| Bone Cave | |
|---|---|
  | |
| Location | Tasmania |
| Coordinates | 42°50′13″S146°27′25″E / 42.837°S 146.457°E Coordinates: 42°50′13″S146°27′25″E / 42.837°S 146.457°E |
| Features | Stone artifacts made from various raw materials including chert, quartz, quartzite, and hornfels |
Bone Cave, located in the Middle Weld Valley of Tasmania, is a small vertical limestone cave with a rich history of human occupation. [1] [2]
The oldest dated materials found at the site, including charcoal and stone artifacts, date back to around 29,000 years ago. However, the period of most intensive human use occurred between 16,000 and 14,000 years ago, after the glacial maximum. [1] [2]
During this period, the cave was used as a workshop for the production of stone tools, with the most common materials used being quartzite, chert, and quartz. The use of bipolar anvilling, a method for fracturing small water-rounded quartz pebbles, increased during this time. Large flakes of quartzite and chert were also common and were often used to create steep-edged scrapers. [1] [2]
The cave was also used as a hunting site, with the red-necked wallaby being the most commonly hunted prey, followed by wombats. A wider variety of other animals were also hunted. [1]
Evidence of human occupation at Bone Cave appears to be sporadic, with long gaps between periods of occupation dating back to 35,000-10,000 years ago. The site was eventually abandoned and covered with a layer of moon milk. [1] [2]
In addition to stone tools, a single piece of Darwin glass, a type of rare and ancient glass found in the region, was also found at the site dating back to between 16,000 and 14,000 years ago. This makes Bone Cave the occupation site located the greatest distance from the Darwin Crater, where the glass is more commonly found, with a direct line distance of 100 km. [1] [2]
A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric cultures that have become extinct. Archaeologists often study such prehistoric societies, and refer to the study of stone tools as lithic analysis. Ethnoarchaeology has been a valuable research field in order to further the understanding and cultural implications of stone tool use and manufacture.
Archaeologists define a chopper as a pebble tool with an irregular cutting edge formed through the removal of flakes from one side of a stone.
Tabon Man refers to remains discovered in the Tabon Caves in Lipuun Point in Quezon, Palawan in the Philippines. They were discovered by Robert B. Fox, an American anthropologist of the National Museum of the Philippines, on May 28, 1962. These remains, the fossilized fragments of a skull of a female and the jawbones of three individuals dating back to 16,500 years ago, were the earliest known human remains in the Philippines, until a metatarsal from the Callao Man discovered in 2007 was dated in 2010 by uranium-series dating as being 67,000 years old. However, some scientists think additional evidence is necessary to confirm those fossils as a new species, rather than a locally adapted population of other Homo populations, such as H. erectus or Denisovan.
Prehistoric Korea is the era of human existence in the Korean Peninsula for which written records do not exist. It nonetheless constitutes the greatest segment of the Korean past and is the major object of study in the disciplines of archaeology, geology, and palaeontology.
Sibudu Cave is a rock shelter in a sandstone cliff in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is an important Middle Stone Age site occupied, with some gaps, from 77000 years ago to 38000 years ago.
Howiesons Poort is a collection of stone tools with shared design features found in Africa and named after the Howieson's Poort Shelter archeological site near Grahamstown in South Africa. Dating back to the Middle Stone Age, this technocomplex is believed to have lasted around 5,000 years between roughly 65,800 and 59,500 years ago.
Border Cave is a rock shelter on the western scarp of the Lebombo Mountains in KwaZulu-Natal near the border between South Africa and Eswatini. Border Cave has a continuous stratigraphic record of occupation spanning about 200,000 years. The site contains anatomically modern Homo sapiens skeletons, stone tools, bone tools, and faunal remains. Dating by carbon-14, amino acid racemisation and electron spin resonance (ESR) places the oldest sedimentary ash at some 200,000 years ago.
Broken Mammoth, Alaska is an archeological site located in the Tanana River Valley, Alaska, in the United States. The site was occupied approximately 11,000 B.P. to 12,000 B.P. making this one of the oldest known sites in Alaska. Charles E. Holmes discovered the site in 1989 and investigation of the site began in 1990 and excavations are ongoing to this day.
Aboriginal sites of Victoria form an important record of human occupation for probably more than 40,000 years. They may be identified from archaeological remains, historical and ethnographic information or continuing oral traditions and encompass places where rituals and ceremonies were performed, occupation sites where people ate, slept and carried out their day to day chores, and ephemeral evidence of people passing through the landscape, such as a discarded axe head or isolated artefact.
Tautavel Man refers to the archaic humans which—from approximately 550,000 to 400,000 years ago—inhabited the Caune de l’Arago, a limestone cave in Tautavel, France. They are generally grouped as part of a long and highly variable lineage of transitional morphs which inhabited the Middle Pleistocene of Europe, and would eventually evolve into the Neanderthals. They have been variably assigned to either H. (s.?) heidelbergensis, or as a European subspecies of H. erectus as H. e. tautavelensis. The skull is reconstructed based on the specimens Arago 21 and 47, and it is, to a degree, more characteristic of what might be considered a typical H. erectus morphology than a typical H. heidelbergensis morphology. The brain capacity is 1,166 cc. They seem to have had an overall robust skeleton. Average height may have been 166 cm.
The Kalemba Rockshelter is an archaeology site located in eastern Zambia, at coordinates 14°7 S and 32°3 E. Local tradition recalls the use of the rock shelter as a refuge during the time of Ngoni raiding in the 19th century. The site is known for various rock paintings as well as advanced microlithic use.
Melkhoutboom Cave is an archaeological site dating to the Later Stone Age, located in the Zuurberg Mountains, Cape Folded Mountain Belt, Sarah Baartman District Municipality in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.
Ngalue Cave is an archaeological site located in the Niassa province of Mozambique. Excavated primarily by Julio Mercader in 2007, Ngalue is a Middle Stone Age site. Due to its relatively dry environment and the shape of the cave, Ngalue had very good preservation and not only were stone tools and animal bones found. There were preserved starch grains on many of the stone tools as well. Overall, this site can help add to our knowledge of the Middle Stone Age site in the Niassa valley and to our understanding of the subsistence of Middle Stone Age peoples in Eastern Africa as a whole.
Laang Spean refers to a prehistoric cave site on top of a limestone hill in Battambang Province, north-western Cambodia. The site's name Cave of Bridges hints to the many limestone arches that remain after the partial collapse of the cave's vault. Although excavations are still in progress, at least three distinct levels of ancient human occupation are already documented. At the site's deepest layers, around 5 meters below the ground, primitive flaked stone tools were unearthed, dating back to around 71,000 years BP. Of great interest are above layers that contain records of the Hoabinhian whose stratigraphic and chronological context has yet to be defined. Future excavations at Laang Spean might help to clarify the concept and "nature of the Hoabinhian" occupation and provide new data on the Pleistocene/Holocene transition in the region
Matupi Cave is a cave in the Mount Hoyo massif of the Ituri Rainforest, Democratic Republic of the Congo, where archaeologists have found evidence for Late Stone Age human occupation spanning over 40,000 years. The cave has some of the earliest evidence in the world for microlithic tool technologies.
Kilu Cave is a paleoanthropological site located on Buka Island in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. Kilu Cave is located at the base of a limestone cliff, 65 m (213 ft) from the modern coastline. With evidence for human occupation dating back to 30,000 years, Kilu Cave is the earliest known site for human occupation in the Solomon Islands archipelago. The site is the oldest proof of paleolithic people navigating the open ocean i.e. navigating without land in sight. To travel from Nissan island to Buka requires crossing of at least 60 kilometers of open sea. The presence of paleolithic people at Buka therefore is at the same time evidence for the oldest and the longest paleolithic sea travel known so far.
At the end of the last Ice Age, Newfoundland and Labrador were covered in thick ice sheets. The province has had a continuous human presence for approximately 5000 years. Although Paleo-Indians are known from Nova Scotia dating back 11,000 years, no sites have been found north of the St. Lawrence. The oldest traces of human activity, in the form of quartz and quartzite knives, were discovered in 1974 in southern Labrador, but some archaeologists have speculated that a human presence may go back as much as 9000 years. Highly acidic soils have destroyed much of the bone and other organic material left behind by early humans and thus complicates archaeological research.
Panga ya Saidi is an archaeological cave site located in Kilifi County, southeastern Kenya, about 15 km from the Indian Ocean in the Dzitsoni limestone hills. The cave site has rich archaeological deposits dating to the Middle Stone Age, Later Stone Age, and Iron Age. Excavated deposits preserve an unusually long record of human activities, from around 78,000 years ago until around 400 years ago, a chronology supported by radiocarbon dating and optically stimulated luminescence dating. This sequence puts Panga ya Saidi alongside other key sites such as Enkapune ya Muto, Mumba Rockshelter, and Nasera Rockshelter that are important for understanding the Late Pleistocene and the Middle to Later Stone Age transition in eastern Africa.
Kuumbi Cave is an archaeological site located in Kusini District, Unguja South Region of Tanzania. It has been important in determining patterns of human occupation since its formation over 20,000 years ago. Unusual lithic and ceramic finds dated within the last 2,000 years make Kuumbi Cave a unique site. Its name in Swahili, Pango la Kuumbi, translates to "Cave of Creation".
The Mlambalasi Rock Shelter is a historic site located in Iringa District of Iringa Region in southern Tanzania, 50 km away from Iringa City. Excavations in 2006 and 2010 by the Iringa Region Archaeological Project uncovered artifactual deposits from the Later Stone Age (LSA), the Iron Age, and the historic periods, as well as external artifacts from the Middle Stone Age (MSA). Direct dating on Achatina shell and ostrich eggshell beads indicates that the oldest human burials at Mlambalasi are from the terminal Pleistocene. Mlambalasi is characterized by interment LSA and Iron Age periods, as well as by cycles of use and abandonment.