Australia's First Peoples: hunters of extinct megafauna or Australia's first fossil collectors

Abstract

Claims have been made about the presumed role of Australia's First Peoples in the extinction of some of Australia's megafauna. However, evidence used to suggest butchering may instead demonstrate fossil collection by Australia's First Peoples. Using micro-computed tomography scanning and microscopic wear analysis, we analysed a cut sthenurine tibia from Mammoth Cave, Western Australia, previously interpreted as evidence of butchering. Our analyses suggest the cut occurred long after death and probably after fossilization. We investigated the possibility of long-distance transportation of a premolar of Zygomaturus trilobus gifted by First Peoples in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. This species is otherwise unknown from northern Australia but common in southern Australia. Using X-ray fluorescence, we tested the potential provenance of the premolar and found that it was elementally indistinguishable from Mammoth Cave premolars. These results suggest that First Peoples may have collected fossils in southern Australia before carrying them to the Kimberley region. A review of other recent claims of killing and/or butchering of extinct megafaunal species suggests they too may have been collected as fossils. We argue that fossils were valued, being collected and transported long distances by the First Peoples in Australia in all probability thousands of years before Europeans arrived on this continent.

Keywords: Australia; First Peoples; extinction; incision; megafauna.

Figure 1.

Mammoth Cave tibia (WAM 67.11.46) of an extinct sthenurine kangaroo. Whole fossil specimen (a) showing remnants of the CaCO₃ encrustation (brown) covering much of the distal end of the shaft. The cut (b) has two components: the relatively coarsely marked distal face on the left and the relatively finer marked proximal face on the right (see text). Photos: Anna Gillespie.

Figure 2.

Location of localities noted in this paper. The cut tibia and the Zygomaturus trilobus Charm are shown near the areas where they were obtained (Mammoth Cave and Mount Hart, respectively; red symbols). Photos: Anna Gillespie, Helen Ryan and Western Australian Museum. See also figures 1 and 3.

Figure 3.

The Kimberley Charm, containing a right upper third premolar (RP³) of the extinct diprotodontid Zygomaturus trilobus (a, occlusal view), mounted in spinifex resin and with attached string made of hair (b). Abbreviations: ant, anterior; ling, lingual. Photos: Michael Archer and Western Australian Museum.

Figure 4.

Speleothems (flowstone) coating fossil bone (a) from the Glauert Excavation site in Mammoth Cave. These speleothems provided a radiometric date of 49 ± 2 ka. Photo: Jon Woodhead. Glauert Excavation site (b) with the late Lindsay Hatcher’s torchlight indicating from where the sample was obtained. The aeolianite cave wall above and behind the brownish fossil deposit was also dated as was a broken stalactite adjacent to this site. Photo: Michael Archer.

Figure 5.

Stereopair macroscopic images of the two faces of the cut in WAM 67.11.46. In low-angle lighting, focus is on the proximal face (top half) of the cut (a) and the distal face (bottom half) of the cut (b). Photos: Anna Gillespie.

Figure 6.

Examples of microscopic wear features on the distal face (a) and proximal face (b) from specimen WAM 67.11.46. Textural attributes (Sdr and Asfc) characterizing the surfaces of the two faces are shown in (c). The relatively chaotic, nonlinear cuts in the distal surface (a) clearly contrast with the relatively more uniform, less complex linear cuts in the proximal surface (b).

Figure 7.

Cross sections revealing internal fractures detected by µCT imaging of WAM 67.11.46. Three of nine longitudinal cracks are indicated by red arrows in the cross section (a). The external expression of one of the longitudinal cracks is indicated by red arrowheads along the surface of the bone. Within the area of the cut (b), the single transverse fracture (white arrow) is terminated at each end by two longitudinal cracks indicating that its development post-dated that of the longitudinal cracks. Approximate positions of cross sections (a) and (b) in WAM 67.11.46 (c). Photo in (c) by Anna Gillespie.

Figure 8.

Plot of the results of the LDA analysis, with group convex hulls drawn. Black numbered points represent samples of the Charm and correspond to samples listed in table 3. Mammoth Cave = 18 individual P³ teeth of Z. trilobus from Mammoth Cave. Greenough River = a P³ of Z. trilobus from Greenough River. Kununurra = a tooth of Nototherium inerme from a fossil deposit in the Kimberley region. Windjana Gorge = a diprotodontid tibia from Windjana Gorge.