The Pleistocene period, known as the last ‘great ice age’, saw much of the Earth’s water frozen into ice caps, forming land bridges that allowed people to travel, including to Australia. The Holocene period began around 12 000 years ago, with melting ice and rising sea levels shaping today’s continents. These periods differ from European time periods like the Stone Age or Bronze Age, as they are based on climate and sea level changes. By 1788, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples lived across Australia, adapting to various climates. The rising sea levels of the Holocene period covered land bridges between New Guinea and Australia, and between Australia and Tasmania, creating the islands we see today. This separation led to isolated island life, with people in Tasmania and the Torres Strait relying more on the sea for food. 2.4.2 Changing Country and culture About one-seventh of Australia’s land was covered by rising oceans at the end of the last Ice Age. Dreaming stories remember these changes and tell of long-ago events. Half of Australia’s coast turned into sandy beaches, 30 per cent became tidal flats and 20 per cent changed to cliffs and estuaries. Many coastal people became islanders or moved away as their land was covered by water. The Keppel Islands were now 13 km from the mainland. Woppaburra Peoples used one-piece bark canoes to travel between the islands and used stone drills to make fishhooks from turtle shells. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples lived near what is now the Great Barrier Reef for thousands of years. Before the reef formed over 7000 years ago, they lived where the ocean floor is now. As the reef formed, the coastline moved more than 30 km inland. Dreaming stories say the reef islands were once joined to the mainland. People walked across floodplains and hills to hunt kangaroos and emus. In the region of the Spencer Gulf in modern-day South Australia, the Nukunu Peoples tell of the great flood that came and swallowed their land. In the area surrounding Kangaroo Island, an ancestral being ordered the waters to rise and drown his wives as they were running away from him. All these Dreaming stories explain what modern science has revealed about the changing landscape that came with climate change of the Holocene period.
SkillBuilder discussion Using historical sources 1. What evidence of inhabitation did archaeologists find on Barrow Island? 2. Where is Boodie Cave located? 3. What information did the records of Barrow Island provide us with?
SOURCE2 From Naaman Zhou’s ‘Earliest evidence of Aboriginal occupation of Australian coast discovered’, The Guardian , 2017. Australia’s oldest [known] coastal site was found in a cave on Barrow Island in Western Australia. People lived there more than 50,000 years ago. Archaeologists found charcoal, animal bones, and old tools. Barrow Island, 60 kilometers from the Pilbara coast, became an island about 7,000 years ago because of rising sea levels. The cave was used for hunting and living, and it has the oldest record of what people ate in Australia.
TOPIC2 Deep Time to modern era 29
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