Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-qlrfm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T19:31:29.836Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Problems with Radiometric “Time”: Dating the Initial Human Colonization of Sahul

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

R. Esmée Webb
R. Esmée Webb*
Affiliation:
Yamaji Language Centre, P.O. Box 433, Geraldton, WA 6531 Australia
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Until recently, the only chronometric technique applied to Sahulian archaeological sites was 14C dating; the ages obtained rarely exceeded 40,000 bp. Belief that the region was first colonized around that time has recently been shaken by luminescence dates from several archaeological sites in northern Australia that suggest people arrived between 60,000 and 55,000 bp. The ensuing debate over their validity revealed that some participants misunderstood luminescence dating and the temporal limitations of 14C dating, illustrated here through a discussion of the tempo and mode of Sahulian colonization. Radiometric techniques cannot distinguish between the models proposed because they are unable to resolve temporal issues that occur within their limits of error.

Type
Part 2: Applications
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 40 , Issue 2: 16th International Radiocarbon Conference June 16-20, 1997 Part 2: Applications, Conference Editors: Willem G. Mook Johannes van der Plicht , 1997 , pp. 749 - 758
Copyright
Copyright © The American Journal of Science 

References

Allen, J. 1989 When did humans first colonize Australia? Search 20: 149–154.Google Scholar
Allen, J. 1994 Radiocarbon determinations, luminescence dating and Australian archaeology. Antiquity 68:339–343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, J. and Holdaway, S. 1995 The contamination of Pleistocene radiocarbon determinations in Australia. Antiquity 69: 101–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, I. 1991 First Australians headed south in haste. New Scientist 132(1796): 3.Google Scholar
Birdsell, J. M. 1977 The recalibration of a paradigm for the first peopling of greater Australia. In Allen, J., Golson, J. and Jones, R., eds., Sunda and Sahul London, Academic Press: 113–167.Google Scholar
Bowdler, S. 1977 The coastal colonisation of Australia. In Allen, J., Golson, J. and Jones, R., eds., Sunda and Sahul. London, Academic Press: 205–246.Google Scholar
Bowdler, S. 1989 Australian colonization – a comment. Search 20: 173.Google Scholar
Bowdler, S. 1990a 50,000 year-old site in Australia – is it really that old? Australian Archaeology 31: 93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowdler, S. 1990b Peopling Australia: The “coastal colonisation” hypothesis re-examined. In Mellars, P. A., ed., The Emergence of Modern Humans. Edinbugh, Edinburgh University Press: 327–343.Google Scholar
Bowdler, S. 1991 Some sort of dates at Malakunanja II: A reply to Roberts et al. Australian Archaeology 32: 50–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowdler, S. 1993 Sunda and Sahul: A 30kyr bp culture area? In Smith, M. A., Spriggs, M. and Fankhauser, B., eds., Sahul in Review. Occasional Papers in Prehistory 24. Canberra, Prehistory Department, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University: 60–70.Google Scholar
Brown, P. 1993 Recent human evolution in East Asia and Australasia. In Aitken, M. J., Stringer, C. B. and Mellars, P. A., eds., The Origin of Modern Humans and the Impact of Chronometric Dating. Princeton, Princeton University Press: 217–233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buck, C. E., Christen, J. A., Kenworthy, J. B. and Litton, C. D. 1994 Estimating the duration of archaeological activity using 14C determinations. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 13: 229–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buck, C. E., Litton, C. D. and Scott, E. M. 1994 Making the most of radiocarbon dating: Some statistical considerations. Antiquity 68: 252–263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chappell, J., Head, M. J. and Magee, J. W. 1996 Beyond the radiocarbon limit in Australian archaeology and Quaternary research. Antiquity 70: 543–552.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, I. and Noble, W. 1992 Why the first colonisation of the Australian region is the earliest evidence of modern human behaviour. Archaeology in Oceania 27:135–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankel, D. 1990 Time inflation. New Scientist 127 (1724): 52–53.Google Scholar
Fullagar, R. L. K., Price, D. M. and Head, L. M. 1996 Early human occupation of northern Australia: Archaeology and thermoluminescence dating of Jinmium rockshelter, Northern Territory. Antiquity 70: 751–773.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillespie, R. 1991 The Australian marine shell correction factor. In Gillespie, R., ed., Quaternary Dating Workshop 1990. Canberra, Department of Biogeography and Geomorphology, Australian National University: 15.Google Scholar
Hallam, S. J. 1987 Coastal does not equal littoral. Australian Archaeology 25: 10–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hiscock, P. 1990 How old are the artefacts in Malakunanja II? Archaeology in Oceania 25: 122–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horton, D. R. 1981 Water and woodland: The peopling of Australia. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies Newsletter 16: 21–27.Google Scholar
Jones, R. 1989 East of Wallace's line: Issues and problems in the colonisation of the Australian continent. In Mellars, P. A. and Stringer, C. B., eds., The Human Revolution. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press: 743–782.Google Scholar
Jones, R. 1992 The human colonisation of the Australian continent. In Bräuer, G. and Smith, F. H., eds., Continuity or Replacement? Rotterdam, Balkema: 289–301.Google ScholarPubMed
Kramer, A. 1991 Modern human origins in Australasia: Replacement or evolution? American Journal of Physical Anthropology 86: 455–473.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Long, A. and Rippeteau, B. 1974 Testing contemporaneity and averaging radiocarbon dates. American Antiquity 39: 205–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lourandos, H. J. 1987 Pleistocene Australia: Peopling a continent. In Soffer, O., ed., The Pleistocene Old World. New York, Plenum Press: 147–165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meltzer, D. J. and Mead, J. I. 1985 Dating late Pleistocene extinctions: Theoretical issues, analytical bias and substantive results. In Mead, J. I. and Meltzer, D. J., eds., Environments and Extinctions: Man in Late Glacial North America. Orono, Center for the Study of Early Man, University of Maine: 145–173.Google Scholar
Moffett, J. C. and Webb, R. E. 1983 Database management systems, radiocarbon and archaeology. In Stuiver, M. and Kra, R. S., eds., Proceedings of the 11th International 14C Conference. Radiocarbon 25 (2): 667–668.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mulvaney, D. J. 1969 The Prehistory of Australia. London, Thames and Hudson: 276 p.Google Scholar
Mulvaney, D. J. 1975 The Prehistory of Australia. 2nd. ed. Melbourne, Penguin: 327 p.Google Scholar
Rick, J. W. 1987 Dates as data: An examination of the Peruvian preceramic radiocarbon record. American Antiquity 52: 55–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rindos, D. J. and Webb, R. E. 1992 Modelling the initial human colonisation of Australia: Perfect adaptation, cultural variability and cultural change. Proceedings of the Australasian Society for Human Biology 5: 441–454.Google Scholar
Roberts, R. G., Jones, R. and Smith, M. A. 1994 Beyond the radiocarbon barrier in Australian prehistory. Antiquity 68: 611–616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, R. G., Jones, R., Spooner, N. A., Head, M. J., Murray, A. S. and Smith, M. A. 1994 The human colonisation of Australia: Optical dates of 53,000 and 60,000 years bracket human arrival at Deaf Adder Gorge, Northern Territory. Quaternary Science Reviews 13: 575–583.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, M. A. 1989 The case for a resident human population in the Central Australian Ranges during full glacial aridity. Archaeology in Oceania 24: 93–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, M. A., Prescott, J. R. and Head, M. J. 1997 Comparison of 14C and luminescence chronologies at Puritjarra rockshelter, Central Australia. Quaternary Science Reviews 16: 299–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thorne, A. G. and Wolpoff, M. H. 1992 The multiregional evolution of humans. Scientific American 266(4): 28–33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wallace, A. R. 1860 On the zoological geography of the Malay Archipelago. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society of London 4: 172–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, G. K. 1994 On the use of radiometric determinations to “date” archaeological events. Australian Aboriginal Studies 1994/2: 106–109.Google Scholar
Ward, G. K. and Wilson, S. R. 1978 Procedures for comparing and combining radiocarbon age determinations: A critique. Archaeometry 20: 19–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waterbolk, H. T. 1971 Working with radiocarbon dates. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 37(2): 15–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webb, R. E. 1992 Sand traps for the unwary – problems in the interpretation of sedimentological analyses. Queensland Archaeological Research 9: 45–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webb, R. E. and Rindos, D. J. 1997 The mode and tempo of the initial human colonisation of empty land-masses: Sahul and the Americas compared. In Clark, G. A. and Barton, M., eds., Rediscovering Darwin: Evolutionary Theory in Archaeological Explanation. Washington, D.C., American Anthropological Society: 233–250.Google Scholar
Webb, R. E. and Rindos, D. J. in press, When “fast” was “slow”: the initial human colonisation of Sahul was radiometrically “instantaneous”. Journal of Archaeological Science. Google Scholar
White, J. P. and O'Connell, J. F. 1982 A Prehistory of Australia, New Guinea and Sahul. Sydney, Academic Press: 286 p.Google Scholar
Wilson, A. C. and Cann, R. L. 1992 The recent African genesis of humans. Scientific American 266(4): 22–27.Google ScholarPubMed