Indigenous Australians were manufacturing ceramics on a remote island, nearly 35 kilometres from the Queensland coast, more than 2000 years ago.
Pottery fragments found on Jiigurru (Lizard Island) in the Coral Sea are the earliest securely dated, locally produced pottery found in Australia that pre-dates the arrival of Europeans.
The discovery overturns the long-held belief that early Australians didn鈥檛 produce ceramics or have the maritime technology to undertake long sea voyages.
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Prior to this find, there were a mere 24 ceramic fragments known from islands in the Torres Strait, to Australia鈥檚 north. But from just one small excavation undertaken on Jiigurru, and conducted in partnership with local Indigenous people, archaeologists found 82 shards of pottery.
at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, who led the research, says the team estimates that there are more than 130 cubic metres of archaeological deposits at the site investigated. However, the team only excavated a 1-metre-square pit to a depth of 2.4 metres. All the pottery fragments were found between 40 and 80 centimetres below the surface.
Analysis of the fragments revealed the original pottery was made from clays local to the island. Significantly, while the pottery, some of which was decorated, was dated to between 2000 and 3000 years ago, the team found evidence that the site was occupied as far back as 6500 years ago.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 thousands of years before it was thought that Aboriginal people had offshore voyaging capabilities of this type,鈥� says Ulm.
He says the discovery raises many questions. 鈥淲here did the people on Jiigurru get this pottery-making technology from? The nearest place was the Lapita people of southern New Guinea, who were also making ceramics at this time.鈥�
Taken together, the dates, the pottery and the maritime technology required to reach Jiigurru demonstrate that the islanders had sophisticated canoe voyaging technology and open-sea navigational skills and suggest they were connected with peoples across the Coral Sea region.
Ulm expects the discovery to lead to a search for pottery sites in more offshore islands around Australia and along the mainland, where there has been relatively little archaeological work. 鈥淚t is extraordinarily improbable that the only instance of pottery is the one that we have found,鈥� he says.
at the University of Western Australia in Perth says this is the most significant Australian archaeological discovery in a generation.
鈥淭he familiar narrative that Aboriginal people were isolated from the rest of the world is clearly not correct,鈥� says Veth. 鈥淭here was a sphere of interaction. They鈥檙e making local pottery and there鈥檚 more than 80 fragments from one excavation. That鈥檚 a serious effort and it suggests a much more complex picture than ever known before.鈥�
Quaternary Science Reviews
