But not only that, even though the island is not big, it turns out that NTT has a legacy of ancient human prehistoric sites. Precisely in Liang Bua Cave, located in Ruteng, Manggarai, one of the world most important archeological sites.

Liang Bua is one of the caves in the limestone hill in the Manggarai region. Liang Bua has a very large size, which is 50 meters long, 40 meters wide and 25 meters high.

In this cave fossils of Homo floresiensis were found. What makes it unique is that many studies show ancient humans found to be small or dwarf. So small, even found in 2003 fossils that only have a height of 100 cm with an estimated weight of only 25 kg.

This skull was found at a depth of six meters. Homo floresiensis is a short human being estimated to have originated 18,000 years ago.

"But not only this skull was found. At that time, archaeologists also found several bones of ancient animals, such as ancient elephants (stegodons), lizards, turtles, lizards, and komodo dragons," said Joe, one of the local residents who live around Liang Bua Cave.

Joe explained that the name Liang Bua comes from the Manggarai language which means "cave" or "cool hole". Liang Bua Cave excavation is also believed to have been carried out since the 1930s and the results were brought to Leiden, the Netherlands. Excavations continued, both in the Dutch colonial era until continued at this time.

"Hearing from archaeologists, the age of this cave is around 190,000 years old," he said.

Estimated, this cave was formed from the flow of rivers that flow and bring rocks to penetrate the hill mounds. After a very long process in a long time, the rocks then became sedimentation rocks.

Entering Liang Bua Cave, we will find beautiful stalactites that decorate and dangle from the ceiling of the cave. While geologically, this cave is a form of endokarst that develop on limestone.

The formation of endokarst is interspersed with sandy limestone. The limestone is thought to originate in the middle Miocene period or around 15 million years ago. This karst area in NTT, like karst area elsewhere in Indonesia, also has special characteristics that are different from other karst areas.

Discovered by Theodore Verhoeven

Liang Bua Cave was first researched in 1965 by Theodore Verhoeven, a Dutch Catholic missionary who taught at Todabelu Seminary, Mataloko, Ngada Regency. At that time, this cave was used for schools around Liang Bua. His research resulted in a number of human graves associated with stone (shale) artifacts, pottery and square pickaxes.

After the Verhoeven period, research was continued by Prof. Dr. R P Soejono from the National Archaeological Research Center in 1978-1989. The research resulted in the finding that this site has been inhabited since prehistoric times ranging from the paleolithic, mesolithic, neolithic to paleometallic (early metal).

Beginning in 2001-2009, research was continued by the National Center for Archeology in collaboration with the University of New England (Australia) 2001-2004 and Wollongong University (Australia) 2007-2009. In 2010, the National Archaeological Center collaborated with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (US) and Wollongong University.

The most sensational discovery here, which was the ancient human skeleton whose relationship with the previous species was unknown, was found with hundreds of stone artifacts and animal bones such as ancient elephants, dragons, giant storks, mice, bats and birds. The human skeleton was known as adult Homo floresiensis. Its brain was very small, around 1 meter tall in posture, and weighed around 30 kg. (K-YN)