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Aboriginal homes date back ‘up to 9,000 years’
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CIRCULAR stone foundations discovered on an island in Western Australia suggest that Aborigines were building “houses” up to 9,000 years ago, a researcher said yesterday.
University of Western Australia archeologists discovered the series of knee-high stone rings on Rosemary Island in the Dampier Archipelago, an area rich in Aboriginal rock art, several years ago. But they were only recently dated to being 8,000 to 9,000 years old, meaning the island is home to one of Australia’s oldest settlements.
“Excavations on Rosemary Island, one of the outer islands, have uncovered evidence of one of the earliest known domestic structures in Australia, dated between 8,000 and 9,000 years ago,” said researcher and professor Jo McDonald.
“This is an astounding find and will be of great benefit to Aboriginal communities in the area, enhancing their connections to their deep past and cultural heritage,” she said.
Professor McDonald, director of the university’s Center for Rock Art Research and Management, said the “houses” would probably have been covered with roofs made from plants or skins.
The spaces were divided up, with one area apparently used for grinding seeds while another held the remains of shells gathered for food. There were also engravings on several of the boulders.
McDonald said the find suggested that Aboriginal people had occupied the island before and through the last ice age but that as rising sea levels flooded what were once coastal plains, they were forced to live in more cramped spaces.
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