The Pokekea Megalithic Site is a

megalithic A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea. The ...

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

in the

Lore Lindu National Park Lore Lindu National Park is a protected area of forest on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, in the province of Central Sulawesi. The Indonesian national park is 2,180 km2 covering both lowland and montane forests (200 to 2,610 meters abov ...

. It is located in the Behoa (Besoa) Valley northwest of Bada Valley. The Behoa valley is notable for its preserved kalambas,

megalith A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea. The ...

s shaped like large cylindrical stone vats. The kalambas served as communal funerary urns and resemble in form and function the monuments on the

Plain of Jars The Plain of Jars ( Lao: ທົ່ງໄຫຫິນ ''Thong Hai Hin'', ) is a megalithic archaeological landscape in Laos. It consists of thousands of stone jars scattered around the upland valleys and the lower foothills of the central plain of ...

Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...

. At Pokekea there are 27 kalambas, together with decorated stone lids and statues (

Indonesian Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to: * Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia ** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago ** Indonesian ...

: ''arcas''). A kalamba at the park entrance is decorated by faces arranged in a strip along its outer wall. Their features are similar to the arcas in the Bada Valley. The lids next to the kalambas are also decorated, some with small protruding statues of monkeys and lizards around their edge. Excavations at the site carried out in 2008 by Dwi Yuniawati have shown that kalambas served as family burial chambers containing a minimum of ten people. The kalambas probably did not house the remains of the entire tribe, but were reserved for the elite. The remains show traces of teeth mutilation and cremation. Analysis of two kalambas at Pokekea carried out in 2006 by Wiebke Kirleis, Valério Pillar and Hermann Behling suggest a date range between 766898 and 11461272 AD.

Notes

References

* Megalithic monuments Archaeological sites in Indonesia {{Asia-archaeology-stub