Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains an image of deceased people, which is used with permission from the Traditional Owners.
In May 2020, as part of a legally permitted expansion of its iron ore mine, Rio Tinto announced destructive An ancient rock shelter in Juukan Gorge in Puutu Kunti Kurrama Country in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
In collaboration with the traditional owners, we excavated the shelter – known as Juukan 2 – in 2014, six years before it was destroyed. We found evidence that indigenous people first used Juukan 2 around 47,000 years ago, likely throughout the last ice age, and up until just a few decades before the cave was destroyed.
The site contained thousands of important objects including an ancient strand of human hair, tools and other artifacts, and animal remains. The excavation results led to last-minute efforts to halt the destruction of the site, but they were unsuccessful.
the Full results of the excavations First published today in Quaternary Science Reviews.
archeology
Where is Gokhan and what happened there?
Juukan is a gorge system consisting of a series of caves in the Pottu Kunti Kurama area, about 60 km northwest of Tom Price, in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
The Jukan 2 rock shelter is one of the caves that make up this system. It was once part of a deep gorge with freshwater sinkholes and large camping areas surrounding massive ironstone mountains and a large river that flowed some times of the year and was dry at other times.
Today, the area is part of Rio Tinto’s iron ore mine. As widely reported in May 2020, the Juukan 2 rock shelter It was destroyed during mine expansion activities.Although Rio Tinto obtained ministerial approval to destroy the heritage site, this action was against the wishes of the traditional owners.
The destruction has led to widespread international condemnation. The light shone On substandard heritage protection legislation in Western Australia.
What is the important thing about Juukan?
Juukan Gorge is named after one of the ancestors of Butu Kunti Kurama. It is of great importance for cultural and scientific reasons.
For the Puutu Kunti Kurrama people, Juukan is a deeply spiritual place that contains profound evidence of their existence and connection to the landscape of their traditional country.
In terms of scientific significance, Juukan 2 is one of the oldest known sites of Aboriginal settlement in Australia. While there are some sites that have been found to be older, such as Majdibaby in Kakadu In the Northern Territory and off the coast of western australiaThere are only a few ancient places like Juukan in the interior of Australia.
Jukan is located about 500 kilometers from the coast today. Even about 10,000 years ago, when sea levels rose, it was about 1,000 kilometers from the coast.
This means that the people living around Jukan were skilled at living in the desert. This is also evident from the fact that they were able to continue using the cave even during the last ice age (about 28,000 to 18,000 years ago). Archaeologists have found very little direct evidence from this period at any other sites.
Often, a handful of artifacts is considered sufficient evidence to prove that people used an archaeological site. However, at Juukan 2 we found thousands of artifacts, including several that contained resin from the spinifex plant, which was likely used as a type of glue to hold together composite tool pieces.
archeology
The Jukan 2 site also contained amazing evidence of animal presence throughout the ages. We found broken bones of animals that died naturally, as well as bones associated with people who cooked and ate kangaroos, ostriches and even echidnas at the site.
Among the items was a strand of human hair dating back about 3,000 years. The hair was DNA tested and found to be likely linked to the traditional owners who were part of the excavation team.
The material we found was very well preserved. We even found a bone head made from a kangaroo shin bone dating back about 30,000 years with ochre on the end. We don’t know what it was used for, but the ochre may indicate a ritual function.
Michael Slack
What now?
After the explosion in 2020, we began re-excavating the site. Over the past two years, we have removed about 150 cubic meters of rubble that formed the roof and back wall of the cave. Under the rubble, we found traces of organic material, and then remains of the cave floor.
Terry Hayes
The excavation has now reached the original floor level across most of the site, and we are carefully digging and uncovering more amazing material. This includes more braided hair, shell beads that we believe were brought from the coast, and fragments of the jaw of a Tasmanian devil, an animal that became extinct on mainland Australia more than 3,000 years ago.
The publication of these results from 2014 is just the next chapter in the archaeology of Juukan 2, a special place for its traditional owners, but also of enormous importance to science and our understanding of Australia’s cultural heritage.
Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura Aboriginal Corporation are co-authors of this article and related research, and are collectively acknowledged for their cultural preferences.
