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This study presents the first data on a level one archaeology student cohort, exploring their demographic composition and motivations for enrolling, as well as external stressors such as health and caring responsibilities that may influence student study goals, retention, and needs. A survey of 107 students enrolled in introductory level archaeology units at 13 Australian universities was undertaken in Semester 1, 2021. The results show a diverse cohort by age, gender, and educational background. Consistent with the professional Australian archaeological community, there is little diversity in the ethnicity of enrolled students. Further, many respondents reported having caring responsibilities, and both physical and mental health concerns. Students were motivated to enrol both for general interest and future career pathways; however, there was a poor understanding within the cohort of Australian archaeological job opportunities. These results indicate that there is clearly much to be done in public archaeological engagement and outreach in Australia. What is required of the Australian archaeological community is a concerted effort to improve how the discipline is taught and learned across all levels of education, and a collaborative approach to designing teaching methods suitable for our modern student cohort. Introduction Methods Results - Section 1 – Demographic data -- Age and gender -- Diversity and equity -- Educational backgrounds of students and their parents -- Student health -- Student caring responsibilities - Section 2 – Motivations for study and career goals -- Enrolment type -- Study expectations and interests -- Previous experiences with archaeology and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage -- Student post-degree plans Discussion - Who studies archaeology in Australia? - Previous experiences with archaeology and cultural heritage - Student study motivations and goals Conclusion

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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.

Ethnohistoric accounts indicate that the people of Australia's Channel Country engaged in activities rarely recorded elsewhere on the continent, including food storage, aquaculture and possible cultivation, yet there has been little archaeological fieldwork to verify these accounts. Here, the authors report on a collaborative research project initiated by the Mithaka people addressing this lack of archaeological investigation. The results show that Mithaka Country has a substantial and diverse archaeological record, including numerous large stone quarries, multiple ritual structures and substantial dwellings. Our archaeological research revealed unknown aspects, such as the scale of Mithaka quarrying, which could stimulate re-evaluation of Aboriginal socio-economic systems in parts of ancient Australia.

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.

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.

Ethnographic records show that people from Orokolo Bay in the Papuan Gulf (Papua New Guinea) made, used, and exchanged artefacts made from bone and teeth during the twentieth century. Archaeologica...

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.

Anthropological and archaeological representations of Aboriginal Australians as hunter-gatherers adapting to the natural availability of food resources are simplistic and inconsistent with ethnographic records of active, strategic, and sociopolitically meaningful resource enhancement. Scholarship over the past four decades has documented plant and animal food resource enhancement by Aboriginal Australians that blur socioeconomic boundaries with agricultural societies of New Guinea. Enhancements were achieved by using intimate knowledge of local ecological processes to modify ecosystems through a range of strategies such as landscape burning, animal translocation, protected rearing, shelter creation, and restocking. These strategies were embedded within broader sociocultural and sociopolitical domains that were often accompanied by ritual. Such engineered food enhancement practices reveal that many documented and modelled associations between environment and behaviour are in fact correlations between behaviour and the products of behaviour. The uneven distribution of animal resource enhancement practices across Australia indicates considerable regional diversity and supports existing views that many enhancements are related to regionally specific and historically contingent developments in social complexity.

The study of faunal remains from archaeological sites is often complicated by the presence of large numbers of highly fragmented, morphologically unidentifiable bones. In Australia, this is the combined result of harsh preservation conditions and frequent scavenging by marsupial carnivores. The collagen fingerprinting method known as zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry (ZooMS) offers a means to address these challenges and improve identification rates of fragmented bones. Here, we present novel ZooMS peptide markers for 24 extant marsupial and monotreme species that allow for genus-level distinctions between these species. We demonstrate the utility of these new peptide markers by using them to taxonomically identify bone fragments from a nineteenth-century colonial-era pearlshell fishery at Bandicoot Bay, Barrow Island. The suite of peptide biomarkers presented in this study, which focus on a range of ecologically and culturally important species, have the potential to significantly amplify the zooarchaeological and paleontological record of Australia. 1. Introduction 2. Material and methods 2.1. Materials 2.1.1. Modern reference specimens 2.1.2. Archaeological specimens 2.2. Collagen extraction 2.3. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization–tandem time of flight mass spectrometry 2.4. Liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry 2.5. Identification and confirmation of biomarkers 3. Results 3.1. Novel ZooMS peptide markers 3.2. Marsupial versus monotreme ZooMS markers 3.3. Marsupial ZooMS markers 3.4. Using ZooMS to identify macropods 3.5. Collagen fingerprinting of archaeological specimens 4. Discussion 4.1. ZooMS insights at Bandicoot Bay 4.2. Comparison to published markers 4.3. Challenges and future prospects

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.

In this paper, we present a terminal Pleistocene/early Holocene archaeological record from John Wayne Country Rockshelter (JWCR), located on Barrow Island in north-western Australia. The rock shelter was used between 15000 and 7000 calBP, and provides insights into how Aboriginal people interacted with a changing coastal landscape throughout postglacial sea-level rise. The faunal record reflects this fluctuating local landscape. The late Pleistocene faunal assemblage largely consists of arid plains terrestrial fauna, and then transitions to a diverse marine invertebrate taxa midden. This record demonstrates coastal resource use throughout the terminal Pleistocene, before the expansion of mangrove forests across northern Australia. The stone artefact assemblages indicate varied expedient reduction patterns. The assemblages include artefacts manufactured from local limestone and non-local sources. Our analyses indicate that occupation durations at JWCR were longer during the late Pleistocene compared to the early Holocene, when productive mangrove environments became proximal. The implications of these results are twofold. First, effective use of coastal plain environments was probably just as important for coastal occupation as marine resource procurement. Second, the presence of relatively dense marine faunal assemblages is not necessarily a reliable proxy for individual coastal-site occupational intensity under conditions of local resource productivity.

Stable isotopic analyses of herbivorous mammal remains are a powerful and globally applied tool for reconstructing past environments and ecological histories from archaeological sites. For Australia, a substantial corpus of foundational literature has competently established the environmental sources of isotopic variation in modern kangaroo and wallaby species. However, despite the pervasive distribution of these kinds of macropods in contemporary and archaeological contexts, isotopic techniques are utilised infrequently. Our review of the history of macropod isotopic analysis identifies and proposes solutions to the complexities that have inhibited its widespread application in Australian archaeology. This includes a description of relevant basic principles including ecology, physiology and isotopic fractionation. To support our claims for the considerable research potential of macropod remains, we present preliminary analyses of tooth enamel carbonates from archaeological deposits at Boodie Cave, Barrow Island, located in Australia's northwest arid zone.

This study explores the application of soil micromorphological and automated scanning electron microscopy mineralogical analysis to characterise lithological boundaries and site formation history from an archaeological cave site on Barrow Island, northwestern Australia. The high-resolution characterisation is used to document the changing depositional context within Boodie Cave from the earliest period of occupation around 50 ky BP through to when transgressing seas isolated the island around 7 ky BP. Comparisons are made between excavations at the front of the cave — where stratigraphic integrity is high and a thicker, more comprehensive early Holocene sequence is preserved, with excavations inside the cave — where stratigraphic integrity is lower but an older Pleistocene record is preserved. The combination of these depositional scenarios provides a complete stratigraphic sequence for Boodie Cave, with depositional contacts defined at macro-, meso- and micro-scale levels. These contacts include erosive surfaces and trampled (ground) surfaces, such as the upper interface of SU5 and SU4. Based on the mineralogical and textural variations (microfacies) preserved within each unit, the vertical mixing zone is estimated to be between 1 and 5 cm. This reworking has not affected the general sequence of sedimentological (including grain size and mineralogy) and macro-cultural changes, which record an increasingly marine-dominated assemblage as the coastline encroaches. The integration of microscopic observations with anthracological, archaeomalacological, zooarchaeological and lithic analyses provides a more dynamic and comprehensive dialogue for interpreting the formation history of Boodie Cave and likely other early occupation sites from northern Australia.

It is now rather evident that, concomitant with the advent, growth and disappearance of the traditionally defined Western European Upper Paleolithic techno-complexes, a series of discrete eco-cultural niches would have existed within Iberia. Vale Boi, and its surroundings, may represent one of these niches, since its lengthy and fairly complete archaeological record clearly attests that the region was an attractive location for hunter-gatherer communities for over 10,000 years. From the first Modern Human occupations, c. 32 ka cal BP ago, a set of very specific cultural adaptive markers seem to have been developed in response to the particularities of the regional ecological background. Some of these strategies, such as intensive subsistence practices, raw-material specialized use, among others, were resilient through time and apparently impermeable to the major shifts in the techno-typological novelties brought about with the advent of each Upper Paleolithic phase. Even with the appearance of quite unique and broad-scale technologies, e. g. Solutrean, regional markers and identity have been kept, clearly showing that each level of the adaptive system seem to have operate at its own pace. This paper focus on long-term adaptive choices and on how and why hunter-gatherers inhabiting Vale Boi manage to absorb change and re-organize their system under new techno-complex cultural patterns while still retaining, efficiently, the same regional adaptive idiosyncrasies. Within the theoretical framework of Panarchy and the cross-scale resilience model we argue that cross-scale interactions between creative and conserving niche-specific behavioral adaptations were the keystone for the sustainability of hunter-gatherer cultural systems across the Late Pleistocene. c (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

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. Optical dating of sediments containing stone artefacts newly excavated at Madjedbebe, Australia, indicate that human occupation began around 65,000 years ago, thereby setting a new minimum age for the arrival of people in Australia. When did humans first colonize Australia? The date of the initial landing on the continent that is now associated with cold lager and 'Waltzing Matilda' has been highly controversial. Dates from a site called Madjedbebe in northern Australia had put the presence of modern humans in Australia at between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago, but these results have since been hotly contested. Here, the results from a comprehensive program of dating of new excavations at the site confirm that people first arrived there around 65,000 years ago. The results show that humans reached Australia well before the extinction of the Australian megafauna and the disappearance of Homo floresiensis in neighbouring Indonesia.

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 e15,000 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.

The role of degradational processes that act on archaeological faunal assemblages after burial has attracted less attention than it warrants, in part because many of the changes take place over time scales that are not amenable to experimental investigation. We propose a straightforward method for evaluating the level of post-depositional degradation in a stratified archaeological faunal assemblage based primarily on trends in the burning composition of the assemblage. The twin foundations of the method are: 1) the experimentally verified changes in physical properties that occur in bone as it is progressively burned through carbonized to calcined stages: and 2) postulated contrasts between burning stages in susceptibility to a suite of degradational processes that operate in the burial context, including a range of microbial, fungal, thermal and chemical processes. We present data from seven archaeological sites from Australasia and three ethnographic assemblages from Papua New Guinea, including sites in open-air, rockshelter and cave contexts, and sites with both acidic and alkaline soil conditions. Each of the archaeological sites is treated as a temporally-seriated assemblage that documents the potential impacts of post-depositional degradation on the faunal assemblage. We compare the relative abundance of unburned, burned/carbonized or calcined bone through each sequence and identify commonalities of pattern that are highly suggestive of post-depositional degradation. For each assemblage, these patterns are verified by visual inspection and identification of classic signs of surface degradation such as pitting and root channelling. In each of the acidic contexts there was a clear trend of increasing degradation of bone with excavation depth (= age). Assemblages from alkaline deposits were more complex, but some also provided more subtle evidence of degradation within the profile. Investigation of burning profiles in combination with careful examination of bone macro-damage provides a useful tool for identifying the pattern of post-depositional degradation within a stratified sequence and for distinguishing this from other various kinds of taphonomic patterning, and from signals produced by human behaviour.

Australian archaeofaunal assemblages are often heavily fragmented by taphonomic agents whose identity or origins are frequently difficult to discern. This study explores whether the fragmentation and accumulation of bone by carnivorous marsupial quolls may be distinguished from that produced by humans. Analyses of 140 scats obtained from captive feeding trials and wild populations of three quoll species ( Dasyurus maculatus , Dasyurus viverrinus and Dasyurus hallucatus ) indicates that damage to bones by quolls may be identified through a combination of the median length of bone specimens and observations of specific types of damage to the bone surface. Our results demonstrate that bone consumed by D. viverrinus and D. hallucatus is highly unlikely to be confused with human-accumulated assemblages due to low dietary overlap and the very small bone fragment size produced by both quoll species. Bone accumulations of the larger D. maculatus species, however, may be incorrectly attributed to humans due to the consumption of medium-large mammals by both humans and quolls, and the larger size of bone fragments produced by D. maculatus . Although fragments as large as 25 mm were recovered from wild D. maculatus scats, the median length of scat-bone fragments for D. maculatus falls between ~ 8.30–10.40 mm. This is significantly different statistically to the median fragment length (11.90 mm) of bone in scats of the Tasmanian devil, Sarcophilus harrisii , as reported by Caroline Northwood (1990). Scats from wild D. maculatus indicate that polish and pitting are the most common forms of surface damage to bone, with more than 25% of specimens displaying these marks. Punctures and tooth drag marks are far rarer, with only 5% of bone specimens exhibiting this kind of damage. In light of these results, we advocate for detailed observation of the surface of bone specimens, along with obtaining specimen lengths, in order to distinguish quoll accumulated bone in archaeofaunal assemblages.

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.

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 obtained 14C 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...

Currently the earliest evidence for dog dispersal into the Greater Australian region and surrounds is found in Australia (Madura Cave 3210–3361 cal BP), New Ireland (Kamgot, c. 3000–3300 cal BP) and Timor-Leste (Matja Kuru 2, 2886–3068 cal BP). Previously, the earliest published dog remains for the large continental island of New Guinea was from Edubu 1 (2314–2700 cal BP) in Caution Bay, south coast of mainland PNG. Here we report on a dog mandible from Moiapu 1, also in Caution Bay. Although the mandible could not be directly dated, good chronostratigraphic resolution indicates that it confidently dates to between 2573 and 2702 cal BP (95% probability). It was found deeply buried in association with Late Lapita cultural materials, and is currently the earliest known dog remain from New Guinea. Biometric measurements on a small sample of archaeological and modern dog remains from the broader region support previously published models (based on genetic results) of multiple dog dispersals into the Pacific region.

This paper focuses on the continental shelf of NW Australia, and on models for change in littoral and offshore environments of relevance to human occupation over the last 50 kyr. Major island groups occur on the shelf including the Montebello and Barrow islands, and those of the Dampier Archipelago. At lowest sea level around 22 ka, these would have been uplands that then became progressively isolated by subsequent sea-level rise. By integrating archaeological and zooarchaeological records from excavations on these islands with the geology and geomorphology, we interpret palaeoeconomic resource potential in relation to changing sea level and coastline morphology. The preservation potential for submerged archaeological sites and features is also assessed. Current archaeological evidence from these offshore islands indicates that the submerged coastal landscape is likely to have been a potentially rich environment for resources and human occupation, even at times of lowest sea level and regional aridity. Should any exploration of submerged archaeology be carried out in this region, it is likely to be rewarding, offering unique insights into Late Pleistocene coastal occupation.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Located at the crossroads of two rather different ecological and cultural worlds (Mediterranean Spain and Portuguese Atlantic), the site of Vale Boi is a crucial element in understanding the economic and social traits of the communities that inhabited Southwestern Iberia during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Combining an open-air with a rockshelter component, Vale Boi presents a lengthy Solutrean record starting with a Proto-Solutrean phase followed by a set of occupations in the 25 to 20.3 ka cal BP time-span. The very rich and well preserved assemblages proved that the site was treated, throughout, as a seasonal residential camp and although a striking combination of exogenous cultural traits has been identified, regional adaptive idiosyncrasies are quite evident. This paper focuses on the results of the lithics, fauna, beads and portable art analysis from Vale Boi, and their impact on the comprehension of the LGM ecodynamics in Southwestern Iberia.Localizado en el marco de dos contextos diferentes desde el punto de vista ecológico y cultural (el Mediterráneo español y el Atlántico portugués), el yacimiento de Vale Boi (Algarve, Portugal) es un lugar fundamental para comprender la organización económica y social de las comunidades que habitaron el sudoeste de la Península Ibérica durante el Último Máximo Glacial (LGM). Situado en una zona en la que se combinan ocupaciones al aire libre y en abrigo, Vale Boi presenta un amplio registro solutrense que comienza con el el Proto-Solutrense y a la que le siguen un amplio número de ocupaciones entre el 25 y el 20,3 ka BP. El importante y bien preservado conjunto demuestra que este asentamiento funcionó como un campamento residencia estacional. Aunque han sido identificados diversos caracteres culturales de origen exógeno, son también evidentes los elementos adaptativos idiosincráticos. El presente artículo se centra en los resultados de los análisis del utillaje lítico, la fauna, las cuentas ornamentals y los objetos de arte mueble de Vale Boi y su impacto en la comprensión ecodinámica del LGM en el Sudoeste de la Península Ibérica.

The late Pleistocene record for human exploitation of marine resources is generally accepted as being underrepresented world-wide. The global lowering of sea levels during the last glacial maximum (LGM) extended coastlines, presumably causing much of the evidence for coastal living from that period to be inundated today. The southern coast of Iberia is no exception, having a gently sloping, submerged continental shelf along much of its coastline. During the LGM, this continental shelf would have been partially exposed, with the coastal shore lying a considerable distance south of where it is today. This set of circumstances has no doubt contributed to the lack of known Upper Paleolithic coastal sites in southern Iberia containing records of marine exploitation. However, two key southern Iberian sites provide evidence of long-term marine resource use in this region: Cueva de Nerja and Vale Boi. The southeastern Spanish site of Cueva de Nerja is known for its record of marine fish and shellfish exploitation beginning in the Solutrean (Cortes-Sanchez et al. 2008; Jorda 1986; Morales and Rosello 2008; Serrano et al. 1995). Now the Portuguese site of Vale Boi significantly adds to the evidence of long-term utilization of coastal resources, with its record of marine resource exploitation beginning in the Gravettian.

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.