Bininj, the Kundjeihmi name for Aboriginal people, has been returning to Madjedbebe rock shelter in Mirarr Country in the Kakadu area (in the Northern Territory) for 65,000 years.
The environment around the rock shelter has seen dramatic changes over this long period of time.
Our paper Published last weekIn Quaternary Science Reviews, which uses old scraps from plant foods, once charred by the site’s fireplaces to examine how Aboriginal communities residing at the site responded.
This cooking material tells a story about resilience in the face changing climate, sea levels, vegetation.
A changing environment
The Madjedbebe Rock Shelter is 50 meters long and lies at the foot of a massive sandstone outlier. The site is dark and ashy from hundreds of past campfires, and it is littered in stone tools and grindstones.
The back wall is decorated by colorful and vibrant rock art. Some images, such as horses with wide-brimmed hats and decorated hands, ship, gun, and ships pictures, are quite recent. Others are likely to be many thousands of year old.
The site is located on the edge the Jabiluka Wetlands. It was built 65,000 years ago when sea levels were much higher.
This was the time when the world was experiencing a glacial phase (referred to as the Marine Isotope Stage 4). MIS 4) . Kakadu would have been fairly well-watered. Comparable to other parts of AustraliaThe monsoon vine forest vegetation would have retreated, as it was common at other times.
The glacial period would eventually end, followed by an interglacial and then another glacial phase, the Last Glacial Maximum.
Cut to the Holocene (10,000 year ago), and the weather became more hot and humid. The sea level rose quickly as a result of the rapid growth of Monsoon vine forest and open forest, as well as woodland vegetation.
Australia and New Guinea were completely separated from one another 7,000 years back, and the sea approached Madjedbebe from a high point of just 5km.
The rapid transformation of the Kakadu area was what followed. The sea receded initially, and the river systems around the site became estuaries. Mangroves then carved the lowlands.
These were partly replaced by freshwater wetland about 4,000 years ago. They were also formed 2,000 years earlier, forming the Kakadu wetlands.
Rare treasure
Our research team, which included archaeologists as well as Mirarr Traditional Owners wanted to understand how people lived in this changing environment.
We looked for an unlikely archaeological treasure: charcoal. It’s not something people think of when they think of charcoal, but if a fireplace is lit, many of its components, such as twigs, leaves, or food, can be transformed into charcoal.
These charred remains can survive for many years if they are kept in the right conditions. This has happened many times before. Bininj, who lived at Madjedbebe, left behind a variety of food scraps, including charred or fragmented fruit, nuts and palm stem, seeds and roots, and tubers.
High-powered microscopes were used to compare the anatomy of these charcoal pieces with plant foods still harvested from Mirarr Country. This allowed us to learn about the foods and places that they were gathered, as well as the seasons.
Ancient anme
People ate a wide variety of anme (the Kundjeihmi term for “plant foods”) from the very beginning of camp at Madjedbebe. This included plants such a pandanus nuts or palm heart that require tools, labor, and a lot of traditional knowledge to make edible.
These tools included edge-ground axes as well as grinding stone. These tools were all found in the oldest layers on the site, making them some of the oldest axes and earliest grinding stone in the world.
Our evidence suggests that Madjedbebe communities relied on harder-to process foods during the two drier glacial periods (MIS 4 & 2). People would have had to eat slower-processed foods because the climate was more dry.
An extremely prized anme, such as karrbarda (long-yam), Dioscorea transvera) and annganj/ankanj (waterlily seeds, Nymphea spp.) These were important elements of the diet during times when the freshwater vegetation and monsoon vine forest got closer to Madjedbebe, such as during wetland formation in recent 4,000 years and earlier wet phases. They were also sought out from further afield during drier times.
Change of seasons
Madjedbebe saw the largest shift in plant diet when freshwater wetlands were created. Bininj began to include freshwater plants in their diet around 4,000 years ago. They also began to return to Madjedbebe in a different season.
Instead of visiting the rock shelter when there are local fruit trees such a andudjmi, Buchanania obovata) were fruiting, from Kurrung to Kunumeleng (September to December), they began visiting from Bangkerrang to Wurrkeng (March to August).
This is when floodwaters recede and resources located at the edge or wetlands become available. Communities changed their diets to make the most of the environment after the formation of freshwater wetlands in patches 4,000 years ago.
The Mirarr and other Bininj consider the wetlands to be culturally and economically important. Dinnertime is filled with a variety of seasonal animals and plant foods, including magpie geese as well as turtles and waterlilies.
The burning question
It is likely that the First Australians did more than just respond to their environment. They also shaped it. Cultural burning is one way Bininj have modified the landscape of the Kakadu area today.
Fire is a cultural instrument that has many functions, including hunting, generating vegetation, and cleaning up campsites and pathways.
One of its most important functions involves the steady reduction in wet season biomass, which if left unchecked can become fuel for dangerous bushfires at Kurrung (September toOctober), at the end the dry season.
Our data shows that Madjedbebe was home to a variety of plant foods during Kurrung, which lasted from 65,000 years ago to 4,000 years.
This suggests that cultural burning is a continuing practice. Communities managed fire-sensitive varieties of plants and reduced the likelihood of high-intensity forestfires by practicing cultural burns of low intensity before the hottest times of the year.
Today, the Mirarr continue to return to Madjedbebe. The Mirarr’s knowledge of local anme is passed on to the next generation, who continue to shape this amazing cultural legacy.
Acknowledgment: We would like to thank Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation and the Mirrar, as well as our co-authors May Nango, Djaykuk Djandjomerr.
Anna Florin, Research fellow, University of Cambridge; Andrew FairbairnProfessor of Archaeology. The University of Queensland, Chris ClarksonProfessor in Archaeology. The University of Queensland.
This article is republished by The Conversationunder Creative Commons license Read the Original article.
