Researchers find mysterious 9,000 year old structures in Western Australia

Archaeologists from the University of Western Australia have discovered evidence of one of the continent’s oldest settlements – circular stone houses dating back to shortly after the last ice age, making them between 8,000 and 9,000 years old, various media outlets have reported.

The discovery was made by Professor Jo McDonald and her colleagues at a site on the Dampier Archipelago, a chain of islands located off the coast of Western Australia. The houses were dated using the shells of edible mangrove gastropods found inside, according to The Australian.

In a statement, Professor McDonald called this “one of the earliest known domestic structures in Australia,” adding, “This is an astounding find and has not only enormous scientific significance but will be of great benefit to Aboriginal communities in the area, enhancing their connections to their deep past and cultural heritage.”

According to ScienceAlert, the researchers discovered knee-high rock walls and believe that whoever built the structures may have used them and tree boughs to make a roof from branches or other plant materials. They added that the domiciles appeared to have individual rooms, such as a special area for sleeping and another for working.

While similar domestic structures have been found at other locations in Australia, none of those have been as old as these homes, which were originally found in 2014 but only recently dated by the research team. McDonald’s team has yet to publish a paper on their discovery.

Purpose of the structures not entirely known, authors reveal

The shells found within the structures were terebralia, a mangrove gastropod which is known to have been eaten by Aborigines who frequently carried them inland to sites near water, the study authors said. McDonald told The Australian that they found “evidence of people grinding seeds on the rock floors inside the houses as well as shell food remains.”

“We don’t really know what they were used for as these types of structures were not used in the historic periods,” the professor added. “We assume they were a way of marking out social space for groups living close together as the sea level rose after the ice age, pushing groups inland into smaller territories. While these people were hunter-gatherers, these structures suggest [they] were developing social strategies to be more sedentary, to cope with environmental change.”

Alternatively, they could have been designed as a way to be protected from the wind, she noted. Research conducted over the past year indicates that the area was occupied by people as far back as 21,000 years ago, while previous studies have found evidence of human occupation that dates back more than 50,000 years ago at nearby Barrow Island, according to ScienceAlert.

“As well as containing more than one million rock engravings of great scientific and cultural significance, the Archipelago is home to one of the country’s largest industrial ports,” Professor McDonald said in a press release. “We anticipate that this extraordinary rock art estate will produce some spectacular insights into what life was really like in deep history.”

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Image credit: Thinkstock

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