[4] Taking up his post in 1953, and despite finding that "[o]pportunities for travelling and exploring were limited" under the then-"state of emergency" declared five years previously "by the British colonial government... as a response to Communist insurgency" he managed to open three regional "museums in Malacca, Seremban and Kuala Kangsa.
[4] The dig uncovered "a slaughtering station for wild boar," "over 30 [human] remains... buried in two distinct time frames, the Hoabinhian [or Mesolithic[4]] and the Neolithic,"[3] "the latter with jadeite bracelets, polished stone axes and pottery bowls containing a supply of small animals, presumably for sustenance in the next world.
"[4] He "dug at High Lodge, near Mildenhall, in Suffolk," a confusing site which caused geologists and archaeologists some vexation as "the chronological order of the flint tools discovered in the gravel and brickearth deposits apparently contradicts the geological succession.
"[4] In 1965–66, Sieveking joined Michael Kerney "for an expedition to Thailand" partly intended "to locate sites in the limestone massifs in the country's north and north-eastern provinces with Palaeolithic and earlier remains, sealed by stalagmite deposits, and thus datable using protactinium-thorium-uranium isotopic methods.
Longworth focused "on the rich Bronze Age deposits," while Sieveking looked at "the so-called "primitive" pits of the west fields, the flaking floor workshops in between them and the deep mines," using the British Museum Laboratory to help with "challenging projects" and unanswered questions.
"[8] He sought the help of (among others) Professor Rory Mortimore (an engineering geologist), as well as the Dutch "Felder brothers" who had "expertise as traditional pick-and-shovel s" and "experience in opening the Rijckholt St Geertruid Neolithic Flint Mines near Maastricht in Limburg.