrance which requires a rope to descend. The other, smaller rope is for our bucket and the hose for water. Sir Rod originally sold the property to Khun Suparerk in order to finance his museum and research center, but before he did so he discovered the cave, one of many interlinked like Swiss cheese below the old POW camp. It became apparent that it had been used as a trash pit during POW days and was filled to the top. But not for long.... He went dumpster diving. 

 After removing the first couple of feet of modern garbage, he reached the POW midden level. For five months over a year he dug and sifted through 20 feet, recovering well over 500 POW artifacts. 

 

Many are displayed here, at the magnificent privately funded museum he built in Kanchaburi to honour the war dead. His museum and research center is open to all seeking  information about lost relatives and his massive data base of 105,000 names, built in conjunction with researcher Andrew Snow (whose father and uncle were on the railway), continues to expand. But there's hundreds of artefacts left over for the Hintok River Camp Museum.

After reaching the bottom of the POW level, he kept going - and immediately hit stone tools! At first they were polished Neolithics (top eight), and they steadily got cruder towards the bottom of the shaft. At this point some 25 feet down, it flattens out and descends at a slight slope towards a narrow point about 15 feet along. It was at this juncture last year that I joined and we attempted to complete the excavation but we ran out of time and only turned up three crude Paleolithics, or early stone tools, and a few animal bones, below:

We decided to pick up next - this - year with proper lights and a water hose. Thus was born the Explorers Club Flag #50 expedition. In Grade III I read in a Grade IV Social Studies book about cavemen and couldn't wait to get to that grade to learn more. Once there I was disappointed when only about eight seconds were given over to it and, more disappointing, there were no caves at all in Saskatchewan to explore.  Thus discovering Southeast Asia with its virtually unlimited limestone karst formations riddled like, well Swiss cheese as I said, with caves that cavemen actually lived in is a Grade III dream come true. This is Caveman Central.  Alley Oop country.

To this point we had an inventory of 67 lithics, and 91 pottery shards, most Sir Rod had collected in the upper most layers. With water to wash away the dirt, we moved forward much faster and it was a lot of fun, getting covered in mud. We also added another incredible 101 lithics and 20 potsherds, bringing it up to 168 and 111.

The water we (and the monsoon) poured into the cave had to go somewhere and Sir Rod discovered exactly where. At the low point we removed rock and debris, revealing a largish gallery below, running off in either direction. We were able to descend by sliding down on our bellies and walk back standing upright some 50 feet to a pool, upsetting kitty hog nosed bats (the world's tiniest), but found no lithics.

Sir Rod did find on the lower floor this animal tooth locked in conglomerate. Our Explorers Club veterinarian identifies it as a herbivore and probably a ruminant. There were very few animal remains anywhere in the entire cave, only a few stone flakes, but there were two charcoal campfire lenses atop each other in this lower gallery, the first four inches down, the second 2 inches below that.This was perplexing because water would pour into this cave like the drain hole that it is during the monsoon, it certainly wasn't a rock shelter, and even in the dry season it's wet down there. The descent is too steep and long and there isn't room at the bottom anyway

and those fires would smoke even a caveman out. Both charcoal lenses were very thin, indicating likely single usage. Then why the long sequence of tools and potsherds in the main, upper cave? Did seasonal floods wash them in? Or was it used as a garbage pit by the hunters and gatherers as well? It's a confounding mystery that has the team flumoxed. On the steep slope to the lower gallery Sir Rod found the orange tool several pictures ago. That dirt slope proved to yield lithics and treasures like nothing before when he began to cut through it, back into the main cave.

One of the first was this excellent hammer stone, showing considerable use on all edges. But we had hardly begun when we had to break in order to gather together more equipment needed for excavating this level. Our greatest discoveries would come in a month's time.

Sir Rodney of Id, uh, Oz, our Knight in Shiny Mud. Because of his magnificent obsession, keeping the memory of  these terribly abused POWS alive, he was knighted by the Dutch  Queen.  Other honors include the Australian Medal. But like every other 10-year-old boy at heart he just loves getting down and dirty.

We advanced on the Death Cave, so named because of our dangerous experience last year when we hit a CO2 layer, which sent us gasping for breath and for the entrance. This is how I looked recovering.

Years ago Sir Rod was able to get back 200 feet where he reached a narrows guarded by two animal skulls. After bellying through he found a broken secondary burial jar. This year, on our test exploration, we were able to explore back, though the air was tacky. We brought out several bones which our medical advisor, Dr. Martin Stockwell (who was on the Red Deer expedition last summer), identified as human, and of a child's.

That's a piece of the skull cap, top right. The majority of bones were on a waist high ledge, where the parents presumably placed the child's body in a jar ancient times. But some, including the skull cap, were some distance apart, found with pottery fragments with a cord pattern dating it to at least 1700BP or as early as 4000BP. Determining we needed better lighting here too and an O2 system, we broke off from here too. We didn't know it then but we would never make it back to the Death Cave, at least this season.

But it wasn't all mud and games and cheating death. It was my pleasure to sponsor Sir Rodney into The Explorers Club, here bonding him into our fraternity with the   traditional sharing of a bottle of Scotch brought by the inductee.  Capt. Norm Baker is on our Board of Directors in New York and I serve as the Canadian Chapter’s Communications Director, or CommCzar as I prefer to enshrine myself, since no one in their right mind would knight me. Next to Rod is his long time railway line clearing partner, Brit Martin Saunders, who was part of our team.

Explorers Club #50 dates back to 1932 and this is its first expedition back to Thailand since then, here taken under the Bridge over the River Kwai in Kanchanaburi. It was last carried July (2012) by Explorer Bertrand Piccard in the cockpit of his history making solar powered flight from Switzerland to Morocco. L-R Sir Rod Beattie, Martin Saunders, Jason Schoonover and Capt. Norm Baker.

Above us were the usual young Japanese tourists mugging at the entrance.  Being taught that the bridge and railway was a triumph of Japanese engineering, pushing it through 250 miles of inhospitable jungle from Thailand to Burma in only 16 months in 1942 and ’43, they cheer.  They’re not taught that to do so their   grandfathers starved, beat and worked to death 12,300 prisoners of  war and 100,000 Asian coolies.  Germany has come to terms with its WW-II past; Japan hasn't faced it yet..

This educational process will be helped by the release of  The Railway Man, the true life story of Alex Lomax, one of torture, forgiveness and redemption. I had a small part to play in having facilitated Sir Rod meeting producer Charles Salmon through my close friend  and Thai Gold co-screenwriter Kevin Chisnall, the special effects and armouries man on this shoot (and who has worked with everyone from Lucas to Jolie to Gibson). That's Sir Rod with the DOP or Director of Photography.

No one could recreate the actual conditions of creating the railway like Rod, of course, the expert. Sir Rod, as technical advisor, recommended the use of this actual cutting  originally dug by POWs and Asian slave labor, and these  on location shots are his.  With stars such as Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman, it’s sure to have an impact on the  intractable Japanese as well as reawaken international awareness of the horror that went on here.

As a sidebar, you’ve heard how fast tropical jungle reclaims its own?  These last two pictures were shot in July. And these next two—of exactly the same site—I shot in

December. 

Even I was stunned at how fast and thick the jungle roared back.

To help Colin—an unpretentious, down-to-earth chap—into his role Rod searched the data base for Firths.  He not only found one but when he brought this information to Colin, the actor was further taken aback  to learn that the deceased was from Yorkshire—his own region—and they thus could be distantly related.  Greatly moved, Colin asked to be taken to the headstone.

The movie is in post production  as I write (February 2013) and due out in the spring.  Unlike  the first movie on the railway, David Lean’s highly fictitious (but brilliant) Bridge on the River Kwai of 1957, The Railway Man is deadly serious and presents the period  accurately. Sadly, Alex Lomax himself—both Firth and Kidman visited him in Scotland as part of their research—died, at 93, in October. By the way, Sir Rod described Kidman as basically a good ‘ol Aussie gal with a from-the-gut good ol’ Aussia gal haw haw haw laugh.  He  quite liked them both.

While waiting for Sir Rod and Khun Supareck to round up more gear and The Dragon Lady to arrive I jumped up to Chiang Mai to continue my Flag #112 expedition among the hilltribes. That's Capt. Hook with another Explorers Club member, Birdman Rob Tymstra, with Bucklee Bell of Kesorn Tribal Arts in Chiang Mai. A one time underground cartoonist in San Francisco during the acid days he was high from having just received a note from Haight-Ashbury period legend R. Crumb who confessed that he launched his career because of early cartoons by Bucklee. I made purchases here to add to our Hmong collection.

During the month (October) I spent shooting and documenting the Hmong collection I've been collecting for 30 years (and with Su since '94) I realized it had holes. I filled them with 80 acquisitions, and put a ribbon on the collection: 17,500 words on 606 pages photo documenting 562 pieces, which includes 12 display ready costumes. I just have to number them all back in Toontown and it's museum ready. It's the largest - by far - ethnographic collection of my life.

With Madame Su's, The Dragon Lady's, arrival and our needed gear ready we jumped back down into Hintok Cave. And so successful were we, as I say, that we put aside further investigations in the Death Cave for the season.

Sir Rod at his happiest - ankle deep in mud.

It started with turning up another hammer stone, an excellent find and our second. We called it the Hammerstone from Hell because of its vicious bi-faced cutting/breaking edge (top).

And then the discoveries really started to pop out of the mud! Here's one of 10 beautiful Hoabinhian sumatraliths that turned up, seeing light for the first time since it was discarded thousands of years ago by an early relative. The thrill of the find is akin to picking up an Albertasaurus tooth along the Red Deer River, being the first to see it in 70,000,000 years.

Some we could determine if the owner was right or left handed!

Yes, the ologies are all about having fun, feeding one's ravenous curiosity...and getting down and dirty like a kid again. As Sir Rod laughed after the steep descent into a third cave we did a preliminary dip into, "It's a good thing we're doing this while we're still young."

Because we were at the lowest level we didn't expect to find many POW finds and we didn't, two buckles, two tin cans, a blackened battery, but then - jackpot! - homemade dog tags! Washed down along the narrow track left to carry away rain. It reads **692. POW CHA*** (probably Changi, the Singapore prison) -   ELLWOOD, W - 1942 16TH DEFEN** REGT, RA 831692. A check of the Thai-Burma Railway Centre data based turned up Sergeant ELLWOOD, William Jenkinson, 16 Defence Regiment, Royal Artillery. It's mystery in that Ellwood was a member of E Force sent to Borneo and he died there on 1 December 1944; so who carried his dog tags to Thailand? And why did they end up down in that hole?

Some of our second stage discoveries. Row one primarily potsherds. 2: the Hammerstone from Hell with a smashed bovine bone probably done by POWs to reach the marrow.. 3&4: Paleolithics of a primitive nature. 5&6: 6 central stones classic sumatralithis, with a jungle cat claw below and a small bovine skull above, probably from the POW period. Finally rows, flakes and small cutting tools.

The cord design on the potsherds dates them from 4000BP to 1700BP, amazing me that a design feature could last this long. Without doing an thermoluminescent dating, we won't know the exacter date.

Flag #50 with my Su Hattori and Khun Suparerk before the cave. Note that we're in our glory - covered in dirt. Sir Rod is holding the Hammerstone from Hell.

Our finds - both POW and of early man - will be housed here in what will be the Hintok River Camp Museum, just feet from the cave itself. Sir Rod is scribing and designing the POW side, because of his obvious expertise; and I'm penning the copy and handling the 'Early Man on the Kwai' display boards and concepts. "If you need more room, I can expand it," Supareck offers.

Wrap dinner on the Kwai with a most fascinating man. Next to me is 93-year-old Jack Thomas of Oz who was a POW and at Hintok (after the Brits moved on and the Aussies took over) and later worked in a coal mine in Japan. He was there half way between Hiromshima and Nagasaki when they went poof.

Jack is one of the most remarkable people I have met. He not only has all his marbles, but all his teeth and excellent health. But it's his positive attitude and happy equinimity which is so inspirational. He bears no animosity or ill feeling for his brutal treatment (it was "standard issue"). Asked how he coped on the Kwai then: "The jungle was beautiful and the birds were singing. I could have been in a 6X6 box with bars." Whereas many (most?) POWs suffered terrible long term, even life long, physical and psychological debility, he's completely at peace with the past and - talking to his son Graeme - seems to have been so all his life. Then was then and now is now. I've never met anyone whose positive attitude carried him so well through life - and a life with the most terrible challenges imaginable.

Madame Su with (Dame?) Twee and the twins, Michelle and Linda. Or is it Linda and Michelle? I'm not sure they know they're so similar. Missing in action is Sir Rod's 16-year-old daughter Tracy, at boarding school in Oz. (The girls are all in the 3.8 scholarship range.)  

I’ll wrap this too long blog with an apt quote from Professor Higham: “In prehistoric research, one site imparts only limited information. Hence the concern for locating a number of sites in order to reconstruct a settlement pattern.” The discoveries from our quixotic cave/drain hole blend  with other sites along the Kwai and with Hoabinhian culture across mainland Southeast Asia.    Like all the other flag expeditions I’ve been on, this one isn’t limited by the stated dates in the application but rather is ongoing.  Sir Rodney of Id, er, Oz and I will be back next year trying to draw aside further the curtains on our hunter-gatherer ancestors in order to let a tiny bit more light shine through the window   on what are truly the Dark Ages of Mankind. Cheers - Jason Schoonover Fellow Emeritus '86 PS. And I can't wait for next year when Sir Rod and I can go out and play in the mud again.