Stone Pages - Archaeo News (Australasia)

Ancient jade tool baffles scientists

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:42:35 +0100

Some time ago, researchers discovered a 3,300-year-old on Emirau Island in the Bismark Archipelago (a group of islands off the coast of New Guinea). The 2-inch (5-centimeters) stone tool was probably used to carve, or gouge, wood. It seems to have fallen from a stilted house, landing in a tangle of coral reef that was eventually covered over by shifting sands.
The jade gouge may have been crafted by the Lapita people, who appeared in the western Pacific around 3,300 years ago, then spread across the Pacific to Samoa over a couple hundred years, and from there formed the ancestral population of the people we know as Polynesians, according to the researchers. Jade gouges and axes have been found before in these areas, but what's interesting about the object is the type of jade it's made of: it seems to have come from a distant region. Perhaps these Lapita brought it from wherever they originated.
"In the Pacific, jadeite jade as ancient as this artifact is only known from Japan and its usage in Korea," study researcher George Harlow, of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, said in a statement. "It's never been described in the archaeological record of New Guinea."
Researchers from American Museum of Natural History studied the artifact with X-ray micro-diffraction, trying to pinpoint the origin of rocks. "When we first looked at this artifact, it was very clear that it didn't match much of anything that anyone knew about jadeite jade," Harlow said. The artifact's chemical composition "makes very little sense based on how we know these rocks form."
The jadeite in the rock is different from the jadeite jades found in Japan and Korea at the time. It's missing certain elements and has more-than-expected amounts of others; the stone came from another geological source, but the researchers aren't sure where. The only chemical match the researchers knew of was a site in Baja California Sur, Mexico. The researchers don't think it's likely that Neolithic people of thousands of years ago could have transported it across the Pacific, but they couldn't find any other explanations for its composition.
However, in an unpublished 20th-century German manuscript, C. E. A. Wichmann, described some curious rocks from Indonesia -about 600 miles (1,000 km) from the site where the jade tool was found - and the chemical properties he reported seem very similar to that of the artifact. Researchers are now investigating those samples to see if modern techniques can prove that the tool came from Indonesia.

Edited from LiveScience (26 January 2012)

Humans were skilled fishermen 42,000 years ago

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:26:11 +0100

Fish hooks and fish bones dating back 42,000 years found in a cave in East Timor suggest that humans were capable of skilled, deep-sea fishing 30,000 years earlier than previously thought. Nearly 39,000 fishbones and three fish hooks were found in a 1 square metre test dig in a limestone cave in Jerimalai, 300 metres from the coast and 50 metres above sea level.
"All the bones we got inside were just the result of human meals, 40,000 years ago," said Sue O'Connor from the Australian National University's department of archaeology and natural history, and the study's lead author.
The fish hooks were apparently made from the shells of the Trochus, a large sea snail. "They are very strong shell ... we think they just put bait on and dropped the hook in the water from a boat (at the) edge of a reef." The fish bones were traced to 23 species of fish, including tuna, unicorn fish, parrotfish, trevallies, triggerfish, snappers, emperors and groupers.
"Parrotfish and unicorn were probably caught on baited hooks ... but tuna are deepwater, fast-moving fish. Tuna and trevallies were probably caught by lure fishing," O'Connor said. "There was never any hint of (what) maritime technology people might have had in terms of fishing gear 40,000 years ago," said O'Connor. "(This study showed) you got ability to make hooks, you are using lines on those hooks. If you can make fibre lines, you can make nets, you are probably using those fibres on your boats."
Modern humans were capable of long-distance sea travel 50,000 years ago as they colonised Australia, but evidence of advanced maritime fishing has been rare. Researchers until now have only been able to find evidence of open-ocean fishing up to 12,000 years ago.

Edited from Reuters (14 January 2012)

Evidence of 42,000 year old deep sea fishing revealed

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 19:40:06 +0100

Prehistoric humans living more than 40,000 years ago had mastered the skills needed to catch fast-moving, deep-ocean fish, new archaeological finds reveal.
Jerimalai cave - a small rock overhang hidden behind foliage, a few hundred metres from the shore at the eastern end of East Timor - is where archaeologist Associate Professor Sue O'Connor from the Australian National University has unearthed the bones of more than 2,800 fish, some caught 42,000 years ago. "What the site has shown us is that early modern humans in island South East Asia had amazingly advanced maritime skills," she said, "it seems certain that these people were using quite sophisticated technology and watercraft to fish offshore".
So far, O'Connor and her colleagues have only excavated two small test pits, but in just one of those - 1 metre square and 2 metres deep - they found 39,000 fish bones along with a number of stone artefacts, bone points, animal remains, shell beads and fish hooks. They also unearthed a small piece of fishing hook made from shell between 23,000 and 16,000 years ago - the earliest example of a fishing hook ever found, the researchers say.
They are hopeful that more extensive excavations might reveal more hooks at the site. "I think Jerimalai gives us a window into what maritime coastal occupation was like 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, that we don't really have anywhere else in the world," Professor O'Connor said.

Edited from Science (24 November 2011), Radio Australia News, Mail Online (25 November 2011), Past Horizons (26 November 2011), The New York Times (28 November 2011)

Australia's rock art in a hard place

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 10:50:29 +0100

It takes a moment to get our eyes in, and then, leaping out of the sun-baked rocks, we spot engravings of kangaroos, dugongs and emus; turtles, birds and mythical beasts; complex geometric patterns; warriors with boomerangs; and bush turkeys. This small, unfenced valley in the north-west corner of Australia, marked by nothing more than a rusty metal sign, contains more ancient rock art than the whole of palaeolithic Europe.
Despite these riches, the Pilbara is probably the most remote coastal region in Australia. It is as large as Spain but has just 40,000 residents and is almost unvisited by tourists. Instead, this bleak, spectacularly rugged land is devoted to a different kind of wealth: mining. A region bearing a unique record of human culture stretching back 30,000 years is now home to some of the newest settlements in Australia: air-conditioned towns humming with iron ore and offshore gas industries.
A short drive takes us across salt flats to the peninsula and views of the 42 arid islands of the Dampier archipelago. Here, almost unheralded, lies one of the world's biggest collections of ancient art. It is estimated there are a million rock engravings on the peninsula, with 4,000 examples in Deep Gorge, where we stop to examine art created up to 30,000 years ago.
"It is no idle boast that this is the richest area for petroglyphs anywhere in the world," says Ken Mulvaney, a cultural heritage specialist with mining company Rio Tinto and the only person with a PhD on the rock art of the archipelago. "This art is done for a number of purposes," says Mulvaney. "Some of it is just to tell stories, some is identifying your presence in the area, some is for hunting magic and some has mythological associations. We seem to have had elaborate designs from the start," says Mulvaney. "They were a highly sophisticated people. They had a better lifestyle too. It's a lovely warm climate."

Edited from Heritage Daily (5 October 2011)

Aboriginal Australians descended from African migration

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 16:16:33 +0100

A 90-year-old tuft of hair has yielded the first complete genome of an Aboriginal Australian, a young man who lived in southwest Australia. He, and perhaps all Aboriginal Australians, the genome indicates, descend from the first humans to venture far beyond Africa more than 60,000 years ago, at least 24,000 years before the population movements that gave rise to present-day Europeans and Asians.
"Aboriginal Australians are descendents of the first human explorers. These are the guys who expanded to unknown territory into an unknown world, eventually reaching Australia," says Eske Willerslev, a palaeogeneticist at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, who led the study.
The most comprehensive genetic analysis carried out so far pointed to a single migration that spawned all Asian populations, including Aboriginal Australians. But estimated times of the separation of European and Asian ancestors in this population does not chime well with the archaeological evidence for the continuous settlement of Australia from much earlier times. A complete genome from an Aboriginal Australian would settle this debate, Willerslev says.
About a year ago, his team obtained a hair sample originally collected by the British ethnologist Alfred Cort Haddon in the early 1920s. An analysis of the genome of this sample indicates that his ancestors started their journey more than 60,000 years ago, branching off from humans who left Africa. The ancestors of contemporary Europeans and most other Asians probably went their separate ways less than 40,000 years ago, according to Willerslev's team.
Like other populations outside Africa, the Australian Aboriginal man owes small chunks of his genome to Neanderthals. More surprisingly, though, his ancestors also interbred with another archaic human population known as the Denisovans. This group was identified from 30,000-50,000-year-old DNA recovered from a finger bone found in Siberia.
A second study incorporating genomic surveys from different Aboriginal Australians paints an even clearer picture of their ancestors' exploits with the Denisovans. Researchers led by Mark Stoneking at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, calculated the portion of Denisovan ancestry found in the genomes of 243 people representing 33 Asian and Oceanian populations. Patterns of Denisovan interbreeding in human populations could reveal human migration routes through Asia, reasoned the team. This comparison revealed a patchwork in which some populations, including Australian Aboriginals, bore varying levels of Denisovan DNA, while many of their neighbours, like the residents of mainland Southeast Asia, contained none.
Stoneking says that this pattern hints at at least two waves of human migration into Asia: an early trek that included the ancestors of contemporary Aboriginal Australians, New Guineans and some other Oceanians, followed by a second wave that gave rise to the present residents of mainland Asia. Some members of the first wave (though not all of them) interbred with Denisovans. However, the Denisovans may have vanished by the time the second Asian migrants arrived. This also suggests that the Denisovan's range once extended to Southeast Asia and perhaps Oceania.
"Put together, these two papers make an overwhelming case for multiple waves of migration," says David Reich, a population geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, an author on the second study. Alan Redd, a biological anthropologist at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, says that the peopling of Australia may have been more complicated than either paper suggests. "It's certainly possible that people were trickling in at different times," he says.

Edited from University of Copenhagen, Nature News, EurekaAlert!, Popular Archaeology (22 September 2011)

Early settlers arrived in the Marianas 4000 years ago

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 08:59:07 +0100

The Marianas are among the first Pacific islands inhabited. Archaeologists discovered the Marianas archipelago's first inhabitants arrived around 2000 BCE, or 4000 years ago. In comparison, Hawaii's first inhabitants arrived 800 to 900 CE - 2200 years after the Marianas was inhabited.
The Marianas' ancestors were in the first of three Pacific migrations. Professor Patrick V. Kirch of the University of California at Berkeley (USA) Archaeology Research Facility notes that humans settled Marianas and Palau no later than 1500 BCE and possibly as early as 2000 BCE.
In the second of three migrations, Kirch continues, "Beginning 1300 BCE, the Lapita pottery-makers expanded rapidly beyond the Solomon Islands and into the southwestern archipelagoes of remote Oceania: Vanuatu, the Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa. Numerous radiocarbon-dated archaeological sites document that Lapita sites in all of these archipelagoes no later than 900 BCE."
"The final stage in the human settlement of the Pacific Islands began after 500 BCE, with the Polynesian dispersals eastward out of Tonga and Samoa. Most agree that the central Eastern Polynesian archipelagoes (such as the Society Islands, Cook Islands, and Marquesas Islands) were settled first, no later than 300 CE and perhaps some centuries earlier. Remote Easter Island was discovered by 800-900 CE, while the Hawaiian Islands were also well settled by this date," Kirch added.
Legends say the first inhabitants were giants called taotaomonas ('first people'). According to historian Pedro Sanchez, the Chamorros were different "in physical stature and culture, from islanders who populated Melanesia, the Philippines and other Micronesian islands, save perhaps the people of Kapingamarangi and its neighboring islands." Chamorro is classified under Austronesian languages.

Edited from Guampdn.com (13 August 2011)

Lapita pottery discovered in Fiji

Sat, 30 Jul 2011 18:46:25 +0100

For the first time ever, Lapita pottery has been discovered on Vanua Levu - formerly known as Sandalwood Island - the second largest island of Fiji. The pottery dating back 1100 BCE has been found on Vorovoro Island near Labasa.
Fiji Museum Chief Archeologist, Sepeti Matararaba said they thought Bourewa in Nadroga was the first settlement in Fiji however with this new find at Vorovoro, it meant that the first people to come to Fiji not only settled in Baurewa but split up and also settled in Vorovoro. Matararaba added that currently a professor from Simeon Fraser University and some students are doing surface collection of pottery in Vanua Levu.

Edited from Fijivillage.com (26 July 2011)

Tracing back the history of human evolution at Mungo

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 09:20:10 +0100

A project is currently underway at Lake Mungo, Australia, one of the oldest places outside of Africa to have been occupied by modern humans, to research the history of human settlement, past environmental change and the landscape evolution that has occurred in the area. In the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area the work involves tracing back the history of human settlement no less than 45,000 years.
Lake Mungo is the site of the world's oldest known cremation and ritual ochre burial as well as having the longest trail of ancient human footprints known, but surprisingly little is known about the people who lived here. Enter La Trobe University's palaeolithic archaeologist, Dr Nicola Stern. "There's an untold story at Mungo; Mungo is famous because of Mungo Lady, Mungo Man; a trail of fossil footprints," says Dr Stern. "We know surprisingly little about how people actually lived in this landscape over 45,000 years - and that's really what I'm trying to document by looking at the archaeological traces in the Mungo lunette."
The Mungo lunettes are half-moon shaped sand dunes built from ancient layers of the earth's surface which form the 'Walls of China' - a major enticement for visitors. Containing rich deposits of information, the lunettes have preserved hundreds of rare, snapshot images of Australia's earliest history and provide a unique record of the ways in which the first settlers may have adapted to the changes to their climate over time.
It is not only the scientific community who have longed for this work to be done; elders from the region's Aboriginal tribal groups are also supportive of the project and are working in collaboration with Dr Stern's team to monitor it. "Finding out what's there, and then monitoring what's happening to what's there, is something that the elders tell me they have wanted for a very long period of time," says Dr. Stern. There is a loyal team of around 20 others working with her and there will be more to come on board in the future. "Over time we will be training people and hope that they will pick this up and carry it on into the future."

Edited from ABC (14 July 2011)

Homo erectus did not live alongside modern humans in Indonesia

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 18:53:21 +0100

Homo erectus, an ancient human ancestor that lived from 1.8 million to 35,000 years ago, is said by theorists of human evolution to have lived alongside Homo sapiens (modern humans) in Indonesia, surviving most other Homo erectus populations that became extinct by 500,000 years ago. Perhaps not so, according to an international team of researchers.
The work was conducted by a team of scientists (the SoRT, or Solo River Terrace Project) under the direction of anthropologists Etty Indriati of Gadja Mada University, Indonesia, and Susan Antón of New York University. It involved geological surveys, site trenching, archaeological excavations, and analyses of animal remains related to two sites, Ndangong and Jigar, composed of terraces formed by sediment deposits along the Solo river in Indonesia.
In 1996, scientists dated Homo erectus fossils found at these sites to about 35,000 - 50,000 years ago, based on the dating of associated animal fossil teeth. This dating placed the early human finds contemporaneous with other Homo sapiens finds in Indonesia, suggesting that late-surviving Homo erectus individuals and Homo sapiens (who arrived in Indonesia about 40,000 years ago) shared the same environment at the same time. The SoRT team expedition, however, arrived at different results. Their findings indicate that Homo erectus was extinct in the area by at least 143,000 years ago, and more probably by at least 550,000 years ago, long before the arrival of Homo sapiens.
This is significant because scholarly critics of an earlier expedition finds have suggested that the sites may have contained a mixture of the fossil remains of younger animals and older homin (early human) fossils, which cast doubt in some minds about the validity of the dates assigned to the homin remains. However, evidence found from the newer excavations indicated that the sediments were actually deposited over a very short time period, and that intermixing of sediments from different time periods, and thus by extension the artifacts and fossils contained within them, did not occur.
The project team applied three different dating techniques to the finds at the sites. All three depended upon rates of radioactive decay ; the first two, applied to fossil teeth yielded dates approaching 143,000 years. The third methodology was applied to pumice material, a light, porous volcanic rock found within the sediments. The results of this application yielded relatively precise dates around 550,000 years.
Project scientists posit different plausible theories or possibilities that might account for the enormous gap between the dates obtained, but all agree on one thing - they provide a minimum and a maximum date for a time range that clearly and significantly predates those suggested by the earlier study. According to SoRT, Homo erectus could not have inhabited Indonesia any later than about 143,000 years ago. "Thus," says Indriati, "Homo erectus probably did not share habitats with modern humans."
The 'Out of Africa' model, perhaps the most widely held theory among evolutionists today, suggests posits that archaic Homo sapiens (an earlier version of modern humans) evolved to anatomically modern humans solely in Africa between 200,000 and 150,000 years ago, and that members of anatomically modern humans left Africa by between 125,000 and 60,000 years ago, replacing earlier human populations such as Neanderthals and Homo erectus over time. Geographic and time period overlapping would be a natural occurrence under this scenario. The 'Muliti-regional Hypothesis', on the other hand, does not predict such an occurrence. It holds that humans first arose near the beginning of the Pleistocene two million years ago and that evolution occurred within a single species, which included a variety of forms such as Homo erectus and Neanderthals. This species evolved into the currently diverse anatomically modern human populations known today by a combination of adaptations within various regions of the world and gene flow between those regions.

Edited from Popular Archaeology (29 June 2011)

Coconut genetics speak of prehistoric migrations

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 08:35:52 +0100

The coconut (the fruit of the palm Cocos nucifera) provides a high-calorie food, potable water, fibre that can be spun into rope, a hard shell that can be turned into charcoal - and until it is needed for some other purpose it serves as a handy flotation device.
So extensively is the history of the coconut interwoven with the history of people travelling the oceans, that Kenneth Olsen - a plant evolutionary biologist - didn't expect to find much geographical structure to coconut genetics. He was in for a surprise. It turns out there are two different populations of coconuts, strongly suggesting the coconut was brought under cultivation in two separate locations - one in the Pacific and the other in the Indian Ocean. What's more, coconut genetics also preserve a record of prehistoric trade routes and of the colonisation of the Americas.
One exception to the general Pacific/Indian Ocean split is the western Indian Ocean, where coconuts are a genetic mixture of the two types. Olsen adds that a recent study of rice varieties found in Madagascar shows a similar mixing of rice varieties from Southeast Asia and India. The Indian Ocean coconut was transported to the New World by Europeans - from the Indian Ocean to the west coast of Africa, into the Caribbean and also to coastal Brazil.
On the Pacific side of the New World tropics, however, the coconuts are Pacific Ocean coconuts. Some appear to have been transported there in pre-Columbian times by ancient Austronesians. During the colonial period, the Spanish brought coconuts to the Pacific coast of Mexico from the Philippines.
This is why, Olsen says, you find Pacific type coconuts on the Pacific coast of Central America and Indian type coconuts on the Atlantic coast.

Edited from Past Horizons (28 June 2011)

Half of all Aboriginal rock art could disappear soon

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 10:26:15 +0100

While Australia has some of the world's most outstanding and abundant rock art, experts say half of it could disappear over the next 50 years unless it is better protected. Urban development, mining and vandalism - as well as erosion and other natural processes - are among threats to the art found in rock shelters, often in remote areas. Some sites have already been bulldozed, or had paintings defaced or carved out. Many Aboriginal communities have lost their connection with the art, which their ancestors looked after and retouched over generations.
One obstacle facing conservationists is that knowledge is fragmented; no one is even sure how many sites there are, although estimates suggest up to 100,000. Academics are calling for a national database to be set up, which would enable them to document the images properly and identify those most at risk. But they need to raise A$6m , which has not yet been forthcoming. In addition, few Australians know or care much about Aboriginal rock art, according to Paul Tacon, a professor of anthropology and archaeology at Griffith University in Queensland: "A lot of people are simply not aware that this is part of our national heritage and identity; it's not just something indigenous. We want to raise awareness that these are important, special places; they are part of the Australian identity," he said.
The oldest surviving Aboriginal art dates back 15,000 years, compared with the estimated 34,000-year-old cave paintings at Chauvet, in southern France. However, archaeologists have found evidence - including pieces of ochre, used for pigment - that Aboriginal people began producing art soon after arriving in Australia more than 45,000 years ago.
Rock art specialists want to pinpoint Australia's top 100 sites, and then use advanced technology such as laser scanning to produce 3D digital replicas. "The art is disappearing at an alarming rate, so we need to get good records of it before it's lost," says Wayne Brennan, an archaeologist with part-indigenous heritage. Until now, archives have been kept by state and territory governments, museums, universities, national parks bodies, Aboriginal communities and individual researchers. Professor Tacon says: "It's extremely important to bring these diverse records together, because at the moment rock art research, conservation and management happen on an ad hoc basis. Some sites have been lost because people haven't realised their importance."
Although not as old as the art at Chauvet and other European cave sites, Aboriginal rock art is considered significant because of the sheer volume of it, the powerful quality of some of the work and the fact it was created continuously over the millennia until about 20 years ago.

Edited from The Independent (11 June 2011)

25,000-year-old Aboriginal burial site found

Sun, 22 May 2011 12:38:55 +0100

Heavy rainfall earlier this year has helped to uncover an Aboriginal burial site near Condobolin (New South Wales, Australia) believed to be more than 25 thousand years old. The remains of an aboriginal man were found on a private property, around 50 kilometres from the town. An archaeologist with the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage Phil Purcell says the fossilisation of the bones dates them as being around 10 thousand years old.
However he says the location of the grave, near the former watercourse of the Lachlan River, suggests the find could be even older.
"Scientists had previously dated part of these ancient watercourses to 25 thousand years ago, when that part of the Lachlan River, now extinct, was flourishing with water," Mr Purcell said. "Who knows, it's buried right next to a very watered area which 25 thousand years ago was very well watered so we could be looking at around about that time period, maybe even older."
The New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage is now working with the local indigenous community to preserve the rare find with the possibility or relocation.

Edited from ABC News (19 May 2011)

Debate continues over growth of Aboriginal population

Wed, 18 May 2011 17:13:28 +0100

A great debate is under way following the use of a new mathematical model, which has been used to predict the growth pattern of the native Australian Aboriginal population, in the time prior to the arrival of Europeans.
The model's author is ecologist Professor Christopher Johnson of the University of Tasmania. His paper was accepted by the Royal Society back in April and is published online this week. He contends that the previous use of radiocarbon dating to predict population growth is flawed as it does not take into account loss of evidence from older sites. He claims that his mathematical model, developed in conjunction with Professor Barry Brook of the University of Adelaide, has allowed for this and he predicts that the Aboriginal population growtrh throughout the Holocene, was exponential i.e. increasing at an increasing rate, quoting a growth rate increase from 10% to 40% per 1,000 years, over the last 10,000 years.
One of the most vehement opponents to this theory is archaeologist Doctor Sean Ulm of James Cook University. He claims that the model does not take into account regional variability and that the research was focused on rock shelters, whilst ignoring settlements in open sites. What is certain is that this debate has a long way to run yet.

Edited from ABC Science (11 May 2011)

Heritage status for ancient ochre mine in Australia

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 19:48:49 +0100

A 30,000-year-old ochre mine in outback Western Australia has been granted national heritage status by the federal government, a move that will help protect the historic site from encroaching iron ore developments.
The Wilgie Mia ochre mine in the Weld Range is where Aborigines extracted red, yellow and green ochre, which was then traded across Australia, as far away as north Queensland. Its bright red ochre is still used for Aboriginal art, law and healing activities. There is a considerable amount of rock art in the vicinity, as well as the archeological remains of an ancient tool factory. The site has also been a centre of traditional ceremonies.
The listing means the Wilgie Mia mine is now an area protected by Australia's national heritage regime. This will not prevent development, but Heritage Minister Tony Burke says it means any activity likely to have a significant impact on the site's value would need to be referred to the environment minister.
The government estimates that as much as 19,600 cubic metres of ochre and rock, weighing about 40,000 tonnes, was removed from the mine using techniques such as tunnelling and scaffolding. Traditional owner Colin Hamlett says the listing will provide some protection, but points out it will cover only 2000ha around the mine. Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation, which assists indigenous groups with native title negotiations, worked with the Wajarri Yamatji native title group to research the significance of the area and to ensure that relevant cultural information was included in the final heritage listing report that went to the federal minister.

Edited from The Australian (8 March 2011)

Bukit Bunuh: a major Palaeolithic site in Malaysia

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 16:10:28 +0100

Archaeologists recently announced that a 4 km square Palaeolithic complex in Bukit Bunuh (Malaysia) is in fact one of the oldest geochronologically dated sites outside Africa, with occupations dating back to more than 1.83 million years ago, and later occupation phases from 40,000 years ago and 30,000 years ago.
"Evidence indicates that this site had always been occupied," said Assoc. Prof. Mokhtar Saidin, the Director of the Centre for Global Archaeological Research, Universiti Sains Malaysia. "Bukit Bunuh was chosen as the site for early settlement as it not only provided the natural resources needed to make stone tools but was an ancient environment that had water resources from ancient lakes, flora and fauna," he said.
The discovery of a series of hand-axes, announced on 2009, indicated that this is the only Palaeolithic site in the world with a stone tools workshop that continued to be used periodically from 1.83 million years ago. Research at Bukit Bunuh has also uncovered evidence supporting the theory that the disappearence of the local Paleolithic culture was caused by a meteorite impact 1.83 million years ago. This was provided by geomorphologic evidence, the presence of suevite stone - a type of rock formed by the impact of meteorite - and the geology of the area.
Last month, the Malaysian National Heritage Department submitted a report to UNESCO; a team from the agency of the United Nations is expected to visit the site in July this year and the results will be announced next year. "This recognition is crucial to ensure that the artefacts, including thousands of suevite stones in this area are preserved as national heritage. There should be on-going research to get a true picture of the people who settled in this area since 1.83 million years ago and this can change several theories about the Palaeolithic people such as the nomadic theory and movement of prehistoric man," said Mokhtar.

Edited from Researchsea.com (18 February 2011)