Researchers Use Radiocarbon Dating of Mud Wasp Nests and Find A 17,300-Year-Old Illustration of a Kangaroo
One of the most appealing features of Australia is its wildlife. Only a few places in the world can surpass Australia in terms of its flora and fauna. Despite the diversity of the animals found in this country, there is one particular animal that has become interwoven with Australia's identity. A recent discovery now links it with its ancient history, stated The University of Melbourne. Findings regarding this discovery have been published in Nature Human Behavior.
The animal in question is the kangaroo, whose illustration in Western Australia’s Kimberley region has now been recognized as the country's oldest intact rock painting. This assertion was made by experts based on the radiocarbon dating of mud wasp nests near the paintings. The dating determined the painting to be somewhere between 17,500 and 17,100 years old. "This makes the painting Australia’s oldest known in-situ painting," said Postdoctoral Researcher Dr. Damien Finch, who pioneered the exciting new radiocarbon technique.
The illustration is present on the roof of a rock shelter at the Unghango clan estate in Balanggarra country, above the Drysdale River. Researchers believe the Kangaroo rock art was created in an Irregular Infill Animal style. Such paintings mostly have as their subjects life-size animals and are created in outline form. Their insides are filled with irregular dashes. The traditional owner of the area, Augustine Unghango, was delighted to know about the painting's history, stated The Guardian. "It really lifted my spirits up when I found out how old it was. It’s important that we do this," he said. Older art has been uncovered in Australia, but they have all been fragments, the experts claimed.
The 6.5ft long painting was unique from other specimens, as experts were able to detect mud wasp nests, both overlying and underlying the illustration, The University of Melbourne stated. In most cases, only one kind of wasp nest was detected. Using the wasp nests, experts were able to find the maximum as well as the minimum age of the artwork. "We radiocarbon dated three wasp nests underlying the painting and three nests built over it to determine, confidently, that the painting is between 17,500 and 17,100 years old; most likely 17,300 years old," Dr. Finch shared.
The team examined the wasp nests from eight rock shelters. These nests surrounded 16 ancient rock paintings in total. The results indicated that these creations belonging to the Irregular Infill Animal style were made somewhere between 17,000 and 13,000 years ago. Researchers are hopeful that these examinations will help them understand the environment where these paintings were made. "This is a significant find as, through these initial estimates, we can understand something of the world these ancient artists lived in. We can never know what was in the mind of the artist when he/she painted this piece of work more than 600 generations ago, but we do know that the Naturalistic period extended back into the Last Ice Age, so the environment was cooler and drier than today," Dr. Finch added.
The study claims that these illustrations showcase that Ice Age humans in the region had links with populations in Southeast Asia. "This iconic kangaroo image is visually similar to rock paintings from islands in South East Asia dated to more than 40,000 years ago, suggesting a cultural link – and hinting at still older rock art in Australia," Dr Sven Ouzman, from the University Western Australia’s School of Social Sciences and one of the project’s chief investigators said.
Experts believe this discovery is an important piece of information related to the legacy of the Aboriginal people and Australians. "It’s important that indigenous knowledge and stories are not lost and continue to be shared for generations to come," Cissy Gore-Birch, Chair of the Balanggarra Aboriginal Corporation, said. "The dating of this oldest known painting in an Australian rock shelter holds a great deal of significance for Aboriginal people and Australians and is an important part of Australia’s history."
The next step is to analyze more paintings in the area, according to The Guardian. "Our purpose is to understand the history of human habitation in Australia and we do that through rock art and its different contexts," Cas Bennetto, of the non-profit Rock Art Australia that helped fund the research, said.