O'Connor, SueOliveira, NunoStandish, Christopher D.Garcia-Diez, MarcosKealy, ShimonaShipton, Ceri2023-03-232023-03-230959-7743http://hdl.handle.net/1885/287295Engraving sites are rare in mainland and Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) where painted art dominates the prehistoric artistic record. Here we report two new engraving sites from the Tutuala region of Timor-Leste comprising mostly humanoid forms carved into speleothem columns in rock-shelters. Engraved face motifs have previously been reported from Lene Hara Cave in this same region, and one was dated to the Pleistocene-Holocene transition using the Uranium-Thorium method. We discuss the engravings in relation to changes in technology and material culture that took place in the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene archaeological records in this region of Timor as well as neighbouring islands. We suggest that the engravings may have been produced as markers of territorial and social identity within the context of population expansion and greater inter-group contacts at this time.This research was supported by Ms Cecília Assis, Secretaria do Estado da Arte e Cultura, and the staff of the Direção Nacional do Património Cultural, Timor-Leste. The people of Tutuala are thanked for their help and support. The field research was financially supported by grants to NVO from the Gerda Henkel Foundation and the National Geographic Society (Grant 6816). SO’s fieldwork was funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CE170100015).application/pdfen-AU© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/202010.1017/S09597743200003232022-01-16Creative Commons Attribution License