A fragment from the edge of 46,000-49,000-year-old polished stone axe.
Advertisement
The discovery provides a possible solution to the enduring question of where axes originated, as well as putting the lie to assertions that early Aboriginal technology was a simple affair. Detailed results can be found in the journal Australian Archaeology.
Five years ago, she and another professor started a project to reevaluate some previous discoveries.
That said, people may have established in Australia and created axes.
The axe, which originally had a handle, would have been a technological wonder of its age. “But in most countries in the world they arrive with agriculture 10,000 years ago”.
The finding then suggests that early Australian settlers already began to invent new technologies.
Fragments of the world oldest axe which is a size of a thumbnail has been found in Australia. Although humans spread across Australia, axes were only made in the tropical north.
Hiscock adds that the discovery validates the point that humans colonised the world not due to some particular skill that they could apply in all areas, but because of their creativity and innovativeness.
The axe fragment was initially excavated in the early 1990s by Professor O’Connor at Carpenter’s Gap 1, a large rock shelter in Windjana Gorge National Park in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
It was only when she and her colleagues were studying that haul in more detail in 2014 that they discovered the tiny piece of polished stone.
This type of axe is a sophisticated specimen with a high sheen on its edges – the result of being rubbed against sandstone hundreds of times.
“Polished stone axes were crucial tools in hunter-gatherer societies and were once the defining characteristic of the Neolithic phase of human life”, said Hiscock.
“But clearly that’s not the case when you have these hafted axes earlier in Australia than anywhere else in the world”.
“It’s a relatively small fragment, it’s not much more than a centimetre (half an inch) long”, said Hiscock, who used a digital microscope to analyse the piece and determine it was man-made.
After the hafted axe was found, bits of it were analyzed by Peter Hiscock, an archeology professor from the University of Sydney.
“Although humans spread across Australia, axe technology did not spread with them”, he said. This could indicate there were two waves of settlement in the continent or that humans abandoned the technology as they spread into desert and sub-topical woodlands. Researchers say that other regions don’t show evidence of this type of tool use until around 10,000 years ago. Commenting on the new ground-stone finding, he said its very singular nature makes it hard to draw confident conclusions.
The large limestone rock shelter is believed to have been nearly continuously occupied since the first humans arrived around 50,000 years ago. Studies have revealed that it broke off the polished edge of an axe – possibly a rounded-edge hafted axe (an axe with a handle attached) – while its bearer re-sharpened it.
Advertisement
“It could’ve been smoothed off for some other reason”.
