Tom Harrison Borneo Collection

Investigator: 

Gregory Green, Kroch Asia Collection

Collection Type: 

Preservation Fund

Year: 

2019

Black and white photo of woman with feathers

Tom Harrisson was a unique and remarkable scholar of Southeast Asia. For approximately 40 years his important contributions to the field ranged from natural history and ornithology to anthropology and archaeology. For many years he was the curator of the Sarawak Museum, and he is credited with discovering the earliest dated human remains on the island of Borneo. Cornell has in our possession a number of papers from Tom Harrisson that are largely focused on the local indigenous peoples of the Malaysian territory of the island of Borneo. The digitization of these materials will be a great resource for scholars of the region and will finally allow the people of the area concerned to access this significant piece of their own history.