Reply to comments on Clarkson et al. (2017) ‘Human occupation of northern Australia by 65,000 years ago’

Clarkson, C; Roberts, RG; Jacobs, Z; Marwick, B; Fullagar, R; Arnold, LJ; Hua, Q

Reply to comments on Clarkson et al. (2017) ‘Human occupation of northern Australia by 65,000 years ago’

Date

2018-04-26

Authors

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Abstract

We thank the authors for their comments in the previous issue of Australian Archaeology. The 2012– 2015 research at Madjedbebe offers a new and comprehensive look at the early occupation of Sahul and adds substantially to our knowledge of the timing of that event and the behaviour of the first people to enter the region. Establishing occupation of northern Australia by 65 ± 6 thousand years ago (ka, with the uncertainty expressed at 95.4% probability) pushes human presence in the Top End back beyond the earliest ages so far reported for other Australian sites by c. 5,000–15,000 years (Roberts et al. 1994; Hamm et al. 2016; Veth et al. 2017), thus raising interesting questions as to the latitudinal extent of continental occupation prior to 50 ka. © 2018 Australian Archaeological Association

Keywords

Indigenous peoples, Human populations, Archaeology, Australia, Carbon 14, Charcoal

Citation

Clarkson, C., Roberts, R. G., Jacobs, Z., Marwick, B., Fullagar, R., Arnold, L. J., & Hua, Q. (2018). Reply to comments on Clarkson et al.(2017) ‘Human occupation of northern Australia by 65,000 years ago’. Australian Archaeology, 84(1), 84-89. doi:10.1080/03122417.2018.1462884