‘Mind-blowing': inside the highest human-occupied ice age site found in Australia
When Erin Wilkins first stood inside the cavernous Dargan shelter, she was awestruck.
'You don't understand how big it is until you step inside and you're this tiny little thing inside this massive bowl,' she says. 'You just had to sit and take it in.'
The Darug and Wiradjuri woman's instincts told her that this yawning cave, on a Darug songline in the upper reaches of the Blue Mountains, held ancient stories.
She was right.
New scientific evidence has revealed people lived in the shelter during the last ice age 20,000 years ago, when the high country was treeless, frozen and – until now – believed to be too hostile for human habitation.
Archaeologists say the huge rock hollow was a camping spot 'kind of like the Hyatt of the mountains', occupied continuously until about 400 years ago.
At an elevation of 1,073 metres, it is the highest human-occupied ice age site found in Australia. It also aligns the continent for the first time with global findings that icy climates did not prevent humans from travelling at high altitudes in ancient times.
The groundbreaking study was a collaboration between archaeologists and Aboriginal custodians who have spent six years mapping rock shelters across the greater Blue Mountains area, spanning 1m hectares of mostly untouched wilderness west of Sydney.
Some sites are known only to a handful of Aboriginal people or intrepid bushwalkers. Others have only just been rediscovered.
Dargan shelter, a mysterious cave on private property near Lithgow, had long been a place of interest due to its location on a ridge line connecting east to west.
In 2021 Wayne Brennan, a Gomeroi archaeologist, and Dr Amy Mosig Way, a research archaeologist at the University of Sydney and the Australian Museum, got a permit to excavate it.
Working alongside six Aboriginal groups, they dug to a depth of 2.3 metres, sifting through the sandy layers to reveal the cave's secrets.
They unearthed 693 artefacts. Among them was a 9,000-year-old anvil, probably used for cracking seeds and nuts.
A little deeper they found a sandstone grinding slab from about 13,000 years ago, its grooves suggesting it was used to shape bone or wooden implements.
Radiocarbon dating confirmed the oldest evidence of human habitation was about 20,000 years old.
Way says the 'remarkable' findings show a continuous sequence of occupation from the ice age until about 400 years ago.
'It's just such a kind of mind-blowing experience when you unearth an artefact that was last touched by someone 20,000 years ago,' she says. 'It's almost like the passing of the object through time from one hand to the other.'
For Brennan, the findings resonate on a deeper level. The rock art expert has spent decades poking around caves in the mountains but had never seen anything like Dargan shelter. 'I sit in there and feel like I'm shaking hands with the past,' he says.
Brennan discusses the findings not in terms of specific dates but in reference to 'deep time'.
'Deep time is a term that I use, in a sense, to connect the archaeology and the Tjukurpa [the creation period that underpins Aboriginal lore],' he says. 'Because with the Tjukurpa, it's timeless.'
This weaving of scientific and cultural knowledge was central to helping the researchers interpret the findings and understand how the cave would have been used in ancient times.
Brennan says it was probably a 'guesthouse on the way to a ceremony place'.
The study has upended long-held beliefs about the way humans moved through the mountains – showing that people not only traversed the high country but stayed there for long periods.
The site is now 'the most significant archaeological landscape in Australia in terms of ice age occupation', according to Way.
Local Aboriginal custodians hope the research will help secure more protection for their cultural places, many of which were damaged during the 2019 bushfires.
The greater Blue Mountains area holds deep significance for the Darug, Wiradjuri, Gomeroi, Dharawal, Wonnarua and Ngunnawal peoples. It was listed as a Unesco world heritage site in 2000 for its flora and fauna but this did not extend to recognise cultural heritage.
Wilkins, who is also a cultural educator with the Darug Custodian Aboriginal Corporation, would like to see that change.
'It's important to preserve [cultural heritage] – not only for Australian history or for archaeology but for our people for generations to come,' she says.
As more sites are 'reawakened', Wilkins says, there is a profound effect on her people and her country. 'It strengthens who we are and it strengthens and heals country,' she says.
'We're back listening to her stories. We're back sitting with our ancestors of yesterday.'
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