An excavation at Laili collapse East Timor in 2019 Copyright:
Mike Morley
A cave on the island of Timor has given archaeologists a significant clue to the route taken by historic people once they first made their option to the Australian continent.
It’s identified from archaeological proof in Australia’s Northern Territory that folks had been there not less than 65,000 years in the past. Presently, when sea ranges had been decrease, Australia and New Guinea had been half of a bigger landmass often called Sahul.
Researchers imagine there are two possible routes folks might have taken from South-East Asia to Sahul. One is a southern route through Timor. Alternatively, Homo sapiens might have travelled through Sulawesi, an island to the north of Timor.
Now, Sue O’Connor on the Australian Nationwide College in Canberra and her colleagues imagine they’ve discovered proof ruling out the chance that the primary arrivals got here via Timor.
In different places on Timor, the oldest proof of human occupation was lower than 50,000 years outdated. Archaeologists had been unable to search for older artefacts as, in any respect the opposite websites they studied, they hit bedrock quite than sediment layers that might doubtlessly include proof of an earlier presence, says O’Connor.
In 2019, her staff dug a brand new pit at a cave referred to as Laili, on the north coast of East Timor, and found a wealthy deposit of archaeological proof together with tens of hundreds of stone instruments, proving that people had occupied the island for 44,000 years.
Crucially, nevertheless, this layer of occupation was underlain by sediments with no proof of people. This implies it’s possible that earlier than 44,000 years in the past, folks had been absent, says O’Connor.
“This is the first time in Timor that we have sterile, non-occupation layers below evidence of people’s presence,” she says.
O’Connor says such a transparent boundary between no proof of people adopted by tens of hundreds of years of artefacts is known as an “arrival signature”.
The cave’s outstanding location and entry to sources provides the researchers confidence that it’s unlikely to have been missed by any early people travelling via the realm.
“It’s a really, really big cave with a big flowing river in a braided floodplain and very close to the coast,” says O’Connor. “It’s a perfect place for people to establish an occupation base camp. You couldn’t find a more ideal setting.”
Due to the proof that folks had been in Australia 65,000 years in the past however not in Timor till 44,000 years in the past, it means people most definitely migrated through the islands to the north, says O’Connor.
“Looking at the layers in Laili cave, it’s like ‘bang’ – you can really see clearly when the people arrive,” she says. “It was like a line had been drawn between the two layers – before people and after people. It was so clear.”
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