mungo man

The Dating Method Stretches Back the Human History of Australia

Up until the 1950’s, it was widely believed that Australia wasn’t inhabited by the Aboriginals until 10,000 years ago. The breakthrough use of Carbon 14 dating extended the date to around 40,000 years ago.

New techniques such as optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), are giving evidence for an earlier date for arrival. Charles Dortch has dated recent finds on Rottnest Island, Western Australia at 70,000 years BP and following the analysis of pollen and charcoal, there were suggestions of people using fire to clear land in the Lake George basin in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales as early as 120,000 years ago. Furthermore, thermoluminescence dating of the Jinmium site in the Northern Territory suggested a date of human inhabitants 200,000 years ago.

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There are over a million petroglyphs in this area with depictions of the extinct Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) and possibly the first ever representation of the human face.

About The Author

Annie Waddington-Feather (follow me: e-mail or

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Last three pieces by this author:

Battle of the Titans: Ancient Sites vs Mass Tourism | Without Evidence: Atlantis Theories, Slightly More Left of Centre | Travel the Spice Route: Maps and Tips to Plan Your Trip

Annie partly satiated her travel lust and fascination with the ancients as a tour leader for an adventure travel company. She now lives in Australia and writes for a number of publications ranging from travel and martial arts to insurance and finance trade.

The Archaeology of Ancient Australia

Submitted by Brian Fagan on Fri, 07/31/2009 - 07:15

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The Archaeology of Ancient Australia

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The tyranny of the ethnographic record has dogged Australian archaeology for generations. This is hardly surprising, given the often exiguous archaeological signature, a long preoccupation with chronology, culture history, and the Dreamtime, and the availability of numerous, albeit often fractured, historical accounts dating to the past two centuries. Other assumptions have bedeviled research as well, notably a persistent notion that ancient Aboriginal societies were conservative and changed little over thousands of years.

However, the past quarter century has seen a dramatic flowering of multidisciplinary research, notably into climatic and environmental change, in which archaeology has played an important part. Australian researchers have both benefited from, and contributed importantly to, a new generation of hunter-gatherer studies that have transformed many of our perceptions of such societies, ancient and modern. Fortunately, the days of preoccupation, nay obsession, with the San of Southern Africa’s Kalahari Desert as a model hunter-gatherer society are now history. Peter Hiscock’s introduction to a now very complex subject reflects the dramatically changed face of Australian archaeology.

Getting The Balance Right

About The Author

Brian Fagan (follow me:

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Brian Fagan is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of numerous general books about the past. His latest book is Cro-Magnon (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2010). See www.brianfagan.com