Madai Caves

A series of caves in eastern Sabah, northern Borneo, Malaysia, which form a large complex like those of Niah, Sarawak. The largest cave is Agop Atas, and it has produced an industry of early Australian type dated to 8000 years ago, with a pottery sequence dated from 500 BC to the present. It, along with Agop Sarapad, were inhabited from c 9000-5000 BC by hunters using pebble and flake tools. After a 4000-year gap, the caves were reused between c 2000-500 BC by people using stone flake tools and pottery. The caves were abandoned again and later reused in the early 1st millennium AD.

These caves in eastern Sabah, northern Borneo, form a large complex like those of Niah, Sarawak. The main excavated cave is Agop Atas, which has produced an industry of early Australian type dated to 8000 years ago, with an upper pottery sequence (above a sterile layer) dated from 500 be to the present. The latter may relate to the ancestry of the present AusTRONESiAN-speakers of the area, the Idahan Muruts.