Peter Veth

Excavation at Lene Hara Cave establishes occupation in East Timor at least 30,000-35,000 years ago

Reinvestigations of the cave of Lene Hara in East Timor have yielded new dating evidence showing occupation from before 30,000 BP. These will further fuel the debates on early colonization of the region.

Excavations at Parnkupirti, Lake Gregory, Great Sandy Desert: OSL Ages for Occupation Before the Last Glacial Maximum

Abstract We report on early occupation from the Parnkupirti site on Salt Pan Creek at Lake Gregory, on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert of northwest Australia. OSL ages from excavations, and stratigraphic correlations between dated exposures along Salt Pan Creek, show some stone artefacts in situ in sediments dating from greater than 37ka and most probably on stratigraphic grounds in the range of ~50–45ka. The deep stratigraphic section at Parnkupirti also provides a long record of the Quaternary history of Lake Gregory, which remained a freshwater system during the Late Quaternary.

Aridity and settlement in northwest Australia

An element in the changing pattern of Australian archaeology has been the filling-in of great blanks on the archaeological map, once survey and excavation has begun to explore them. The dry lands of the great central and western deserts of Australia, a hard place for humans to this day, have in the last couple of decades come to find a large place in the transitional story.

Serpent's Glen Rockshelter: Report of the first Pleistocene-aged occupation sequence from the Western Desert

In this paper we present the initial report for the first Pleistocene occupation sequence to be excavated in the Western Desert of Australia, from the site of Serpents Glen. We identify a three phase sequence with an earliest unit dating to before 23,500 BP, an intermediate unit comprising culturally sterile sediments and an upper unit dating to less than 4700 BP. Previous excavations within the Western Desert have only provided Holocene assemblages (Gould 1977; Smith 1988; Veth 1993). Indeed, the majority of these sites have been dated to the mid to late Holocene.

Change in the Australian desert culture: A reanalysis of tulas from Puntutjarpa rocksheiter

Abstract Claims for long‐term conservatism of an Australian desert adaptation are assessed by re‐examining one component of the stone artefact assemblage from Puntutjarpa, a rocksheiter in the Western Desert. It is concluded that significant technological changes occur and especially that adzing tools are absent from the early Holocene levels of the site. This finding confirms recent discoveries of demographic, settlement, and technological change elsewhere in the Australian arid zone; and it necessitates the rejection of perceptions of cultural continuity since the Western Desert was first occupied.

Cultural versus natural explanations for lacunae in Aboriginal occupation deposits in northern Australia

Abstract Regional archaeologies in Europe, Africa and Australia have pointed to significant changes in human occupation patterns corresponding with periods of major climatic change. The construction of such regional sequences and models of changing demography and landscape use rely on the identification of continuities and hiatuses in occupation sequences and the determination of whether gaps in the record are the result of sediment removal due to the operation of geomorphological processes or alternatively record periods of site abandonment. This paper highlights the need for methodological refinement in addressing this issue.

Maritime deserts of the Australian northwest

Abstract This paper reports on the first season of work on the Barrow Island Archaeology Project. It contextualises new findings within a review of what is now known of the archaeology of the Carnarvon bioregion. A reliance on coastal resources for over 42,000 years is indicated from excavations and open sites from Cape Range, the Montebello Islands, the Onslow coastline and Barrow Island. The continuous use of marine resources, blended with largely arid zone terrestrial assemblages, from 17,000 cal. BP until the modern era, attests to a deep chronology for hybrid maritime desert societies in the Australian northwest.

Are tulas and enso linked in Australia

Abstract The distinctive tool called ‘tula’ is an endemic adaptation, which was adopted by Aboriginal people across central and western Australia, encompassing some two-thirds of the continent. The tula is a hafted tool used for working hardwoods as well as other tasks including butchery and plant-processing. The geographic spread of tulas appears to have been rapid and no antecedent form has been identified. The sudden appearance of tulas was coincident with the onset of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions. While we do not yet have the data to establish an unequivocal causal link, in this paper we hypothesise that the appearance of this new and specialised tool at c.3700 BP was very likely a human response to the intensification of ENSO. This intensification resulted in increased aridity and climatic variability lasting almost 2000 years. We posit that this technological adaptation, an element of a risk minimisation toolkit, was part of a wider economic and social strategy adopted by Aboriginal people to cope with increasing climatic uncertainty. This possibility has implications for the diversity of innovation processes operating in Australia during the Holocene, which is further explored in this paper with concluding suggestions for future research. We offer this discussion as a platform for these future, and what we believe, are very necessary critical studies.

Cave Archaeology and Sampling Issues in the Tropics: A Case Study from Lene Hara Cave, a 42,000 Year Old Occupation Site in East Timor, Island Southeast Asia

Abstract New evidence from Lene Hara Cave, East Timor, demonstrates that it was first occupied by modern humans by 42,454±450 cal BP at approximately the same time as nearby Jerimalai shelter. Together these sites constitute the earliest evidence for modern human colonisation of Island Southeast Asia east of the Sunda Shelf. Here we report on the dating and stratigraphy from the 2000 and 2002 test excavations at Lene Hara, as well as new dates obtained by sampling breccia deposits in 2009. The post-2000 excavations and sampling demonstrate that different areas of the cave preserve different sedimentary sequences and necessitate a revision of our earlier interpretations of the occupation history of the cave. At Lene Hara, and other caves with complex depositional histories in tropical regions, the occupation sequence will only be revealed through integrating information from extensive areal sampling. When calibrated, the early dates from East Timor now align closer to the oldest evidence for occupation in northern Australia, with substantial implications for current theories on the colonisation of this region by modern humans. The Nusa Tenggara (Lesser Sunda) island chain emerges as a likely passage for modern human entry into Greater Australia. In view of the short water crossings required to reach Flores from Timor, the apparent absence of modern humans on Flores prior to the Holocene appears highly anomalous.

Continuity in Tropical Cave Use: Examples from East Timor and the Aru Islands, Maluku

The Aru Islands and East Timor fall within the biogeographic region known as Wallacea and have lain within the tropics for the known history of human occupation. Recent research has identified archaeological sequences that parallel the older radiocarbon chronologies from Australia. Terminal Pleistocene huntergatherer assemblages recovered from at least six caves register the introduction of a Neolithic technocomplex after ca. 4000 B.P. in the form of pottery, domesticates, ovens, the industrial use of shell, and some endemic extinctions. However, there are also intriguing uniformities in the cultural assemblages: in the suites of artifacts discarded and assumed supply zones for those artifacts, in the economic faunal suites, and in the apparent level of intensity of occupation of the different sites. We concur with and extend the argument made by Glover (1986) that there was no substantial change in the nature of cave use in East Timor despite the possible subsistence changes that might have taken place. Their remarkable continuities reflect their similar placement within larger regional land-use systems through time: they represent diverse components of a larger domestic and totemic landscape, which appears to continue to this day. The scale of territoriality, degree of mobility, and extent of trade and exchange of groups must all be considered if the placement of caves within cultural landscapes is to be understood.