Excavations at Koongine Cave: Lithics & Land-use in the Terminal Pleistocene & Holocene of South Australia

Abstract

Koongine is a sizeable limestone cave set in a low ridge some 4 km from the sea in the lower South-east of South Australia. It was used for about 2000 years at the transition from the Pleistocene to Holocene, and then again during the last millennium. The sequence at this site exposes issues of the appropriate scale and form of explanation for changes in site use. The stratified deposits of stone artefacts provide an opportunity to define for the first time the nature of the ‘Gambieran’ Industry. This spatially and temporally restricted industry characterised by large convex scrapers made on large, often asymmetrical, flakes is otherwise known mainly from older surface collections. The formal definition of this local industry adds to the growing evidence of considerable variation in the earlier stone tools of Australia, and provides an additional basis for rejecting the concept of a widespread Core Tool and Scraper Tradition, and replacing it with a model which recognises a mosaic of different tool-making traditions embedded in local social, economic, and technological contexts.

Stone assemblages from the surroundings of Tennant Creek (Northern Territory, Australia) Part II Macrolithic and edge-ground tools

“…The well-stratified "Gambieran" assemblage at the Koongina Cave in Lower Southeast of South Australia confirmed that the Gambieran industry is Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene in age (Bird & Frankel 2001;Frankel 1986;1989).…”

Flaked stone assemblage variability across the Weipa region of western Cape York Peninsula, Queensland

“…In other areas of Australia, low raw material abundance led to heightened levels of core reduction. Bird and Frankel (2001), for example, described assemblages composed of very small flakes and cores from Koongine Cave. Conversely, work in western New South Wales, where raw material is abundant, indicates the abandonment of cores that could have been flaked further, together with the removal of large, cortical flakes (e.g.…”

An early-Holocene Aboriginal coastal landscape at Cape Duquesne, southwest Victoria, Australia

“…Lourandos 1976Lourandos , 1980aLourandos , 1983Lourandos , 1997Witter 1977;Clark 1979;Godfrey 1980Godfrey , 1984Godfrey , 1989Godfrey , 1994Godfrey , 1996Godfrey , 2000Godwin 1980;Wesson and Clark 1980;Simmons and Djekic 1981;Head 1985;Frankel 1986Frankel , 1991Cann et al 1991;Webb 1995;Richards and Jordan 1996;Everett 1998;Schell 2000a, b;Bird and Frankel 2001;Debney and Cekalovik 2001;Richards and Johnston 2004;Richards and Webber 2004). Yet excavation data for the early-Holocene is limited to two well-researched sites -Bridgewater South Cave and Koongine Cave.…”