An exceptional assemblage of archaeological plant fibres from Windmill Way, southeast Cape York Peninsula

Abstract

To date only a handful of Australian archaeological sites with plant-based objects from the Mid-to-Late Holocene are known. This paper substantially increases this dataset by describing an assemblage of more than 500 fibre fragments from the site of Windmill Way in southeast Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. These objects predominantly represent the end stages of fibre processing, primarily comprising string and netted and looped fabric, with an age range spanning from 1,700–1,589 cal BP to 252–75 cal BP. While the highly fragmented nature of the Windmill Way assemblage makes definitive identification of individual objects difficult, double looping, rather than knotting, was the preferred means of construction, with many pieces clearly deriving from dillybags. Rarer pieces may be fragments of pubic tassel belts or mourning strings. The string, knots, mesh, gauge and loops were all relatively uniform through time, demonstrating intergenerational knowledge of a refined and stable practice. The presence of only two post-contact items (a hooked piece of wire and a strip of red cloth), combined with the radiocarbon sequence, suggests that the site was abandoned around the time Europeans invaded the region in 1874, when wide-scale frontier conflict commenced. Detailed microscopic analysis of the fibres to identify plant species, as well as analyses of the macrobotanics, resins and other organic material culture items recovered from the site are ongoing. © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Open Access BY-NC-ND 4.0.