The time of arrival of people in Australia is an unresolved question. It is relevant to debates about when modern humans first dispersed out of Africa and when their descendants incorporated genetic material from Neanderthals, Denisovans and possibly other hominins. Humans have also been implicated in the extinction of Australia's megafauna. Here we report the results of new excavations conducted at Madjedbebe, a rock shelter in northern Australia. Artefacts in primary depositional context are concentrated in three dense bands, with the stratigraphic integrity of the deposit demonstrated by artefact refits and by optical dating and other analyses of the sediments. Human occupation began around 65,000 years ago, with a distinctive stone tool assemblage including grinding stones, ground ochres, reflective additives and ground-edge hatchet heads. This evidence sets a new minimum age for the arrival of humans in Australia, the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa, and the subsequent interactions of modern humans with Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Published ages of >50 ka for occupation at Madjedbebe (Malakunanja II) in Australia's north have kept the site prominent in discussions about the colonisation of Sahul. The site also contains one of the largest stone artefact assemblages in Sahul for this early period. However, the stone artefacts and other important archaeological components of the site have never been described in detail, leading to persistent doubts about its stratigraphic integrity. We report on our analysis of the stone artefacts and faunal and other materials recovered during the 1989 excavations, as well as the stratigraphy and depositional history recorded by the original excavators. We demonstrate that the technology and raw materials of the early assemblage are distinctive from those in the overlying layers. Silcrete and quartzite artefacts are common in the early assemblage, which also includes edge-ground axe fragments and ground haematite. The lower flaked stone assemblage is distinctive, comprising a mix of long convergent flakes, some radial flakes with faceted platforms, and many small thin silcrete flakes that we interpret as thinning flakes. Residue and use-wear analysis indicate occasional grinding of haematite and woodworking, as well as frequent abrading of platform edges on thinning flakes. We conclude that previous claims of extensive displacement of artefacts and post-depositional disturbance may have been overstated. The stone artefacts and stratigraphic details support previous claims for human occupation 50-60 ka and show that human occupation during this time differed from later periods. We discuss the implications of these new data for understanding the first human colonisation of Sahul.

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19A 2,400 year record of environmental change is reported from a wetland on Bentinck 20 Island in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria, northern Australia. Three phases of wetland 21 development are identified, with a protected coastal setting from ca 2,400 to 500 years 22 ago, transitioning into an estuarine mangrove forest from ca. 500 years ago to the 1940s 23 and finally to a freshwater swamp over the last +60 years. This sequence reflects the 24 influence of falling sea-levels, development of a coastal dune barrier system, prograding 25 shorelines and an extreme storm (cyclone) event. In addition, there is clear evidence of 26 1 the impacts that human abandonment and resettlement have on the island's fire regimes 1 and vegetation. A dramatic increase in burning and vegetation thickening was observed 2 after the cessation of traditional Indigenous Kaiadilt fire management practices in the 3 1940s, and was then reversed when people returned to the island. In terms of the longer 4 context for human occupation of the southern Wellesley Archipelago it is apparent that 5 the mangrove phase provided a stable and productive environment that was conducive 6 for human settlement of this region over the last 1,000 years. 7 8

This paper presents an overview of archaeological investigations in the Sir Edward Pellew Islands in the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria, northern Australia, It is argued that Vanderlin Island, like the majority of Australia's offshore islands, attests to a lacuna in human habitation for several thousand years after the marine transgression and consequent insulation c.6700 years ago. With the imminent threat of inundation, people appear to have retreated to higher land, abandoning the peripheral exposed shelf areas; subsequent (re)colonisation of these relict shelf areas in their form as islands took place steadily from c.4200 Bp, with increased intensity of occupation after 1300 BP. Possible links between the timing of island occupation, watercraft technology and the role of climate change are investigated, with more recent changes in the archaeological record of Vanderlin Island also examined in light of cultural contact with Macassans.

There is little evidence for the role of plant foods in the dispersal of early modern humans into new habitats globally. Researchers have hypothesised that early movements of human populations through Island Southeast Asia and into Sahul were driven by the lure of highcalorie, low-handling-cost foods, and that the use of plant foods requiring processing was not common in Sahul until the Holocene. Here we present the analysis of charred plant food remains from Madjedbebe rockshelter in northern Australia, dated to between 65 kya and 53 kya. We demonstrate that Australia's earliest known human population exploited a range of plant foods, including those requiring processing. Our finds predate existing evidence for such subsistence practices in Sahul by at least 23ky. These results suggest that dietary breadth underpinned the success of early modern human populations in this region, with the expenditure of labour on the processing of plants guaranteeing reliable access to nutrients in new environments.