Aboriginal People Made Pottery and Sailed to Distant Offshore Islands Thousands of Years Ago

Researchers have discovered new evidence that shows Aboriginal people made pottery and sailed to distant offshore islands thousands of years ago.Aboriginal people made pottery and sailed to distant offshore islands thousands of years before Europeans arrived, new research shows. Picture: SuppliedPottery was largely unknown in Australia before the recent past, despite well-known pottery traditions in nearby Papua New Guinea and the islands of the western Pacific.

In new research, we report the oldest securely dated ceramics found in Australia from archaeological excavations on Jiigurru on the northern Great Barrier Reef located 600km south of Torres Strait. Our analysis shows the pottery was made locally more than 1800 years ago.Back in 2006, several pieces of pottery were found in Blue Lagoon on Jiigurru, 33km off mainland Cape York Peninsula.

In 2013 we went back to Jiigurru to excavate a shell midden on a headland near where the Blue Lagoon pottery was found. A shell midden represents a place where people lived, containing food remains , charcoal from campfires, and stone tools left behind. The pottery stopped at about 80cm depth, with 82 pieces of pottery in total. Most are very small, with an average length of just 18 millimetres. The pottery assemblage includes rim and neck pieces and some of the pottery is decorated with pigment and incised lines.The deepest cultural material was found nearly two metres below the surface, in levels we radiocarbon dated to around 6500 years ago. This is the earliest evidence for offshore island use on the northern Great Barrier Reef.

Aboriginal People Pottery Sailing Offshore Islands Australia Europeans Research

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