Early Human Occupation at Devil's Lair, Southwestern Australia 50,000 Years Ago

Turney, Chris S. M.; Bird, Michael I.; Fifield, L.K.; Roberts, Richard G.; Smith, Michael; Dortch, Charles; Grün, Rainer; Lawson, Ewan; Ayliffe, Linda K.; Miller, Gifford H.; Dortch, Joe; Cresswell, Richard

doi:10.1006/qres.2000.2195

Cited by 248 publications

(135 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…14 C dates have been compared to these methods at many archaeological sites in Australia with varying degrees of success (Turney et al 2001;Gillespie 2002;Bowler et al 2003;Stone and Cupper 2003). Cave sediments in Western Australia's Devil's Lair produced strong correlation between 14 C dates of charcoal, and OSL and ESR ages for sediments (Turney et al 2001). This was consistent for ages up to approximately 30 ka BP; however, older dates obtained produced differences of up to 10,000 yr between the various techniques.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preliminary ¹⁴C Dates on Bulk Soil Organic Matter from the Black Creek Megafauna Fossil Site, Rocky River, Kangaroo Island, South Australia

2004

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Radiocarbon age determinations and stratigraphy suggest that the deposits in Black Creek Swamp on Kangaroo Island record 3 phases of deposition and associated soil development which spanned at least the last 20,000 yr. Four new 14C age determinations on bulk soil organic matter and their stratigraphic context are presented in this paper. Three of these age determinations (FP6: 15,687 ± 110 BP [WK11487]; FP7: 16,326 ± 385 BP [WK11488]; and FP8: 17,618 ± 447 BP [WK11489]), are from the organic-rich fossil layer located 45–75 cm below the current floodplain surface. The fourth, a much younger date, FP5: 5589 ± 259 BP (WK11486), was obtained from the base of the overlying modern soil. The dates for the fossil layer increase systematically with depth and correlate well with 5 previous 14C dates (Hope et al., unpublished), ranging between 15,040 ± 120 BP and 19,000 ± 310 BP. This suggests that the data set represents a possible minimum age of the bulk organic matter, and considering the high organic matter contents of approximately 8%, has implications for the age of the megafauna buried in this layer. The overlying modern soil, with its much younger date, contains lower levels of organic matter (3–7%) and gastropods not seen in the fossil layer. This suggests a substantial change in environmental conditions probably due to an alteration in the floodplain drainage conditions. This chronological and sedimentalogical discontinuity indicates that 2 distinct depositional regimes existed and were separated by up to 10,000 14C yr. A calcareous, sandy silt deposit underlying the fossil layer is a calcarenite deposit with low total organic content and is considered the base of the section; it suggests a third separate depositional episode. As such, the Black Creek Swamp in the southwest corner of Kangaroo Island formed intermittently over at least the last 20,000 yr during 3 distinct depositional phases, one of which was the formation of the fossil-laden, organic-rich floodplain surface, which has a possible minimum age of approximately 15,000 to 19,000 BP.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preliminary ¹⁴C Dates on Bulk Soil Organic Matter from the Black Creek Megafauna Fossil Site, Rocky River, Kangaroo Island, South Australia

2004

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“…Phase 3-ABOX-SC chemistry with a 14 C "event horizon" of 48-50,000 BP (Bird et al 1999;Fifield et al 2001;Turney et al 2001). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Phase 1 or 2 chemistry has so far produced no results older than about 28 ka for the Mungo 1 cremation, with a younger group of burials at 13-14 ka near Lake Garnpung (WLH-23, 24 and 122; Gillespie 1997). Table 3 Magnitude of contamination and background limitations at Devil's Lair a a OSL, ESR, and 14 C data from Gillespie and Temple (1973), Dortch (1979), and Turney et al (2001). Layers 27-28 are close to the lowest occupation levels, Layer 39 is below the deepest artifacts.…”

Section: (B) the Bone Datesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dating the First Australians

Gillespie¹

2002

Radiocarbon

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ABSTRACT. The dating of selected archaeological and megafaunal sites from the Australian region is reviewed, with emphasis on recent work at some of the oldest sites. Improved chemical procedures with decreased analytical background for 14 C analysis, combined with new luminescence dating methods, has confirmed many of the results processed decades ago and significantly increased the maximum age for some others. The oldest occupation horizons in four different regions reliably dated by defendable multi-method results are in the range 42-48,000 calendar years ago, overlapping with the age range for similarly well-dated undisturbed sites containing the youngest extinct megafauna. There is less secure evidence suggesting some archaeology may be earlier and some megafauna may have survived later than this period. INTRODUCTIONEstimates of the time since humans first occupied the extended Late Pleistocene continent Sahul (sometimes called Greater Australia or Meganesia) have steadily increased since systematic archaeological excavation and radiocarbon dating became established in the 1960s. Jones (1968) considered 30,000 BP a reasonable estimate for the earliest arrivals, based on the available evidence showing 3 or 4 sites with 14 C dates of more than 20,000 BP. In the second edition of The Prehistory of Australia (Mulvaney 1975) an appended date list documented four sites in Australia and one in New Guinea with 14 C results older than 25,000 BP. The current edition (Mulvaney and Kamminga 1999) provides an overview of the hundreds of dates now accumulated for Late Pleistocene archaeological sites in Sahul. Some of the robust debate about claims for earliest occupation of the region is presented in Murray (1998).Traditional 14 C dating using radiometric counting has become less important in Sahul, as elsewhere, since accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) laboratories began to take on large workloads from the mid 1980s. In many situations this new measurement technology also allowed better pretreatment chemistry to be applied in the isolation and decontamination of specific sample components. At about the same time newer thermoluminescence (TL), optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), electron spin resonance (ESR), amino acid racemization (AAR), and uranium-thorium series (U/Th) dating methods began to make significant contributions to archaeology and the earth sciences. These and other techniques operate under different rules and on different materials to 14 C. An "archaeological event" such as a fire may sensibly be 14 C dated using charcoal, whereas luminescence methods on quartz sand are likely to be dating an "environmental event" such as exposure to sunlight, not necessarily directly associated with the target archaeological event. However, since everyone should eventually get the same answer to questions like "when did humans first colonize Australia" or "when did the megafauna become extinct" there are some instructive examples of cross-dating with different numerical methods.Projects such as dating the first Au...

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“…Initial colonization certainly had occurred by 47 ka (1) but may have occurred earlier (50-55 ka; e.g., ref. (9), and Devil's Lair in the southwest was occupied by 43-48 ka (1) or by ∼50 ka (40). There was a lag in occupation of the arid bedrock core of the continent, which was not occupied until 36.5-42.5 ka (23).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humans, water, and the colonization of Australia

Bird

O’Grady

Ulm

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The Pleistocene global dispersal of modern humans required the transit of arid and semiarid regions where the distribution of potable water provided a primary constraint on dispersal pathways. Here, we provide a spatially explicit continental-scale assessment of the opportunities for Pleistocene human occupation of Australia, the driest inhabited continent on Earth. We establish the location and connectedness of persistent water in the landscape using the Australian Water Observations from Space dataset combined with the distribution of small permanent water bodies (springs, gnammas, native wells, waterholes, and rockholes). Results demonstrate a high degree of directed landscape connectivity during wet periods and a high density of permanent water points widely but unevenly distributed across the continental interior. A connected network representing the least-cost distance between water bodies and graded according to terrain cost shows that 84% of archaeological sites >30,000 y old are within 20 km of modern permanent water. We further show that multiple, well-watered routes into the semiarid and arid continental interior were available throughout the period of early human occupation. Depletion of high-ranked resources over time in these paleohydrological corridors potentially drove a wave of dispersal farther along well-watered routes to patches with higher foraging returns.Sahul | Pleistocene colonization | radiocarbon | human dispersal | paleohydrological corridor

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Early Human Occupation at Devil's Lair, Southwestern Australia 50,000 Years Ago

Cited by 248 publications

References 36 publications

Preliminary ¹⁴C Dates on Bulk Soil Organic Matter from the Black Creek Megafauna Fossil Site, Rocky River, Kangaroo Island, South Australia

Preliminary ¹⁴C Dates on Bulk Soil Organic Matter from the Black Creek Megafauna Fossil Site, Rocky River, Kangaroo Island, South Australia

Dating the First Australians

Humans, water, and the colonization of Australia

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Early Human Occupation at Devil's Lair, Southwestern Australia 50,000 Years Ago

Cited by 248 publications

References 36 publications

Preliminary 14C Dates on Bulk Soil Organic Matter from the Black Creek Megafauna Fossil Site, Rocky River, Kangaroo Island, South Australia

Preliminary 14C Dates on Bulk Soil Organic Matter from the Black Creek Megafauna Fossil Site, Rocky River, Kangaroo Island, South Australia

Dating the First Australians

Humans, water, and the colonization of Australia

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Preliminary ¹⁴C Dates on Bulk Soil Organic Matter from the Black Creek Megafauna Fossil Site, Rocky River, Kangaroo Island, South Australia

Preliminary ¹⁴C Dates on Bulk Soil Organic Matter from the Black Creek Megafauna Fossil Site, Rocky River, Kangaroo Island, South Australia