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Category: Project

Description: Gunung Sewu Karst is situated in the faulted block of Southern Java Zone, Indonesia. The area has been uplifted since the Late Pliocene. Three major uplift phases were reported to have been taking place, resulting in the exposure of Miocene carbonate rocks. Prevailing tropical monsoon climate has made it possible for the carbonate formations to evolve through karstification process. Three phases of the uplifting thereafter have resulted in three karst landform evolution. Karst landform evolution in Gunung Sewu Karst inevitably determined pre-historic human habitation. During the first stage when surface river was active, human settlement occupied open space along river courses. When the caves were exposed in the second stage, human settlement moved to the caves and distributed along dry valleys or near doline ponds. Cave habitations ended when major depression dried out provisions of extensive agricultural land. In the modern era, the situation was inverted in which the human habitation was determined by geomorphologic processes. Soil erosion was accelerated due to deforestation and agricultural land intensifications. Native species were replaced by exotic species commodities. Big mammals mentioned above were extinct.