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Stable isotope analysis of bone apatite oxygen (δ18O) and carbon (δ13C) was undertaken for modern and archaeological spectacled hare wallaby (Lagorchestes conspicillatus) bone collected from an 1880s indentured labor confinement camp on Barrow Island in Western Australia. δ18O results and historical climate data indicate decreased annual precipitation during occupation of the site and provide insight into the conditions experienced by Aboriginal pearling laborers incarcerated on the offshore island. δ13C values may reflect variation in water availability or a short-term vegetation change resulting from landscape burning. This study is the first application of macropod bone apatite isotopic analysis in an Australian historical context and demonstrates its significant potential for identifying recent environmental changes to a high level of sensitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Specimen identification is the backbone of archeozoological research. The challenge of differentiating postcranial skeletal elements of closely related wild animals in biodiverse regions can prove a barrier to understanding past human foraging behaviours. Morphometrics are increasingly being employed to classify paleozoological animal remains, however, the potential of these methods to discriminate between wild animal groups has yet to be fully realised. Here we demonstrate the applicability of a traditional morphometric approach to taxonomically classify foot and ankle bones of kangaroos, a large and highly diverse marsupial family. Using multiple discriminant analysis, we classify archaeological specimens from Boodie Cave, in northwest Australia and identify the presence of two locally extinct macropod species during the terminal Pleistocene. The appearance of the banded hare-wallaby and northern nail-tail wallaby in the Pilbara region at this time provides independent evidence of the ecological and human responses to a changing climate at the end of the last Ice Age. Traditional morphometrics provides an accessible, inexpensive, and non-destructive tool for paleozoological specimen classification and has substantial potential for applications to other diverse wild faunas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We review current zooarchaeological practice in Australia, identifying major research themes and key methodological gaps where opportunities exist for the development of Australian zooarchaeology as a discipline. We demonstrate that marsupial remains form a significant component of Australian zooarchaeological assemblages, yet high resolution taxonomic identification of these remains continues to prove challenging, owing to a combination of high species diversity and few resources which provide diagnostic criteria for discriminating morphologically similar, but ecologically variable taxa. The lack of robust protocols for discriminating marsupial taxa significantly impacts our ability to effectively integrate zooarchaeological data into broader narratives of Aboriginal colonisation, resilience and adaptation across Australia. Publication of identification protocols would help refine and standardise diagnostic criteria used between analysts, improve the methodological transparency of zooarchaeological analysis and provide resources for the training of a new generation of specialists. A range of opportunities currently exist, utilising qualitative and quantitative techniques, to significantly contribute towards the methodological robustness of zooarchaeological practice in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Use of Indigenous divers on nineteenth-century northwest Australian pearling luggers gave rise to a transregional apparatus of coercion, physical mistreatment, and arguably, slavery. Where accounts of conditions experienced by divers are limited to the documents of contemporary colonial men, our contribution explores a rare archaeological perspective. Zooarchaeological and taphonomic analysis of the Bandicoot Bay campsite, Barrow Island, evokes an exploitative labor relationship inherited from a wider colonial process yet actively renegotiated by its participants through subsistence practices. The operation's pearlers selected a camp that advantaged concerns for labor organization and resource management while their divers seized opportunities for self-directed subsistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution synthesizes archaeological studies of human economies from the Barrow–Montebello islands and uses the area's archaeological record to determine the effects of Late Pleistocene and early Holocene sea-level rise on regional coastlines. At the height of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), Australia's north-western coast extended much further west than the present-day shoreline. During subsequent sea-level rise, the gently prograding continental shelf was inundated, and with it, nearly all archaeological evidence for coastal occupation. The Barrow and Montebello Islands are one of the few exceptions, as they corresponded to inland hinterland ranges during the LGM, with the coastline lying some 50 km to their west. Evidence from all late Pleistocene and Holocene occupation phases of the Barrow–Montebello Islands demonstrate that foragers continued to visit the coast and engage in the exploitation of both terrestrial and marine environments. During the late Pleistocene, when the shoreline was 10–15 km away, coastal exploitation is seen through the presence of transportable estuarine and rocky-shore gastropods. By the early Holocene, when sea-levels were within close proximity of the sites, there is a marked increase in marine fauna including reef fish, estuarine and reef shellfish, crustaceans and estuarine crocodile. Together, this suggests that the nearby muddy, procumbent coastlines were productive, as well as an important component of coastal and hinterland economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Upper Paleolithic site of Vale Boi in coastal, southwestern Portugal currently represents one of the earliest known cases of grease-rendering in Eurasia, with initial occupation of the site occurring during the early Gravettian at ∼28,000 BP. Already by this time, Vale Boi foragers were intensively processing ungulate carcasses by rendering grease from their bones. Zooarchaeological evidence of grease rendering includes extensive fragmentation of red deer and equine remains, abundant evidence of impact features on specimens and a lower proportion of preserved grease-rich skeletal portions. Comparisons of red deer and horse bone portions with density assays and utility indices suggest that ungulates at Vale Boi were systematically processed for their marrow and bone grease. The early onset of grease-rendering at Vale Boi, in addition to heavy rabbit exploitation may have been spurred by ungulate communities unable to support human consumer-demand on their own. However, the continued practice of grease-rendering at Vale Boi over the course of the Upper Paleolithic may also be closely related to the significance of bone fats for mobile hunter–gatherers – as a highly valued, storable and easily-transportable resource. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper will focus on the ecology of the first Anatomically Modern Humans in SW Iberia based on the rock shelter of Vale Boi (Algarve, Portugal), a site with a long stratigraphic record starting with Late Middle Paleolithic followed by early Gravettian, Proto-Solutrean, Solutrean, and Magdalenian. Early Gravettian remains are present in various areas and different levels of the site, and are dated to c. 32 ka cal BP, corresponding to the earliest modern human occupation in SW Iberia. These communities most likely came from the Iberian Mediterranean coast as bone technology and body ornaments seem to confirm. The Gravettian of Vale Boi provides clear evidence of an intensification and diversification of dietary resources from very early, including the use of grease-rendering. Here, reconstruction of the Gravettian human ecology at Vale Boi is based on the diversity of human occupations, focusing mostly on diachronic changes in the patterns of resources acquisition and land-use, but also on subsistence, technological, social and symbolic elements. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The coastal site of Vale Boi is unique in southern Portugal for its well-preserved and lengthy Upper Paleolithic cultural record. The archaeological context of Vale Boi suggests that the site was treated as a seasonal residential camp. Long-term exploitation of marine resources is indicated by marine shellfish remains and tentative evidence of fishing. High-level exploitation of rabbits (Oryctolagus) began with the initial use of Vale Boi (c. 28,000 BP) and continued throughout the duration of site occupation. Intensive grease-rendering of ungulate bones is demonstrated by the presence of impact features, reduced presence of skeletal portions associated with increased quantities of bone grease and a significant correlation between the fragmentation of red deer (Cervus elaphus) remains and the quantities of marrow and bone grease within these portions. Although grease rendering at Vale Boi pre-dates other known sites in Eurasia by several thousand years, faunal assemblages in Mediterranean Spain suggest that resource diversification connected with intensification may have appeared there coevally with Vale Boi. The application of models of diet breadth and patch-choice suggests that southern Iberia may not have had the large and medium game to easily support human consumer demand. Instead, foragers may have had to turn to novel approaches of resource harvesting to maintain their needs. This set of circumstances may have arisen from a patchy landscape, where resources were either spatially and/or seasonally restricted. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper presents the first application of mammal tooth enamel carbonate stable isotope analysis for the purpose of investigating late Pleistocene–early Holocene environmental change in an Australian archaeological context. Stable carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) isotope ratios were analyzed from archaeological and modern spectacled hare wallaby (Lagorchestes conspicillatus) and hill kangaroo (Osphranter robustus) tooth enamel carbonates from Boodie Cave on Barrow Island in Western Australia. δ18O results track the dynamic paleoecological history at Boodie Cave including a clear shift towards increasing aridity preceding the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum and a period of increased humidity in the early to mid-Holocene. Enamel δ13C reflects divergent species feeding ecology and may imply a long-term shift toward increasing diversity in vegetation structure. This study contributes new data to the carbonate-isotope record for Australian fauna and demonstrates the significant potential of stable isotope based ecological investigations for tracking paleoenvironment change to inter-strata resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secure archaeological evidence for human occupation on the eastern seaboard of Australia before ~ 25,000 years ago has proven elusive. This has prompted some researchers to argue that the coastal margins remained uninhabited prior to 25 ka. Here we show evidence for human occupation beginning between 30 ± 6 and 49 ± 8 ka at Wallen Wallen Creek (WWC), and at Middle Canalpin Creek (MCA20) between 38 ± 8 and 41 ± 8 ka. Both sites are located on the western side of Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island), the second largest sand island in the world, isolated by rising sea levels in the early Holocene. The earliest occupation phase at both sites consists of charcoal and heavily retouched stone artefacts made from exotic raw materials. Heat-treatment of imported silcrete artefacts first appeared in sediment dated to ~ 30,000 years ago, making these amongst Australia’s oldest dated heat-treated artefacts. An early human presence on Minjerribah is further suggested by palaeoenvironmental records of anthropogenic burning beginning by 45,000 years ago. These new chronologies from sites on a remnant portion of the continental margin confirm early human occupation along Sahul’s now-drowned eastern continental shelf. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The establishment of north‐west Australia's nineteenth‐century pearlshell fisheries led to the first occupation of many arid offshore islands since the early mid‐Holocene. The nature of this occupation, and how crews subsisted on such remote landscapes, remains poorly understood. We investigate a rare instance of an archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological record for this colonial‐era activity at Bandicoot Bay, Barrow Island. Varied taxonomic representation suggests an atypical subsistence strategy for a maritime industry, involving broad exploitation of resources over several local landscapes and an absence of remains of provisioned food. Identified plant taxa largely conform to resources known ethnographically to have been exploited by north‐west Aboriginal communities, and many relate to traditional food practices. The spatial patterning of charred wood and bone suggests multiple burning activities and areas of specific use. Conditions of wood fuel on the island may have prompted the augmentation of fuel, indicated by the presence of non‐local wood charcoal and high proportions of calcined bone. These findings (i) are consistent with the hypothesis that the site's occupants originated from the north‐west as part of coerced pearling labour and (ii) provide unique insight into the role offshore islands may have occupied in the management of this industry's labour forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stable isotopic analysis of palaeontological and archaeological biogenic apatite carbonates from herbivorous mammalian species represents an important tool for worldwide palaeoecological research. Tooth enamel carbonates are more resistant to taphonomic processes than bone or dentine carbonates but are not invulnerable to diagenesis. As such, they require careful preanalytical processing that considers depositional environment and age. An established part of this process includes a weak acid treatment to remove soluble exogenous carbonates; however, published treatment times for isotopic studies of archaeological tooth enamel are variable and range from 15 min to over 8 hr. This study tests three different pretreatment protocols on modern and Pleistocene age archaeological kangaroo teeth (dating from contemporary to 46,000 bp) to assess the effect of acid treatment time on isotopic integrity. The results indicate that treatment time is a critical parameter for producing consistency across results and shorter pretreatments of 4 hr or less are preferable for removing diagenetic carbonates while minimising alteration of the biological signal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological deposits from Boodie Cave on Barrow Island, northwest Australia, reveal some of the oldest evidence for Aboriginal occupation of Australia, as well as illustrating the early use of marine resources by modern peoples outside of Africa. Barrow Island is a large (202 km 2 ) limestone continental island located on the North-West Shelf of Australia, optimally located to sample past use of both the Pleistocene coastline and extensive arid coastal plains. An interdisciplinary team forming the Barrow Island Archaeology Project (BIAP) has addressed questions focusing on the antiquity of occupation of coastal deserts by hunter-gatherers; the use and distribution of marine resources from the coast to the interior; and the productivity of the marine zone with changing sea levels. Boodie Cave is the largest of 20 stratified deposits identified on Barrow Island with 20 m 3 of cultural deposits excavated between 2013 and 2015. In this first major synthesis we focus on the dating and sedimentology of Boodie Cave to establish the framework for ongoing analysis of cultural materials. We present new data on these cultural assemblages – including charcoal, faunal remains and lithics – integrated with micromorphology, sedimentary history and dating by four independent laboratories. First occupation occurs between 51.1 and 46.2 ka, overlapping with the earliest dates for occupation of Australia. Marine resources are incorporated into dietary assemblages by 42.5 ka and continue to be transported to the cave through all periods of occupation, despite fluctuating sea levels and dramatic extensions of the coastal plain. The changing quantities of marine fauna through time reflect the varying distance of the cave from the contemporaneous shoreline. The dietary breadth of both arid zone terrestrial fauna and marine species increases after the Last Glacial Maximum and significantly so by the mid-Holocene. The cave is abandoned by 6.8 ka when the island becomes increasingly distant from the mainland coast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Located on the edge of Australia's North West continental shelf, Barrow Island is uniquely located to address a number of research questions, such as the antiquity and changing nature of Indigenous occupation, including shifting uses of regional economic resources in response to post-glacial sea-level rise. These questions are addressed from a range of archaeological, zooarchaeological, and geoarchaeological disciplines. Although only preliminary, results to date indicate the presence of marine resources dating to before sea-level stabilization (∼ 7.5 ka) that contain both dietary and utilitarian species, including high-ranked species such as sea turtle. The marine assemblages reflect a variety of habitats and substrates with a 17,000-year record for the presence of a former tidal marsh or estuary. We also note recently obtained14C and OSL dates that extend the dietary marine faunas and initial occupation to well before 41 ka. This demonstrates that consumption of coastal resources began prior to the Holocene, when we begin to observe more widespread evidence of marine resource exploitation in the broader Canarvon Bioregion of northwest Australia. This evidence supports arguments for further research to directly test both the productivity of, and human reliance on, marine habitats from initial occupation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are few archaeological sites that contain records for Pleistocene coastal occupation in Australia, as is the case globally. Two major viewpoints seek to explain why so few sites exist. The first is that the Pleistocene coast was a relatively marginal environment where fluctuating sea levels actively inhibited coastal resource productivity until the mid-to-late Holocene. The second position suggests that the Pleistocene coast (and its resources) was variably productive, potentially hosting extensive populations, but that the archaeological evidence for this occupation has been submerged by sea level rise. To help reconcile these perspectives in Australia, this paper provides a review, discussion, and assessment of the evidence for Australian Pleistocene coastal productivity and occupation. In doing so, we find no reason to categorically assume that coastal landscapes were ever unproductive or unoccupied. We demonstrate that the majority of Pleistocene coastal archaeology will be drowned where dense marine faunal assemblages should only be expected close to palaeo-shorelines. Mixed terrestrial and marine assemblages are likely to occur at sites located >2 km from Pleistocene shorelines. Ultimately, the discussions and arguments put forward in this paper provide a basic framework, and a different set of environmental expectations, within which to assess the results of independent coastal research. • Addresses Pleistocene coastal occupation and productivity in Australia. • Australian Pleistocene coasts were likely widely occupied and variably productive. • A basic framework within which to assess coastal occupation patterns is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a correction notice for an article titled "Early human occupation of Australia's eastern seaboard" published in Scientific Reports. The correction acknowledges that Thomas Dooley was omitted from the author list in the original version of the article. The correction also includes an updated acknowledgement section, recognizing the Quandamooka People for their dedication to preserving their cultural heritage and providing financial support for the research. The document also provides a revised author contributions section, outlining the specific roles and contributions of each author. The article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. [Extracted from the article]

An extensive body of engraved rock art on the Great Papuan Plateau is documented here for the first time, along with the first dates for occupation. Consisting largely of deeply abraded or pecked barred ovals and cupules, the rock art of this region does not fit comfortably into any regional models for rock art previously described. It does, however, exhibit some similarity to art in regions to the east and the west of the plateau. Subject to further archaeological testing, we present a number of exploratory hypotheses with which to explain the presence of the engravings; as part of the ethnographic and contemporary Kasua's cultural suite; as part of a relatively recent (late Holocene) migration of peoples from the Gulf to the plateau; or as part of an earlier movement of people from the west, possibly as part of the movement of people into the Sahul continent in the Late Pleistocene. We conclude that the Great Papuan Plateau is not a late and marginally occupied 'backwater' but rather part of a possible corridor of human movement across northern Sahul and a region that could allow us to better understand modern humans as they reached the Sahul continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present Bayesian modelling on a long sequence of radiocarbon ages from the archaeological site of Nawarla Gabarnmang, central Arnhem Land plateau, northern Australia. A horizon of wind-borne sediments containing flaked stone artefacts and charcoal commencing >45,610 cal BP (the young end of the modelled boundary age range, which extends beyond the limit of the calibration curve), with a median modelled age of 48,500 cal BP, signals the onset of aeolian mobilisation of fine sands and silts across the landscape, and re-deposition within the site at a time synchronous with the first evidence of people. This earliest cultural horizon (Stratigraphic Unit 4) contains 509 stone artefacts, and is marked by a contemporaneous sedimentary break, from underlying culturally sterile sediments consisting of disintegrating roof-fall and in situ sandstone and quartzite to overlying culturally-rich wind-blown sand. The new radiocarbon ages and wind-blown sediments together provide evidence for the commencement of noticeable landscape burning on the Arnhem Land plateau c. 48,500 cal BP, suggesting an intensification of landscape management practices at the summit of the Arnhem Land plateau some 10,000–15,000 years after the lowest dense band of artefacts (Phase 2) at Madjedbebe on the floodplains 90 km to the north. These results have ramifications for the structure and timing of the spread of people across Australia, and the extinction of megafauna in Sahul. • Radiocarbon ages spanning the past c. 48,500 years of human occupation are presented for Nawarla Gabarnmang, north Australia. • Earliest flaked stone artefacts and in situ charcoal appear in tandem. • The first stone artefacts and charcoal appear within the site with the onset of aeolian sediments. • The earliest artefacts, in situ charcoal and aeolian sediments overlie soft sediments originating from roof-fall. • The onset of aeolian sediments with artefacts and charcoal in the site suggest anthropic landscape modifications 45,610–52,160 years ago. • These results suggest permanent occupation of the rugged Arnhem Land plateau > 10,000 years after the northern floodplains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Marra Australian Aboriginal philosophies guide archaeological research. • Stone artefacts are embedded within Marra relational philosophies and politics. • Stone 'raw materials' are potent ancestral substances. • Access to powerful Marra ancestral quarries changed through time. • Lithic analyses of Marra stone artefacts reveal changing social worlds. In archaeology, investigations into the social and cultural contexts of stone artefacts have largely focused on their typological styles, manufacturing technologies, functions, geographic distributions and the significance of the quarries they come from. Yet what is oftentimes overlooked is the deeper contemporary understandings by Indigenous groups of the stone artefacts recovered from excavations. In this paper, we analyse an assemblage of 9,642 excavated stone artefacts from the rockshelter site of Walanjiwurru 1 in Marra Country in northern Australia, in light of the cosmological significance of regional stone sources to local Aboriginal groups. Each recovered stone artefact, and the quarries of their raw materials, is laden with meanings that help reveal how Marra Aboriginal people socially and cosmologically engaged with their landscape. By combining archaeological and Marra cultural perspectives, we argue that subtle variations in the range of stones and their relational characteristics signal changing political engagements with ancestral places over the past 2300 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In regions that lack built structures or stratified open archaeological sites, such as precolonial Australia, rockshelters are a major source of detailed information for understanding the nature and timing of human occupation. A key concern is that the proposed ages for the earliest archaeological sites are based on luminescence dating of sediments, rather than directly of cultural materials, leaving the association between the sediments and evidence of human activity questionable. Here, we present evidence of magnetic enhancement associated with cultural horizons within the deposits of a Pleistocene rockshelter in interior northern Queensland. Soil magnetic studies combined with experimental burning show that magnetically enhanced sediments in Gledswood Shelter 1 are the result of anthropogenic burning of hearth fires, which burn hotter and for a longer time than natural wild fires. These techniques appear to work in this setting because of the nature of the local geology and the geological antiquity of the landscape. Susceptibility and frequency dependence of susceptibility signatures provide a critical tool to resolve that human occupation starts at 2.2 m depth within a stratigraphic section. In conjunction with luminescence dating, soil magnetic studies provide an opportunity for archaeologists to resolve the timing of human settlement in Australia and other intracratonic plate settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A GPR survey was carried out in advance of archaeological excavations at Madjedbebe (formerly known as Malakunanja II), a sandstone rock shelter in western Arnhem Land ( Australia) containing numerous Aboriginal burials. GPR revealed subsurface patterning of rocks in the shelter deposits and archaeological excavation demonstrated that these were related to burials. Post-excavation, GIS and statistical analysis further elucidated the relationship between the rocks and human burials. This integration of detailed mapping, GPR and excavation afforded the opportunity to test a way to identify unmarked burials using GPR in sandstone rock shelters and to document a marker for burial identification in this region. Application of the methodology developed through this case study provides a useful management tool for Indigenous communities and other heritage practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Before the 90s, data on Paleolithic human occupation of southern Portugal was very scarce. During the last decade, the knowledge of the Upper Paleolithic of Algarve increased substantially due to the work of a research team based at the University of Algarve. The present paper is a report on the recent results from Algarve, focusing specially on the site of Vale Boi. It will present the chronology and stratigraphy of different human occupations from the early Upper Paleolithic up to the early Neolithic. It will focus on aspects of zooarchaeology and the exploitation of large and medium mammals as well as on marine fauna. In addition, we will present new data on stone and bone tools. Finally, we will also refer to the social and symbolic aspects present at the site, base on shell and teeth pendants and to an engraved plaquette with animal motifs. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]