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New Data on a 49 KYA Stone Tool Assemblage from Australia

11/3/2016

1 Comment

 
PictureLocation of Warratyi rock shelter (modified from Hamm et al. 2016).
This is a quick post to bookmark a new paper that came out in Nature yesterday describing the excavation of Warratyi rock shelter in Australia.  The paper ("Cultural Innovation and Megafauna Interaction in the Early Settlement of Arid Australia," by Giles Hamm, Peter Mitchell, Lee J. Arnold, Gavin J. Prideaux, Daniele Questiaux, Nigel A. Spooner, Vladimir A. Levchenko, Elizabeth C. Foley, Trevor H. Worthy, Birgitta Stephenson, Vincent Coulthard, Clifford Coulthard,Sophia Wilton, and Duncan Johnston) describes archaeological deposits dating back to about 49 thousand years ago (KYA). 

This one caught my attention not only because it adds important information to what we know about the colonization of Australia, but also because of the ongoing controversy about the claimed 55 KYA lithic assemblage from the Topper site in South Carolina (I wrote a little about my first impressions of Topper here).

One of the main questions about the early "artifacts" from Topper is whether or not they're actually artifacts (i.e., things made or modified by humans). In this 2005 paper (page 110) my colleague Al Goodyear describes the Topper assemblage as

"remarkable for its nonbifacial character and its emphasis on microlithic-sized artifacts, specifically bend-break burin-like tools. . . . The emphasis on microlithic tools, as well as core choppers, suggests some type of craft activity. The presence of microliths may imply the manufacture of organic artifacts from bone, antler, wood, and ivory."

Picture
Illustration of lithics from pre-Clovis deposits at the Topper site (from paper sourced in text above).
One of the criticisms leveled at the pre-Clovis assemblage from Topper is that there are no similar industries anywhere in the world that date to a similar time period. I have not yet done the work to evaluate that argument. The report of a 49 KYA site in Australia caught my eye, however, as a possible assemblage that could be compared to the one at Topper. It's certainly in the right ballpark in terms of time, and it was certainly made by terrestrial hunter-gatherers who would have required boats to get to Australia in the first place.  

So what does the lithic assemblage from the early occupations at 
Warratyi look like? It's hard to tell from the publication. This is what the authors say about the lithics:

"Stone artefacts were found throughout the deposit (Fig. 2) with concentrations at depths of 5–20 cm (corresponding to SU1–upper part SU2) and 60–80 cm (SU3). The lithic assemblage is mostly composed of whole flakes, broken flakes and waste material. Stone artefacts were made from a range of raw materials, reflecting a change in use of preferred rock-type over time. Tools in the lowermost units were predominantly made of quartz. In the upper part of SU2 and in SU1, chert and silcrete become major components. This pattern was also reflected by changes in tool types; SU1 and SU2 contained predominately backed and small hafted tools, whereas SU3 and SU4 contained whole and retouched flakes (Extended Data Fig. 5)."

Stratigraphic Units 3 and 4 (SU3 and SU4) appear to date from about 33 KYA to 49 KYA, so those are the ones of interest in terms of comparisons with Topper. Other than the description "contained whole and retouched flakes"  the paper doesn't appear to have much information of the lithic artifacts from the earliest portions of the deposits. I can't tell which (if any) of the stone artifacts shown in their figure are from SU3 and SU4.  I didn't notice a mention of bifaces or bifacial flaking debris. There is a bone point from SU3 that reportedly dates to about 40 KYA. 

So . . .  that's about all I have to say about that for now. I skimmed the article quickly, so it may be that I missed something with regard to the lithic assemblage. It would be interesting to have some additional qualitative and quantitative data about the tools and debris from those earliest deposits.
1 Comment
Jaap Verhoef link
11/6/2016 11:55:35 am

Even if you knock off 9000 years this Ozzie site is still 'deeply anomalous'. Especially the megafauna remains recovered from this cave will hardly have walked in by themselves. Unless one casts the cave dwellers as early archeologists ... What does it take to upset arrived views??
Perhaps the Topper-site is so extraordinary because people have refused to look beneath the Clovis horizon for so long, for fear of losing their reputation as a serious scientist! The South-Americans are way ahead of you there! That must be embarrassing. Still it doesn't do to bulldoze over promising sites.
That said, Australians have also warned against jumping to conclusions. We seem to be in some sort of transition. It's time to cut the crap that early man didn't have seafaring capabillities: that's a glaring 'scientific anomaly' in itself. What with Neanderthals visiting Crete to hunt pygmy rhinoes, and AMH getting down-under at all. Not to mention Home Floriensis
High time to reopen all the options.Time to reopen our minds! I get so irritated when I read that this 49 000 date means they had only 1000 years to make it there! For crying out loud! Use your loaf!
Of course as an interested layman I only get the journalese (which is getting more inane by the day). But I can hardly contain myself as there are so many intriguing questions!
When AMH got to the paradise in the Levant, why on earth did they move on to Europe? Why did they move on at all? Were they that numerous? When AMH discovered and settled (if that can be a word for HG) Australia they must have been maritime: where in Indonesia are there traces of a maritime culture some 60 000 BP? Or was there a culture that traditionally sent young men away to fritter away their energy someplace else, because they were a spot of bother back home, and who may have been the scouts. That idea I've only come across with the Yamnaya.
What about the settling of Easter Island? How did they know it was there? Can't load up with at least 80 people, cattle and chickens and say: Some day we'll land somewhere. You'll be dehydrated in a week!
And now I want to go to Terra Phantasia (I know how you hate that!). My conjecture is that the shaman had the final say about the enterprise. Either he had 'seen' the destination, or he had learned by other means the number of days that it would take for the expedition to reach land. I know! Awful! Forget I brought it up!
Still these matters stand:
1. Why move on?
2. Move where? (How did they know where they were going?)
3. Who moved and why?
4. How do we bury the idea that AMH borrowed motorbikes from the future to make it on time to get to Monte Verde across the beaches of both North and South America?

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