A workforce of archaeologists from James Prepare dinner College and elsewhere stories the oldest securely dated ceramics present in Australia from archaeological excavations on Jiigurru (Lizard Island) on the Nice Barrier Reef, northeast Australia. This vital discovering challenges earlier notions that Aboriginal Australian communities had been unaware of pottery manufacture earlier than European settlement, as an alternative suggesting a wealthy historical past of long-distance cultural exchanges and technological innovation lengthy earlier than British arrival.
Ceramic fragments discovered on Jiigurru, northeast Australia. Picture credit score: Steve Morton.
The archaeologists discovered dozens of pottery sherds relationship between 2,000 and three,000 years outdated — the oldest pottery ever found in Australia.
The geological evaluation of the ceramics signifies the pottery was domestically produced utilizing clays and tempers sourced from Jiigurru.
The age of the pottery overlaps with a interval when the Lapita folks of southern Papua New Guinea had been recognized to have produced pottery.
The researchers additionally unearthed the stays of shellfish and fish collected and eaten by folks on the island, that are greater than 6,000 years outdated.
This makes Jiigurru the earliest recognized offshore island occupied on the northern Nice Barrier Reef.
“The proof factors to a historical past of deep connections throughout the Coral Sea, facilitated by superior canoe voyaging know-how and open-sea navigation expertise, contradicting the outdated notion of Indigenous isolation,” stated Monash College’s Professor Ian McNiven.
“These findings not solely open a brand new chapter in Australian, Melanesian, and Pacific archaeology but in addition problem colonialist stereotypes by highlighting the complexity and innovation of Aboriginal communities.”
“The invention provides a brand new layer to our understanding of Jiigurru and Indigenous Australians’ function within the broader community of maritime trade and cultural interplay throughout the Coral Sea.”
“The southern boundary of historical worldwide maritime networks linked jap north Queensland, southern New Guinea and the Torres Strait, forming the Coral Sea Cultural Interplay Sphere,” he added.
“These networks facilitated the trade of objects and concepts between Australian and New Guinean coastal communities over the previous 3,000 years.”
“Whereas some objects, like cone-shell physique adornments and bamboo smoking pipes, point out widespread sharing of tradition and concepts, others, reminiscent of pottery, additionally recommend the sharing of know-how.”
“Working in collaboration with archaeologists and Conventional Homeowners and dealing on Nation is one thing that’s by no means been performed earlier than for my folks, the place we work collectively on Nation, sharing one another’s story on Nation, and never solely sharing this story from our folks, the Outdated Folks, and from the archaeology aspect, scientifically, which is an effective end result that we are able to see. We will take care of the Nation collectively,” stated Dingaal clan member and Walmbaar Aboriginal Company Chairperson Kenneth McLean.
“Each bit of data we achieve helps us inform the story of Nation. Analysis tasks like this assist us all to know Nation higher and assist us to know find out how to take care of Nation,” added Ngurrumungu Elder Brian Cobus.
“The invention reveals that the Aboriginal communities in North Queensland had connections with the pottery-making communities of New Guinea,” stated James Prepare dinner College’s Professor Sean Ulm.
“The invention provides us insights into the delicate maritime capabilities of First Nations communities on this area, and these objects are essential in understanding the cultural exchanges that occurred on Jiigurru 1000’s of years in the past.”
“We predict that the ancestors of latest Conventional Homeowners had been engaged in a really widespread buying and selling system.”
“In order that they traded know-how, items and concepts, knew find out how to make pottery, and made it domestically.”
The findings seem within the journal Quaternary Science Evaluations.
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Sean Ulm et al. Early Aboriginal pottery manufacturing and offshore island occupation on Jiigurru (Lizard Island group), Nice Barrier Reef, Australia. Quaternary Science Evaluations, printed on-line April 9, 2024; doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108624
