The case for rainforest foragers : the starch record at Niah Cave, Sarawak

The nature of hunter-gatherer occupation patterns and subsistence practices within the tropics is currently poorly understood. Finding the "hard evidence" of human occupation within rainforest presents many difficulties because sites are dfficult to detect and the survival rate of organic material that might shed light on subsistence strategies is extremely low. Niah Cave (Sarawak, Malaysia) provides the perfect locality to investigate evidence of past subsistence practices in tropical rainforest, because it combines a long history of human occupation dating from at least 45,000 b.p. to the early Holocene with excellent conditions of organic preservation. (Taken from opening paragraph)