Ancient human bones have been found at the site of a neolithic gallery in Guar Kepah in Butterworth, Penang.

Announcing this, state Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said a femur was found at a depth of just 70cm during piling works for the new gallery, and the digging was immediately stopped.

Further checks by an archeological team from the USM archeology research department (PPAG), led by Prof Dr Mokhtar Saidin, unearthed a human skull and a rib cage, all believed to date back at least 5,000 years.

Guar Kepah is located in North Seberang Perai and is known to locals as Paya Cina.

According to Lim, PPAG is now carrying out more extensive works at the site, while the contractor has been told to postpone building the gallery. He said the state government is committed to preserve the site.

“We have requested for funds from the Federal Government to build a gallery to preserve and showcase the artifacts in Guar Kepah, but there have been no luck so far,” he said at a press conference in Komtar today.

In Dec 2013, Malaysiakini visited the site and found it not fenced up, while a resident, who claimed to have ancestors having lived there for about a century, carrying out jackfruit and swiftlet farming.

“We have allocated 2.39 acres of land to the Chief Minister Incorporated - which oversees heritage development - and financial aid of RM830,000 for the building of the gallery’s first phase,” Lim said.

He noted that USM has been conducting research in the area, which is older than Lembah Bujang in Kedah, since 2010.

As early as 1860, burial sites of pre-historic humans were found on mounds of sea shells in Guar Kepah.

Guar Kepah was also the first excavation site by British navigator GW Earl in 1850, whose findings included 27 human bones, now kept in the Netherlands.

“We will work with the Netherlands to try and bring home the artifacts; these are invaluable historical heritage which must be preserved,” Lim said.

“We hope academics will use the location as a place where research, reference and information about pre-historic humans can be done,” he added.