Mid-Holocene Aboriginal occupation of offshore islands in northern Australia? A reassessment of Wurdukanhan, Mornington Island, southern Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia

Abstract

Claims for mid-Holocene Aboriginal occupation at the shell matrix site of Wurdukanhan, Mornington Island, Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia, are reassessed through an analysis of the excavated assemblage coupled with new surveys and an extensive dating program. Memmott et al. (2006, pp. 38, 39) reported basal ages of c.5000-5500 years from Wurdukanhan as 'the oldest date yet obtained for any archaeological site on the coast of the southern Gulf of Carpentaria' and used these dates to argue for 'a relatively lengthy occupation since at least the mid-Holocene'. If substantiated, with the exception of western Torres Strait, these claims make Mornington Island the only offshore island used across northern Australia in the mid-Holocene where it is conventionally thought that Aboriginal people only (re)colonised islands after sea-level maximum was achieved after the mid-Holocene. Our analysis of Wurdukanhan demonstrate high shellfish taxa diversity, high rates of natural shell predation and high densities of foraminifera throughout the deposit demonstrating a natural origin for the assemblage. Results are considered in the context of other dated shell matrix sites in the area and a geomorphological model for landscape development of the Sandalwood River catchment.2

Holocene sea-level change and coastal landscape evolution in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia

“…For example, relict oyster beds, barnacle and tubeworm deposits have been used to constrain the elevation and duration of the mid-Holocene highstand along the east and west coasts of Australia (Beaman et al, 1994;Baker and Haworth, 1997, 2000a, 2000bBaker et al, 2001aBaker et al, , 2001bBaker et al, , 2005Lewis et al, 2008Lewis et al, , 2015. A detailed review of the use of FBIs as proxies for sea-level reconstructions is provided in Sloss et al (2007) and Lewis et al (2008Lewis et al ( , 2013Lewis et al ( , 2015 In the Wellesley Islands, the encrusting oyster Striostrea (Parastriostrea) mytiloides (common name black-lipped/blackedged oyster), commonly occur on elevated beach-rock deposits, wave-cut benches, and as mono-specific bioherm accumulations on exposed mudflats (Rosendahl et al, 2015). S. mytiloides is an intertidal species that commonly inhabits water levels from midtide to upper-tidal limits (HWNT) attached to rocks and mangrove roots.…”

Multidisciplinary approaches to Australian island pasts: Late Pleistocene to historical perspectives on Australian island use

“…Both studies document how increasing proximity of marine environments to sites as a result of sea-level rise was expressed behaviourally in increasing dietary use of marine food resources (Manne and Veth 2015) and increasing incorporation of marine motifs in rock art (McDonald 2015). The dramatic environmental consequences of the marine transgression and the late Holocene stabilisation of sea-levels and marine habits is a theme taken up by Moss et al (2015) and Rosendahl et al (2015) for the South Wellesley Archipelago of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Based on extensive coring of swamps, Moss et al (2015) detail dramatic changes in the configuration of mangrove and adjacent terrestrial wetland environments on Bentinck Island over the past 3000 years that have major implications for understanding past Aboriginal use of the archipelago.…”

“…Beyond Torres Strait, the large swathe of northern tropical Australia is also represented by eight papers -two from Western Australia (Manne and Veth 2015;McDonald 2015), one from the Northern Territory (Kearney and Bradley 2015), two from Queensland's Gulf of Carpentaria (Moss et al 2015;Rosendahl et al 2015) and the remaining three papers from central and southern Queensland Ross et al 2015;Rowland et al 2015). Manne and Veth (2015) and McDonald (2015) provide unique perspectives on not only Australia's earliest island use but also some of the earliest evidence for human use of islands in the world.…”

“…Significantly, they document major changes in local vegetation patterns that reflect historically-known decreases and increases in use of areas and concomitant alterations in landscape firing practices. Rosendahl et al (2015) detail an innovative multimethod approach to demonstrate that 7000-4500 year old oyster deposits on tidal flats are of natural origin and not cultural middens as once thought. These natural deposits provide important independent insights into marine resource availability against which to understand Aboriginal occupation of the region within the past 3000 years.…”

Palaeoecology of the South Wellesley Archipelago. A history of human occupation and environmental change

“…Palaeo-reconstructions from the South Wellesley Islands provide the environmental framework for ongoing archaeological work in the region (see: Memmott et al, 2016;Rosendahl et al, 2015;Ulm et al, 2010) by investigating wetland formation, vegetation development and fire regimes during the late Holocene. This chapter introduces the current literature and identifies gaps in the spatial and temporal resolution of palaeoenvironmental research.…”