Bone tools found in Riwi Cave in the Kimberley, WA. Credit: Michelle Langley
New research has reappraised the age of bone artefacts found in a famous Kimberley cave site as being more than 35,000 years old, making them among the oldest bone tools found in Australia.
Published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, the team of scientists from across Australia analysed eight bone artefacts from Riwi Cave in Mimbi country in south-central Kimberley, Western Australia.
Dr Michelle Langley from ARCHE.
Four of the bone artefacts were found in layers that dating to between 35,000 and 46,000 years ago, making them some of the oldest bone tools in Australia. Previously, the oldest bone artefact from Carpenter’s Gap 1 in the Kimberley was found to have be
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They were likely used for a range of activities at the site, including as jewellery, making reed baskets and plant fibre fishing nets, and hunting.
Prof O Connor said they may have also been used to make clothing out of animal skins to protect against the cold, challenging earlier assumptions such tools were only found in cooler southern climates.
Archaeologist Michelle Langley said the find showed bone tools had been used for at least 45,000 years by the Mimbi people. We previously assumed bone tools weren t widely used in northern Australia and only made it into the toolkit in the last 20,000 years, she said.
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Bone tools found in the Kimberley among oldest in Australia
7 April 2021
These new finds from the arid zone have changed our perspective.
Bone tools found in a well-known Kimberley cave site are more than 35,000 years old and among the oldest discovered in Australia, according to new research.
The research team from Griffith University, The University of Western Australia (UWA) and The Australian National University (ANU) analysed eight bone tools from Riwi Cave in Mimbi country in the south-central Kimberley region of Western Australia.
Four of the bone tools found in layers dating to between 35,000 and 46,000 years ago indicate the artefacts are among the oldest uncovered in Australia.