Zooarchaeological Synthesis and Landscape Reconstruction at the Pawon Cave Complex, West Java

Muhammad Duta A.C. Permana

This paper explores the past environmental conditions around the area of Pawon Cave Complex, West Java, Indonesia during the Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene by using zooarchaeologcal founding from the site. Range of faunal remains that was found in the cave are used to understand the types of environments available at the time with the suggestion of a mixed landscape that includes closed canopy forest, open grassland, shrub zones, and various accessible freshwater sources within the area. By combining landscape archaeology, human behavioural ecology, and niche construction theories, this study models multi-scale catchment areas to examine human mobility, subsistence strategies, and spatial exploitation of resources. Results suggest that Pawon Cave is used as a stable habitation site with a productive karst ecosystem that supports a multisource subsistence strategy among hunter-gatherer communities. This zooarchaeological synthesis demonstrates the potential use of faunal data aside from taxonomical description toward landscape-scale environmental reconstruction and offering a comparative framework for environmental archaeology reconstruction in the Indo-Pacific region.