New ¹⁴C dates for Spring Creek and Mowbray Swamp megafauna: XAD‐2 processing

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Re‐analysis of the “engraved” Diprotodon tooth from Spring Creek, Victoria, Australia

“…Since this initial study, the stratigraphic integrity of Spring Creek was demonstrated to be unreliable (Gillespie et al . 2014; White & Flannery 1995), and all evidence for a human contribution to the megafaunal assemblage discounted – with the possible exception of the marked tooth. Indeed, the lack of additional cultural material in the deposit has been the only data used to refute the anthropogenic origins of the marks, the tooth itself never having been re‐examined to fully resolve the questions surrounding its history.…”

“…Further investigation concluded that the Spring Creek megafauna were beyond the limits of the radiocarbon technique, and that contamination in the earlier samples was an issue (Gillespie et al . 2014). With these chronological results pushing the assemblage back to (or before) the time of human arrival in the area, the engraved Diprotodon tooth became the sole evidence for possible human–megafauna interaction at Spring Creek.…”

A late Quaternary vertebrate deposit in Kudjal Yolgah Cave, south‐western Australia: refining regional late Pleistocene extinctions

“…The cause(s) of extinction of more than 90% of Australia's larger Pleistocene mammals, reptiles and birds has been the subject of much research and conjecture since the turn of the millennium (Miller et al, 1999;Roberts et al, 2001), including several publications on the topic in the last few years (e.g. Bird et al, 2013;Field et al, 2013;Lopes dos Santos et al, 2013;Wroe et al, 2013;Sandom et al, 2014;Cohen et al, 2015;Gillespie et al, 2015;Price et al, 2015;Rodríguez-Rey et al, 2015;Bartlett et al, 2016;Johnson et al, 2016;Miller et al, 2016;Saltr e et al, 2016). A number of models have been proposed to explain this faunal loss, including direct hunting (Flannery, 1990;Brook and Bowman, 2004;Brook and Johnson, 2006;Miller et al, 2016), human-mediated ecosystem collapse due to fire (Miller et al, 1999(Miller et al, , 2005Prideaux et al, 2007a;Rule et al, 2012) and/or increasingly severe climatic deterioration well before human arrival (Wroe et al, 2004Field et al, 2008Field et al, , 2013Webb, 2008;Price et al, 2011).…”

“…Radiocarbon ( 14 C), electron spin resonance and/or uranium−series (U−Th) methods may appear to be ideal for dating of fossils (e.g. Turney et al ., ; Grün et al ., ; Gillespie et al ., , ; Rodríguez‐Rey et al ., ), but these approaches can yield minimum ages, or unreliable ages, if the fossils have acted as geochemically ‘open’ systems or been diagenetically altered (e.g. Gillespie et al ., ; Grün et al ., , 2008; Price et al ., ).…”

Comment on ‘Debating a great site: Ban Non Wat and the wider prehistory of Southeast Asia’

“…Gillespie et al . (2014) also report erroneously young ages from the application of Oxford's ultrafiltration method. A probable reason is that contaminants remain in the ultrafiltered samples, as Boudin et al .…”