Skull Hill () is an archaeological

hill A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. It often has a distinct summit, and is usually applied to peaks which are above elevation compared to the relative landmass, though not as prominent as Mountain, mountains. Hills ...

site located at Tampi Tampi Road, about south of Semporna town.

Geology

The hill is a volcanic rock-shelter site and a part of volcano mouth of in diameter. It is surrounded by numerous isolated hills and mountains with most representing the sites of

extinct volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the Crust (geology), crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and volcanic gas, gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth ...

es ranging from

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...

in age.

History

Between 1994 and 1995, joint archaeological research was undertaken by Centre for Archaeological Research of Malaysia and Sabah Museum team at the hill. Based on the findings from two seasons of excavations until the base of the undisturbed cultural deposits for about a period of five weeks at two volcanic outcrops near the hill summit, the subsequent layers contained undisturbed artefacts. A broad range of archaeological materials were recovered during the excavations which include large quantities of

potsherd This page is a glossary of archaeology, the study of the human past from material remains. A B C D E F ...

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a prec ...

agate Agate ( ) is a banded variety of chalcedony. Agate stones are characterized by alternating bands of different colored chalcedony and sometimes include macroscopic quartz. They are common in nature and can be found globally in a large number of d ...

and

obsidian Obsidian ( ) is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed when lava extrusive rock, extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth. It is an igneous rock. Produced from felsic lava, obsidian is rich in the lighter element ...

stone tools, polished stone

adze An adze () or adz is an ancient and versatile cutting tool similar to an axe but with the cutting edge perpendicular to the handle rather than parallel. Adzes have been used since the Stone Age. They are used for smoothing or carving wood in ha ...

s, a stone barkcloth beater as well as some

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses Science Biology * Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...

and bone artefacts. Abundant food remains were also discovered, mostly in the form of marine

molluscs Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...

, fish bones and some terrestrial animal bones. The site has been identified as the largest pottery making factory in

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

during the

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

period. The hill slopes are littered with numerous pottery shards with various patterns dating 3,000 BP. An ethno-archaeological study shows that such pottery making is still practised by the

Bajau The Sama-Bajau include several Austronesian ethnic groups of Maritime Southeast Asia. The name collectively refers to related people who usually call themselves the Sama or Samah (formally A'a Sama, "Sama people"); or are known by the exonym ...

community in Semporna to this day. This pottery site has links between local communities and traders from around the

Andaman Sea The Andaman Sea (historically also known as the Burma Sea) is a marginal sea of the northeastern Indian Ocean bounded by the coastlines of Myanmar and Thailand along the Gulf of Martaban and the west side of the Malay Peninsula, and separated f ...

. The hill provides evidence of prehistoric sea trade and one of the world's longest human movement dating back 3,000 years.

References

{{Museums of Malaysia Archaeological sites in Malaysia Landforms of Sabah Monuments and memorials in Malaysia Tourist attractions in Sabah Museums in Sabah