Australian Archaeology

Kingsize Wombat said:
Now that's a Banjo quote I hadn't heard of.
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Clancy of the Overflow second verse second line. I am very fond of Australia. The weird flora and fauna and the landscape are closest I will likely ever come to living on another planet. I mean, the platypus was considered a hoax until the 1880s or something. I had a really great time in Australia my teens and again in my 20s, and I'm still a huge fan.
 
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This might be hijacking the thread a bit, but has anyone here seen a comparison between an aboriginal skull and the Pintubi-skull? I can't seem to find photos of skulls of aborigines online.
 
Xanatic* said:
This might be hijacking the thread a bit, but has anyone here seen a comparison between an aboriginal skull and the Pintubi-skull? I can't seem to find photos of skulls of aborigines online.
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The famous (or infamous) Pintupi-1 skull can be viewed online and, with its many archaic traits, certainly looks highly anomalous. There are very few articles about it though, possibly due to political sensivities.
 
Yes, but what I am lacking is a comparison to a skull from a known aborigine.
 
The discovery of an ancient coin in the Northern Territory could mean a key piece of Australian history is completely wrong.

coin.jpg


Remember when you were taught Australia was first claimed for the British throne when it was discovered in 1770 by James Cook who promptly declared it “terra nullius”?

Turns out that could be completely and utterly wrong with the discovery of a copper coin that could rewrite Australia’s history.
In an interview with The Guardian, archaeologist Mike Hermes revealed he found an ancient coin lying on a beach on the Wessel Islands last year he believes to be from Kilwa, more than 10,000km away in what is now known as Tanzania, dating from before the 15th century.
“The Portuguese were in Timor in 1514, 1515 — to think they didn’t go three more days east with the monsoon wind is ludicrous,” he said.
“We’ve weighed and measured it, and it’s pretty much a dead ringer for a Kilwa coin.
“And if it is, well, that could change everything.”
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https://www.news.com.au/technology/...y/news-story/65af0dc01d5046af142dbff3919065a6
 
New theory on rock art creation causes a buzz.

This 500-year-old rock art is among the rarest in the world.

Found at a site called Yilbilinji near northern Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria—and depicting a humanlike figure holding a boomerang (right), surrounded by more boomerangs—it’s a type of stenciling that involved creating miniature outlines of humans, tools, and other shapes. Similar, much older mini-stencils have been found elsewhere in Australia and around the world. Now, scientists think they know how ancient people made them.

Australia’s Aboriginal populations have been creating rock art for at least 44,000 years. Typically when stenciling, the artist held their hand or other object up to the rock and sprayed pigmented liquid onto it, leaving behind a life-size negative on the wall.

But the red-rock overhang at Yilbilinji features much smaller figures: 17 minihumans, boomerangs, and geometric patterns—all too tiny to have been modeled after a painter’s hand or a real object. One of the new study’s co-authors remembered seeing Aboriginal people using beeswax as a kind of clay for making children’s toys resembling cattle and horses. Might the ancient rock artists have used beeswax to form stencils?



https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/mysterious-ancient-rock-art-may-have-been-made-beeswax
 
ramonmercado said:
New theory on rock art creation causes a buzz.

This 500-year-old rock art is among the rarest in the world.

Found at a site called Yilbilinji near northern Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria—and depicting a humanlike figure holding a boomerang (right), surrounded by more boomerangs—it’s a type of stenciling that involved creating miniature outlines of humans, tools, and other shapes. Similar, much older mini-stencils have been found elsewhere in Australia and around the world. Now, scientists think they know how ancient people made them.

Australia’s Aboriginal populations have been creating rock art for at least 44,000 years. Typically when stenciling, the artist held their hand or other object up to the rock and sprayed pigmented liquid onto it, leaving behind a life-size negative on the wall.

But the red-rock overhang at Yilbilinji features much smaller figures: 17 minihumans, boomerangs, and geometric patterns—all too tiny to have been modeled after a painter’s hand or a real object. One of the new study’s co-authors remembered seeing Aboriginal people using beeswax as a kind of clay for making children’s toys resembling cattle and horses. Might the ancient rock artists have used beeswax to form stencils?



https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/mysterious-ancient-rock-art-may-have-been-made-beeswax
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Beeswax usage in petroglyphs is not unusual...here's a ANU paper on it.

http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n3991/html/ch03.xhtml?referer=&page=8
 
DougalLongfoot said:
Pilbara mining blast confirmed to have destroyed 46,000yo sites of 'staggering' significance

Sadly, the mining industry, in this case Rio Tinto, are still free to destroy important sites in the pursuit of profit. :headbang:
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An Australian mining engineeer I know who worked with Rio Tinto says:

Personally I wouldn’t put it past them to push the blasting to the limit and now they got caught.

No reason to blast there, plenty of iron ore up there, just convenience to go as close as they could
 
I've heard it said that It is easier to issue an apology, than to get permission...which seems to be quite prevalent nowadays.

44,000 continuous years of use/respect/occupation...gone.

44,000 years. Words fail me.
 
Recent explorations demonstrate that the earliest evidence of human occupation of Australia is probably underwater, and the growth area for future Australian archaeology lies offshore.
A Submerged 7,000-Year-Old Discovery Shows the Great Potential of Underwater Archaeology

Stone tools scattered on the seafloor mark the oldest underwater site ever found on the continent.

Australia has a deep human history stretching back 65,000 years, but many of its oldest archaeological sites are now underwater. In an encouraging sign that Aboriginal artifacts and landscapes may actually be preserved offshore, archaeologists have discovered a 7,000-year-old site submerged along Australia's continental shelf, the first of its kind. Their discovery is outlined today in the journal PLoS One.

At the end of the last ice age, about 12,000 years ago, when glaciers melted and sea level rose, waters inundated one-third of Australia’s habitable land. As part of a project called Deep History of Sea Country, Jonathan Benjamin, a professor of maritime archaeology at Flinders University in Adelaide, led a team that searched for submerged sites off Murujuga (also known as the Dampier Archipelago), a dry and rocky coastal region in northwestern Australia.

This area has a wealth of inland archaeological sites, including more than one million examples of rock art. About 18,000 years ago, the shoreline of Murujuga would have extended another 100 miles further than the current coast. ...

The team ultimately found 269 stone artifacts at Cape Bruguieres Channel, buried under about eight feet of water. The various tools appeared to be designed for activities like scraping, cutting and hammering, and the researchers found one grindstone that may have been used for crushing up the seeds of Spinifex grass for baking into bread. Based on radiocarbon dating and an analysis of when this spot became submerged, the researchers think the artifacts are at least 7,000 years old. The team also describes a second site, Flying Foam Passage, a freshwater spring about 45 feet below sea level and at least where one stone tool that's at least 8,500 years old turned up. ...

Marine geo-archaeologist Nicholas Flemming of the U.K.'s National Oceanography Centre, who was not involved in this study, says archaeologists are particularly interested in studying the northern and northwest coast of Australia. Sites like Cape Bruguieres Channel may contain evidence that tells scientists more about how people first crossed the sea from Southeast Asia to arrive in the continent and how they lived in this now-sunken coastal environment. ...

Flemming adds that this study marks the first time any marine sites older than 5,000 years have been found in the tropics. Most submerged prehistoric sites are discovered by random chance, he says—by trawlers, dredgers or divers who then report the sites to conservation authorities. "The discovery proves that stone tools do survive on the sea floor in tropical environments,” Flemming says ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/archaeology-underwater-australia-180975235/
 
Here are the bibliographic details and abstract of the published research report (PLOS ONE) ...

Aboriginal artefacts on the continental shelf reveal ancient drowned cultural landscapes in northwest Australia
Jonathan Benjamin , Michael O’Leary, Jo McDonald, Chelsea Wiseman, John McCarthy, Emma Beckett, Patrick Morrison, Francis Stankiewicz, Jerem Leach, Jorg Hacker, Paul Baggaley, Katarina Jerbić, Madeline Fowler, ...
Published: July 1, 2020
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0233912

Abstract
This article reports Australia’s first confirmed ancient underwater archaeological sites from the continental shelf, located off the Murujuga coastline in north-western Australia. Details on two underwater sites are reported: Cape Bruguieres, comprising > 260 recorded lithic artefacts at depths down to −2.4 m below sea level, and Flying Foam Passage where the find spot is associated with a submerged freshwater spring at −14 m. The sites were discovered through a purposeful research strategy designed to identify underwater targets, using an iterative process incorporating a variety of aerial and underwater remote sensing techniques and diver investigation within a predictive framework to map the submerged landscape within a depth range of 0–20 m. The condition and context of the lithic artefacts are analysed in order to unravel their depositional and taphonomic history and to corroborate their in situ position on a pre-inundation land surface, taking account of known geomorphological and climatic processes including cyclone activity that could have caused displacement and transportation from adjacent coasts. Geomorphological data and radiometric dates establish the chronological limits of the sites and demonstrate that they cannot be later than 7000 cal BP and 8500 cal BP respectively, based on the dates when they were finally submerged by sea-level rise. Comparison of underwater and onshore lithic assemblages shows differences that are consistent with this chronological interpretation. This article sets a foundation for the research strategies and technologies needed to identify archaeological targets at greater depth on the Australian continental shelf and elsewhere, building on the results presented. Emphasis is also placed on the need for legislation to better protect and manage underwater cultural heritage on the 2 million square kilometres of drowned landscapes that were once available for occupation in Australia, and where a major part of its human history must lie waiting to be discovered.
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FULL REPORT: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0233912
 
Ancient Aboriginal site Moyjil could rewrite the global story of human migration

Scientists examining an ancient Aboriginal site at Warrnambool in south-west Victoria are split over whether charred rocks and weather-worn shells are 120,000-year-old evidence of Indigenous life.

If the discoveries at the rocky headland, called Moyjil — or Point Ritchie — are proved to be as old as some scientists believe, they would affect global understandings of human migration.
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Could be natural, could be man made, I don't think that you could decide either way on the evidence as it stands.

Questions:
1. If these sites were as a result of humans, where is the other evidence, human remains, axes etc?
2. If humans were at this site 120,000 years ago, when and how did they get to Australia? There would be evidence of even earlier activity in the north of the continent surely?
3. Could it have been an earlier migration of either homo sapiens or homo erectus with no link to current indigenous people? Again, wouldn't they have left other evidence?
4. What does the genetic evidence say?
 
DougalLongfoot said:
Ancient Aboriginal site Moyjil could rewrite the global story of human migration
Could be natural, could be man made, I don't think that you could decide either way on the evidence as it stands.
Questions:
1. If these sites were as a result of humans, where is the other evidence, human remains, axes etc?
2. If humans were at this site 120,000 years ago, when and how did they get to Australia? There would be evidence of even earlier activity in the north of the continent surely?
3. Could it have been an earlier migration of either homo sapiens or homo erectus with no link to current indigenous people? Again, wouldn't they have left other evidence?
4. What does the genetic evidence say?
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The problem with modern archaeology is that a good deal of what is taken to be the truth was first brought to us by French nationalists who wanted to claim for France, the title of being the origin point for ancient humanity, which it patently isn't. Thereafter, everything has been tainted with the prejudice of this early French archaeological chauvanism. Since then there have been a number of efforts to push the supposed development point for modern homo sapiens consistently forwards to the most recent ice age, which is also patently wrong, as was categorically proven as we can point to solid evidence of modern homo sapiens 200,000 years ago, and stretching matters we can go to 315,000 and even 400,000 years ago with more tenuous evidence.

I think there is a good chance that the people we today regard as Caucasians developed in Australia and left for Eurasia. I think that the Polynesians have amply demonstrated that canoes can travel huge distances and humans can attune themselves to the signals that the wide world's ocean presents them when in a canoe, but why would these skills only arise in one culture?
 
As a Graduate in Archaeology; I was taught nothing about France.

I have obviously missed something.

The only `Chavanism` I know of is that Archaeologists love cultures that are low hanging fruit; the sort of folk who build in stone and/or leave masses of interesting junk.

What genetic evidence is there for your theory?
 
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Kondoru said:
As a Graduate in Archaeology; I was taught nothing about France. I have obviously missed something. The only `Chavanism` I know of is that Archaeologists love cultures that are low hanging fruit; the sort of folk who build in stone and/or leave masses of interesting junk.
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I suggest you familiarise yourself with the early history of Archaeology, as this is very much a matter of academic politics in the 19th Century, and the rampant nationalism of the era that comes across in the correspondence of the period. It was cunning how the French academics managed to undercut the self confidence of the other academics in the field, while making what were pretty baseless claims based on precious little evidence of their own, that they hid via references that nobody could obtain and other shennanigans.
Kondoru said:
What genetic evidence is there for your theory?
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The evidence is not all genetic, as some is based on human remains that don't always have viable genetic material for analysis. It also certainly isn't limited to the articles I am putting forwards, as there is a large and growing body of research that has been challenging many assumptions in archaeology, and I am not going to chase down every article I have read on the topic over the last 30+ years; I don't have the time or the inclination even during lockdown. If you narrow the scope of your question I can offer up an article or 2 to get you going though.
 
Vid at link.

Maliwawa Figures: Ancient Aboriginal art 'unlike anything seen before'

A new style of ancient Aboriginal rock art in Australia has been documented for the first time.
Professor Paul Tacon explains how the 572 paintings known as the Maliwawa Figures offer a glimpse into life more than 6,000 years ago.
Video by Isabelle Rodd

Published12 hours ago
SectionBBC News
SubsectionAustralia

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-australia-54383750
 
Kingsize Wombat said:
Now that's a Banjo quote I hadn't heard of.
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Speaking of Banjo Paterson in the context of Australian archaeology ...
Banjo Paterson: 120-year-old chocolate found in Australian poet's belongings

When the National Library of Australia recently acquired famous poet Banjo Paterson's personal belongings, the last thing they expected to find was chocolate.
With links to Queen Victoria, the discovery from 1900 is "one of the best preserved chocolates of this age anywhere", a historian tells the BBC.
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SOURCE (With Video About The Chocolates): https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-australia-55421008
 
Now that is surely the most significant find from Australia in recent decades
 
Egg eating humans killed off Big Bird.

Fifty thousand years ago, Australia was populated by big birds—really big birds.

One of them, known as mihirunga, or the “thunder bird,” was six times the size of a modern emu; it may have weighed in at 250 kilograms and stood more than 2 meters tall. But the giant Genyornis newtoni disappeared 45,000 years ago, and researchers have long puzzled over whether human hunters or climate change was the culprit. Now, a new analysis of ancient eggshells—the leftovers of a prehistoric feast—suggests “humans were responsible,” says Trevor Worthy, a paleozoologist at Flinders University.

People arrived in Australia about 55,000 years ago; by 45,000 years ago, the Genyornis bird was extinct, along with dozens of other giant species, including marsupial lions and giant kangaroos. But evidence tying their extinction to the arrival of humans was circumstantial at best. Although North American peoples left clear evidence of hunting and butchering of large animals—bones with cutmarks, or stone projectile points embedded in mammoth remains, for example—none of this existed in Australia.

A possible smoking gun appeared in 2016, when researchers linked burned eggshells at sites near Australia’s southern and western coasts to Genyornis. At the time, they argued the shells were evidence of omelet making on a large enough scale to push the thunder bird over the brink. “A lot [of shells] had been burned, which implies human consumption,” says Gifford Miller, a geoscientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a co-author on the paper. “That would have been the first secure evidence of direct predation.”

https://www.science.org/content/art...ped-drive-australia-s-thunder-bird-extinction
 
With respect - Vale Rex Gilmore.
 
When Domesticated Dingoes roamed Oz.

It's said that a dog is a man's best friend, but the wild dingo is much maligned in Australia. This may not always have been the case though, with new research led by experts at The Australian National University and The University of Western Australia suggesting that dingoes were buried—and even domesticated—by First Nations people prior to European colonization.

The researchers examined remains at the Curracurrang archaeological site, south of Sydney, where radiocarbon dating of dingo bones revealed the animals were buried alongside humans as far back as 2,000 years ago.

The care taken to bury the animals suggests a closer relationship between humans and dingoes than many previously realized, according to lead researcher Dr. Loukas Koungoulos.

"Not all camp dingoes were given burial rites, but in all areas in which the burials are recorded, the process and methods of disposal are identical or almost identical to those associated with human rites in the same area," Dr. Koungoulos said.

"This reflects the close bond between people and dingoes and their almost-human status."

The burials weren't the only sign that Australia's First Peoples domesticated wild dingoes, however, with severely worn teeth found at the site suggesting a diet heavy in large bones, likely from scraps from human meals.

The researchers also identified remains of dingoes of varying ages at the site—from pups to animals aged six to eight years. This shows that First Nations people didn't just care for young dingoes before they returned to the wild, but that they built much more substantial relationships, the researchers argued.

https://phys.org/news/2023-10-dingoes-almost-human-status-pre-colonial-australia.html
 
Foraging and Farming.

For almost 10 years, debate has raged over the book Dark Emu by Aboriginal historian Bruce Pascoe. In it, Pascoe argues many pre-colonial Aboriginal groups were farmers, pointing to examples like eel aquaculture in Victoria, and grain planting and threshing of native millet in the arid center.

The debate has drawn in everyone from academics to Aboriginal communities invested in food futures to shock jocks claiming it is a warping of history.

For our group of archaeologists and First Nations people, the fact this debate has raged so long suggests there are shortcomings in how we think of food production and how we investigate it in Australian archaeology.

Farmers versus foragers is a huge oversimplification of what was a mosaic of food production. After all, Australian landscapes differ markedly, from tropical rainforest to snowy mountains to arid spinifex country. For many Aboriginal people, the terms "farming" and "hunter-gatherer" do not capture the realities of 60 millennia of food production.

In our new research published in the Archaeology of Food and Foodways, we argue that to better understand millennia-old systems, archaeologists must engage deeply with fields such as plant genetics, ethnobotany, archaeobotany and bioarchaeology as well as listening more carefully to the views of Aboriginal people. Here's how.

For decades, archaeologists have grappled with the task of understanding ancient food production. We are by no means the first to point to the lack of appropriate methods as a reason why this has proved hard.

Archaeobotanists Anna Florin and Xavier Carah have observed that food production systems in northern Australia are very similar to those in Papua New Guinea. While we accept Papuan food gardens, Australian archaeologists have been less eager to embrace this idea for Australia.

In part, this is a failure of terminology. Aboriginal food production was enormously varied. ,,,

https://phys.org/news/2023-11-farmers-foragers-pre-colonial-aboriginal-food.html
 
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