Landmark Discovery as Historic Aboriginal Websites Discovered Underwater For First Time

For many of the human historical past of Australia, sea ranges had been a lot decrease than they’re immediately, and there was additional dry land the place folks lived.

Archaeologists might solely speculate about how folks used these now-submerged lands, and whether or not any traces stay immediately.

However in a examine revealed immediately in PLOS ONE, we report the primary submerged historical Aboriginal archaeological websites discovered on the seabed, in waters off Western Australia.

The nice flood

When folks first arrived in Australia as early as 65,000 years in the past, sea ranges had been round 80 metres decrease than immediately.

Sea ranges fluctuated however continued to fall as the worldwide local weather cooled. Because the world plunged into the final ice age, which peaked round 20,000 years in the past, sea ranges dropped to 130 metres decrease than they’re now.

Between 18,000 and eight,000 years in the past the world warmed up. Melting ice sheets induced sea ranges to rise. Tasmania was lower off from the mainland round 11,000 years in the past. New Guinea separated from Australia round eight,000 years in the past.

The ocean-level rise flooded 2.12 million sq. kilometres of land on the continental shelf surrounding Australia. Hundreds of generations of individuals would have lived out their lives on these landscapes now below water.

Landscapes below water

For the previous 4 years a workforce of archaeologists, rock artwork specialists, geomorphologists, geologists, specialist pilots and scientific divers on the Australian Analysis Council-funded Deep Historical past of Sea Nation Challenge have collaborated with the Murujuga Aboriginal Company to seek out and file submerged archaeological websites off the Pilbara coast in WA.

Website location in northwest Australia, left, and the Dampier Archipelago, proper. (Copernicus Sentinel Knowledge and Geoscience Australia)

We studied navigation charts, geological maps and archaeological websites positioned on the land to slim down potential areas earlier than surveying the seabed utilizing laser scanners mounted on small planes and high-resolution sonar towed behind boats.

Within the closing part of the analysis, our workforce of scientific divers carried out underwater archaeological surveys to bodily look at, file and pattern the seabed.

We found two underwater archaeological websites within the Dampier Archipelago.

The primary, at Cape Bruguieres, contains a whole lot of stone artefacts – together with mullers and grinding stones – on the seabed at depths right down to 2.four metres.

A collection of stone artefacts discovered on the seabed. (John McCarthy, Chelsea Wiseman)

On the second web site, in Flying Foam Passage, we found traces of human exercise related to a submerged freshwater spring, 14 metres under sea stage, together with no less than one confirmed stone chopping software made out of domestically sourced materials.

Environmental knowledge and radiocarbon dates present these websites will need to have been older than 7,000 years once they had been submerged by rising seas.

Our examine reveals archaeological websites exist on the seabed in Australia with objects belonging to historical peoples undisturbed for hundreds of years.

In Murujuga (also referred to as the Burrup Peninsula) this provides considerably to the proof we have already got of human exercise and rock artwork manufacturing on this essential Nationwide Heritage Listed place.

A stone software related to a freshwater spring, now 14m below water. (Hiro Yoshida and Katarina Jerbić, DHSC Challenge)

Underwater archaeology issues

The submerged stone instruments found at Murujuga make us rethink what we all know in regards to the previous.

Our data of historical instances in Australia comes from archaeological websites on land and from Indigenous oral histories. However the first folks to come back to Australian shores had been coastal individuals who voyaged in boats throughout the islands of japanese Indonesia.

The early peopling of Australia befell on land that’s now below water. To completely perceive key questions in human historical past, as historical as they’re, researchers should flip to each archaeology and marine science.

Defending a priceless submerged heritage

Submerged archaeological websites are at risk of destruction by erosion and from improvement actions, resembling oil and fuel installations, pipelines, port developments, dredging, spoil dumping and industrialised fishing.

Safety of underwater cultural websites greater than 100 years outdated is enshrined by the UNESCO Conference on the Safety of the Underwater Cultural Heritage (2001), adopted as legislation by greater than 60 nations however not ratified by Australia.

In Australia, the federal legal guidelines that shield underwater cultural heritage in Commonwealth waters have been modernised lately with the Historic Shipwrecks Act (1976) reviewed and re-badged as Australia’s Underwater Cultural Heritage Act (2018), which got here into impact in July 2019.

This new Act fails to routinely shield all forms of websites and it privileges safety of non-Indigenous submerged heritage. For instance, all shipwrecks older than 75 years and sunken plane present in Australia’s Commonwealth waters are given automated safety.

Different forms of web site, no matter age and together with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander websites, will be protected however solely with ministerial approval.

There may be scope for states and territories to guard submerged Indigenous heritage based mostly on current legal guidelines, however regulators have conventionally solely managed the underwater heritage of more moderen historic durations.

With our discover confirming historical Indigenous websites will be preserved below water, we’d like coverage makers to rethink approaches to defending underwater cultural heritage in Australia.

We’re assured many different submerged websites can be discovered within the years to come back. These will problem our present understandings and result in a extra full account of our human previous, so that they want our safety now.

Jonathan Benjamin, Affiliate Professor in Maritime Archaeology, Flinders College and ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders College; Geoff Bailey, Emeritus Professor of Archaeology, College of York; Jo McDonald, Director, Centre for Rock Artwork Analysis + Administration, College of Western Australia; Michael O’Leary, Senior Lecturer in Local weather Geoscience, College of Western Australia, and Sean Ulm, Deputy Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, James Prepare dinner College

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