Karst Landscape Maros Pangkep Prehistoric Cave Area

The karst area of Maros Pangkep has been known internationally since Alfred Russel Wallace (a British naturalist) published his travel journal titled The Malay Archipelago (1869). This karst area has an area of 4,500 hectares, located in two districts, namely Maros Regency, and Pangkep Regency, South Sulawesi Province. Precisely in the north of Makassar City, between 30 to 51 kilometers from Makassar City. Astronomically located at the coordinates 110°48'56 '' - 110°53 '00'BT and 07°24'22.50' '- 07°30'22,90'’LS. These karst lines can be clearly seen from the trans Sulawesi road that connects Makassar with the City of Pare-pare. In this area there are hundreds of caves which not only have very beautiful cave ornaments, but also are archaeological sites which are evidence of prehistoric human habitation. Thus this region is an area with extraordinary natural and cultural potential, so that it meets the criteria of world cultural heritage for mixed categories.

This area has hundreds of prehistoric caves that have been found and become a place of research with a beautiful landscape shape and historical value or archaeological value. Fritz Sarasin and Paul Sarasin were Swiss naturalists and ethnologists, succeeding in discovering the remains of prehistoric human equipment in the caves of the Maros district and reproducing them in the book Reisen in Celebes: Ausgefhrt in Den Jahren 1893-1896 Und 1902-1903. On the walls there are images of handprints, animals and other objects which are settlements and symbols of ancient human religious activity at that time. In addition, the area is also a habitat for unique flora and fauna, endemic and rare, and only exists in the region. The Maros and Pangkep Karst and the Bulusaraung mountain complex are also watersheds and upstream various rivers in Maros, Pangkep, including the Puteh River and the Walannae River/Lake Tempe.

Based on data held by the Conservation Preservation Center of South Sulawesi until 2018 (exploration is still ongoing), there are 238 prehistoric cave sites in the Maros-Pangkep Karst region, and 187 of them contain cave drawings or rock images. Thus 78.6% of the number of caves known today contain rock images with various types of shapes and colors. In terms of shape can be divided into Hand Stamp, Piguratif, Non-Piguratif, and not identified. While in terms of color, can be divided into red, black, purple, and yellow. The Rock Art painting shows communication between the world of the living and the worlds of the spirits, and gives insight into the cosmology of prehistoric hunters and gatherers. There is an exceptionally high number of ‘tattoo’ hand-print, composing handprint, unique human figures and fascinating representations of prehistoric social life, dancing, hunting, and rituals. Moreover, the Rock Art provides a unique testimony to the interaction of hunter-gatherers with the landscape. The panels show hunting and ritual journeys, and are thought to represent their landscapes mind.

The unique morphology of the Maros Pangkep karst area lies in the formation of tower karst hills formed due to the large tectonic control over the formation of the region's morphology. Rocks cut by a fault followed by dissolution (the role of climate control) form karst towers with the slope of each karst tower unit generally above 45˚. In addition, this area is also characterized by the presence of remnant hills formed by the dissolution and differences in the types of rock. These hills are mainly scattered in the Maros area (around Bantimurung - Salenrang) and in the Pangkep area (around Balocci and Bungoro - Mangilu).

Maros Pangkep Karst area consists of several types of ecosystems, including forest ecosystems on karst rocks, lowland rain forest ecosystems, and low mountain rain forest ecosystems. Bulusaraung Protected Forest Group is one part of the Maros Pangkep Karst area with ecosystems in the form of karst beds. The karst ecosystem in this area has a clear boundary because of the steep karst bedstones of the Karst Maros (Maros-Pangkep) which is famous for its panoramic beauty as it is often depicted in traditional Chinese paintings. Geologically, the karst area of Maros Pangkep is dominated by carbonate rocks of the Tonasa Formation (Temt) which range in age from the Eocene to the Middle Miocene (Ta-Tf). This formation includes limestone limestone, partially layered and partly solid, coral, bioclastica, and calcarenite, with insertion of globaline marlal, limestone rich in large foram, sandy limestone, local with molluscs, mostly white and light gray, some gray and brown. The Tonasa Formation is not less than 1750 m thick, is not aligned to overlap the Propylitated Volcanic Rock (Tpv) and is overlapped by the Camba Formation (Tmc), in some places broken through by cracks, seals and basal and diorite stock, developing well around Tonasa. The karst area of Maros Pangkep generally  has a morphology of the hills that extends relatively north - south, which gradually wears to the northwest. These karst hills are formed by carbonate rock (limestone) which topographically has a height of more than 500 masl, including B. Maccapio (508 masl) in the eastern part of Tonasa. This area is bounded by the Pangkajene River in the north and the Maros River in the south.

In the Maros Pangkep Karst landscape there are a variety of unique and endemic fauna, both living in karst habitats outside and inhabiting inside caves in eternal darkness. From the aspect of fauna, monkeys and butterflies are types that have been studied in depth in the Karst Maros region. It was reported that there were 103 species of butterflies found in the Bantimurung tourism forest. Some types of butterflies are endemic and protected. Among which are endemic species i.e. Papilio blumei, P. Polites, P. Sataspes, Haliphron Troides, T. Helena, T. Hypolitus and Graphium androcles. Other important species: Sulawesi black macaque (Macaca maura), bear kuscus (Ailurops ursinus), small cuscus (Stigocuscus celebensis), the smallest primana in the world (Tarsius spectrum), Sulawesi ferrets, wild boar, deer, monitor lizard, bats, two species of birds (Stigocuscus celebensis), the smallest primana in the world (Tarsius spectrum), Sulawesi ferrets, wild boar, deer, monitor lizard, bats, two species of birds big hornbills and black hornbills, eagles, king prawns, sri scissors, three species of swallow birds, owls, sparrows, turtles, capilli, white cockatoos, green "danga" parrots, pythons, black snakes, eyed fish and shrimp in the cave and invertebrate species. The Maros-Pangkep karst area is a 'home' to 284 species of woody plants, i.e. Bintangur (Calophyllum sp.), Banyan (Ficus sp.), Enau (Arenga pinnata), Nyato (Pala quium obtusifolium), and several families Homalanthus, Lagerstroemia, Pterospermum, Kleinho via, Villebrunea and a number of endemic flora i.e. sulawesi ebony  (Diospyros celebica) and sepang wood (Caesalpina sappan). In the Marst-Pangkep Karst Area 30 banyan species have been found.

Maros Pangkep karst area is a combination of natural and cultural landscape which is a united karst ecosystem that is in one area that affects each other. Apart from being a center for archeological research and a unique and interesting area of natural and cultural tourism. One of them is the natural and cultural tourism area of Bantimurung which has a waterfall that is about 10 meters high and about 8 meters wide. Bantimurung waterfall is famous since the arrival of Wallace and has been a conservation area since 1919.

The Maros-Pangkep karst area is unique in the form of lined high tower hills commonly called karst towers, with extensive cliffs, which are not found in other parts of Indonesia. Based on its physical properties, the karst region has the main function as a aquifer that meets raw water for hundreds of thousands of people living in it, the region also functions as a guardian of the balance of the regional ecosystem. There are hundreds of prehistoric caves that are evidence of human occupancy in the region thousands of years ago. There is a diversity of potential in this region which later made this area designated as the National Geopark in 2017. Currently temporarily in the process of submission to the UNESCO Geopark. The aim of the geopark is to develop and develop a people's economy. So the determination of the geopark area has a very large impact on geotourism and nature conservation that can encourage local economic growth and empowerment of local communities (community development).

The new evidence of excavation at the Leang Jarie Site, as the oldest Maros Point technology ca. 8,000 years ago in the Toalean Cultural Region. Maros Point is made simpler with the support flake without using reduction pattern of flake-blade technology. Flakes with an asymmetrical shape can also be utilized as long as it have a pointed and thin tip. The "backed" retouched technique is also used to maximize flakes with steep sharp edges. Maros Point is produced from the early holocene or Preneolithic Period and has possibility its continuation until Neolithic period. The earliest dated image from Maros, with a minimum age of 39.9 kyr, now represents the oldest known hand stencil in the world. In addition, a painting of a babirusa (‘pig-deer’) made at least 35.4 kyr ago is amongst the earliest dated figurative depictions worldwide, if not the earliest one. The oldest, Leang Burung 2, a cliff-foot shelter with a minimum age for the excavated deposits of 31,260 ± 320 radiocarbon years BP (35,248 ± 420 calendar years BP)13, previously provided the earliest dated evidence for humans on Sulawesi. The Pleistocene deposits from both sites yielded evidence of pigment use in the form of facetted haematite nodules13 and ochre-smeared stone tools17.

Criterion (iii): Prehistoric cave sites Maros Pangkep, with its thousands of paintings, is an exceptional testimony of the aspects of prehistoric life. The wide range of motifs and scenes of high artistic quality reflect a long tradition of hunter-gatherer societies and their interaction with landscape, as well as the variation of their symbols and rituals. Caves in the Maros region of Sulawesi are home to the oldest rock paintings in the world, with ochre pigments dating to 40,000 years ago. By 40,000 years ago people were creating rock art on Sulawesi. Given the sophistication of these artworks, their makers were surely Homo sapiens with modern minds like ours. Another collection of stone tools dating back more than 50,000 years has been unearthed on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The artefacts were dated using a range of methods to between 30,000 and 22,000 years ago. They include disc-shaped beads made from the tooth of a babirusa, a primitive pig found only on Sulawesi, and a “pendant” fashioned from the finger bone of a bear cuscus, a large possum-like creature also unique to Sulawesi. The discovery of ornaments manufactured from the bones and teeth of babirusas and bear cuscuses two of Sulawesi’s most characteristic endemic species implies that the symbolic world of the newcomers changed to incorporate these never-before-seen creatures.

Criterion (viii): The Karst Maros-Pangkep area illustrates a sample that represents important values of continued knowledge development in the history of earth, fresh water and coastal ecosystems as well as biota and fauna. The Karts Maros-Pangkep Area not only presents a unique landscape but also has archaeological sources of prehistoric caves and its heritage that date back to thousands of years ago. The Maros-Pangkep site has important value for geological history in Indonesia because it includes karst morphology which was formed from sedimentary material on the seabed since the Eocene which later evolved through geological processes endogenous forces/diastrophism so that these deposits undergo changes structure antiklinal/sinklinal and lifted to the surface together with receding sea water, as a result of freezing at the north and south poles. The process lasts for thousands or even millions of years.

These phenomenal karst components are non-renewable natural resources, meaning that the existence of karst and its unique architectural features, including the environmental functions it carries, is a resource that cannot be repeated in the same place or its formation process requires thousands or millions of years. In other words, any damage that occurs to the surface / carcass is permanent and cannot be rehabilitated anymore.

Criterion (x): In this Geo Culture also contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation. The diversity of plant species in the Maros-Pangkep Karst region, in the form of carcass vegetation plants found in 40 plots of samples in rocky habitat (without soil), amounted to 199 species consisting of 107 genera and 48 families. Of the 199 plant species found in rocky habitats, 41% (82 species) of them are protected, rare, endemic, certain animal feed, medicinal and commercial species. Referring to the South Sulawesi Karst Database Report (2016) No fewer than 709 types of flora have been identified. 43 types of Ficus are key species in the Bantimurung Bulusaraung National Park area; 116 types of natural orchids; 6 protected species, namely Ebony (Diospyros celebica), Palem (Livistona chinensis, Livistona sp.), Anggrek (Ascocentrum miniatum, Dendrobium. No fewer than 740 species have been identified, 52 important types are protected by law and 364 species are endemic to Sulawesi. 33 types of mammals: Sulawesi black monkey / Dare (Macaca maura), Sulawesi civet (Macrogalidia musschenbroeckii), sulawesi cuscus (Strigocuscus celebencis), sulawesi bear cuscus (Ailurops ursinus), deer (Cervus timorensis) and Tarsius (Tarsius fuscus). macrophyllum, Phalaenopsis amboinensis and Dendrobium macrophyllum).

The people who live around the Maros Pangkep Karst Area are the majority ethnic Bugis-Makassarese. The Maros and Pangkep areas are the Bugis Makassar transition area, generally the people in the region are able to speak Bugis and Makassar with a distinctive dialect. Thus the socio-cultural aspects, the developing customs are inseparable from the culture of Bugis and Makassar. The socio-cultural characteristics of the communities in the two regencies, such as the people of South Sulawesi in general, include the classification of homogeneous societies with the characteristics and characteristics of developing communities who generally have the same characteristics. The habit patterns that develop at this time, are still dominant is the nature of mutual cooperation. One of the cultural characters that is still prominent is the pre-planting and post-harvest traditional ceremonies, traditional dances, and other rituals that develop and can become a tourist attraction.

Traditions before planting rice or going down into the fields, in Maros called Appalili and in Segeri Pangkep called Mappalili. Appalili is a series of traditional ceremonies before going down to the fields. The farmers took the tools of the kingdom that were previously stored in the attic of a traditional house called Balla Lompoa, brought to the place that had been prepared. The ceremony began in the evening with all community leaders, traditional stakeholders, traditional advisors, farmers and government leaders gathered to discuss agricultural issues called the Paempo event. In Pangkep Mappalili Arajang or ritual parading of rice plows around the village before starting the season working in the fields is carried out by the community led by the Bissu community, which has supernatural powers and has immunity with sharp weapons. The culture still survives until now. When decomposed, the mappalili tradition is closely related to the efforts of conservation of natural protection and the fulfillment and protection of food sources, especially the protection of paddy fields and the tradition of rice cultivation. Rakkala that is paraded around the village is a tree trunk which is a prerequisite with the philosophy of forest protection.

The Sulawesi dates show that the making of rock art did not originate in Europe, that it is more likely a much older behaviour brought by the first humans to both Europe and Southeast Asia. Or that rock art practices of making hand stencils and skilfully executed depictions of wild animals were independently invented in far flung parts of the world many tens of thousands of years ago.

Kars Maros - Pangkep landscape forms exokars architecture with distinctive relief characteristics in the form of towering hills resembling towers, and endokars phenomena unique to prehistoric caves, as well as their biotic and abiotic riches. As a water catchment area ("Recharge Zone"), this area is able to meet the needs of agriculture and raw water supply for the community and the surrounding area. Natural erosion, sunlight and vandalism are potential threats to the paintings and sites. Already several sites were open to the public. As part of the visitor management strategy: capacity building of local people already ran for ecotourism perspective; added wooden steps and platforms have been constructed for easier accessibility. Several officially heritage sites-guard already worked for managing and protect the prehistoric cave as heritage site from damage and vandalism.