Oral Traditions and Volcanic Eruptions in Australia
Boulder, Colo., USA: In Australia, the onset of human occupation (about
65,000 years?) and dispersion across the continent are the subjects of
intense debate and are critical to understanding global human migration
routes. A lack of ceramic artifacts and permanent structures has resulted
in a scarcity of dateable archaeological sites older than about 10,000
years.
Existing age constraints are derived largely from radiocarbon dating of
charcoal and/or optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of quartz
grains in rock shelter sediments, and there is a need for independent age
constraints to test more controversial ages. In southeastern Australia,
only six sites (located in Tasmania, New South Wales, and South Australia)
older than 30,000 years are considered definitively dated by 14C and/or OSL
methods, with ages spanning 37,000–50,000 years.
The strong oral traditions of Australian Aboriginal peoples have enabled
perpetuation of ecological knowledge across many generations and can likely
provide additional archeological insights. Some surviving traditions allude
to different geological events, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes,
and meteorite impacts. It has been proposed that some of these traditions
may have been transmitted for thousands of years.
The Newer Volcanic Province of southeastern Australia contains over 400
basaltic eruption centers, a number of which are thought to have erupted
within the last 100,000 years, although precise ages remain elusive for
most. Technological improvements over the last decade have firmly
established applicability of the 40Ar/39Ar dating technique (which relies
on the natural radioactive decay of 40K in minerals) to archeological
timescales, enabling many of these younger volcanoes to be dated by this
method.
Rare reported occurrences of archaeological evidence beneath volcanic ash
deposits and lava flows, and the longevity of Aboriginal oral histories,
presents an opportunity for novel investigation into the timing of human
occupation of this region. In particular, oral traditions surrounding the
Budj Bim Volcanic Complex (previously Mount Eccles) in western Victoria
have been interpreted to reference volcanic activity.
This new study published in Geology presents a new 40Ar/39Ar
eruption age of 36,900 ± 3,100 thousand years for the Budj Bim Volcanic
Complex and an age of 36,800 ± 3,800 thousand years for the nearby Tower
Hill Volcanic Complex; the latter is of archaeological significance due to
the historical discovery of a stone axe from a sequence of volcanic ash
deposits.
These ages fall within the range of 14C and OSL ages reported for the six
earliest known occupation sites in southeastern Australia. The age of Tower
Hill directly represents the minimum age for human presence in Victoria. If
oral traditions surrounding Budj Bim do indeed reference volcanic activity,
this could mean that these are some of the longest-lived oral traditions in
the world.
FEATURED ARTICLE
Early human occupation of southeastern Australia: New insights from 40Ar/39Ar dating of young volcanoes
Erin L. Matchan, David Phillips, Fred Jourdan, and Korien Oostingh. CONTACT
author: Erin Matchan,
erin.matchan@unimelb.edu.au
. Paper URL:
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/doi/10.1130/G47166.1/581018/Early-human-occupation-of-southeastern-Australia
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