The Aboriginal peopling of New England. How the New England landscape went through dramatic changes

The Byron landslip scar. This is the fifth in a series on the Aboriginal peopling of New England drawn from the introductory course I have been running on New England's history.

Aboriginal oral tradition records memories of great floods as the sea rushed in. These are usually attributed to large scale sea level rises as the icy conditions of the Last Glacial Maximum (21,000 to 15,000 years ago) eased and sea levels rose.

I suspect that’s broadly true, but they may also included memories of submarine landslide induced tsunamis, many of which occurred over the last 25,000 years along the Southern Queensland and Northern NSW coasts.

These tsunamis came about because of land collapses along the steeply sloping continental shelf. These collapses sent great blocks of rock and sediment plunging down the steeply sloping shelf out to sea over distances up too 100km and depths of 3,000m. You can imagine the effects on sea levels.

While spectacular, these changes were only a small part of the challenges faced by Australia’s Aboriginal peoples.

In my last column, I discussed what the Aboriginal occupation of New England might have looked like perhaps 40,000 years ago.

The Aborigines had arrived on the ancient content called Sahul at a time when the climate was colder but damper.

From perhaps 25,000 years ago, the environment deteriorated significantly.

Globally, the ice spread. As it did, the climate became colder and drier, deserts spread and trees retreated. This climatic regime peaked during the Last Glacial Maximum 21,000 to 15,000 years ago.

Sahul became very dry, both intensely hot and intensely cold. Sea levels fell by 60+ metres to perhaps 130 metres below current levels. Sea temperatures fell to 2-4 degrees C below those of today.

The effects across New England were dramatic. In the west, there were cold arid conditions. The deserts expanded eastwards. Stream flow was reduced. Trees and animals retreated.. In the east, the falling sea levels revealed a rugged inhospitable shore. While the coastal areas remained relatively well watered, food resources would have been reduced.

On the New England Tablelands, average temperatures fell by perhaps 8 degrees C. The Tablelands marked the start of a region of cold steppe and scattered sub-alpine woodland sweeping down through the southern Snowy Mountains into Tasmania, making it an inhospitable region for human habitation.

Faced with these changing conditions, the Aborigines would have been forced to retreat to refuge areas where food was still available. Some groups would have perished.

Better conditions lay ahead, but challenges had to be surmounted first.

This post appeared as a column in the on-line edition of the Armidale Express on 23 April 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020 

The Aboriginal peopling of New England - What did Aboriginal life look like in New England 40,000 years ago?

Over c48,000 years, Tableland lagoons such as Little Llangothlin have provided a potential resource for Aboriginal people. This is the fourth in a series on the Aboriginal peopling of New England drawn from the introductory course I have been running on New England's history.

In my last column I suggested that while we had no direct archaeological evidence, the pattern of archaeological dates across Sahul suggested that first Aboriginal occupation of the broader New England may have taken place around 40,000 years ago.

Given the present absence of archaeological evidence, what might this occupation have looked like? To start answering this question, we need to start with New England’s geography.

In the east, the coastline as we know it today with its rich estuarine and marine resources did not exist and would not do so for another 34,000 years.

Sea levels were 60 metres lower than present. Because the continental shelf in this part of Australia is generally relatively narrow and steep sloping, the land revealed by the lower waters was often rugged, falling away to the then coastline,

The rivers from the Tablelands that now meander to the sea would have been faster flowing, their courses straighter with smaller estuaries. However, while the coastal environment was not as rich as it would later be, the combination of coastal, riverine and land environments would have been sufficient to support human occupation.

Inland, the Western Slopes and Plains would have been relatively well watered and potentially rich in resources. Again, it seems unlikely that the area was left vacant.

Further force is provided to this tentative conclusion in that in moving south whether by the inland or coastal routes, the advancing Aborigines would have passed through the broader New England. 

But what about that bit in the middle, the New England Tablelands? This was a less rich area in food terms, making occupation less likely.

In the absence of early dates, Wendy Beck, Robert Hayworth and John Appleton examined what resources might have been available to the Aborigines on the New England in the lagoons that run along the spine of the Tablelands.

The lagoons and especially Little Llangothlin have been studied because their long existence (c48,000 years) provides a useful record of change over time. They concluded that the combination of megafauna with lagoon resources could have provided a base for at least seasonal visits.

All this is surmise based on circumstantial evidence. We may never know because of the scale of changes that have taken place over the last forty thousand years. On the coast, for example, changing sea levels mean that many potential occupation sites have been buried under water or later silt deposits.

Despite such problems, I do believe that we can learn more through the type of studies pioneered by Wendy and her colleagues.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the on-line edition of the Armidale Express Extra on 17 April 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020 

The peopling of New England - Aboriginal people's arrival in New England

Aboriginal settlement of Sahul: by 40,000 years ago, the ancestors of Australias Aboriginal peoples had occupied the entire continent known as Sahul. This is the third in a series on the Aboriginal peopling of New England drawn from the introductory course I have been running on New England's history.

If the ancestors of Australia’s Aboriginal peoples reached the large continent known as Sahul perhaps 65,000 years ago, how and when did they reach the broader New England?

To start answering this question, consider the illustration to this column from Alana Coper et al. It shows the land boundaries of the mega-continent of Sahul during the Last Glacial maximum when sea levels were much lower.

The red lines suggest possible settlement paths; the black dates archaeological dates where kya stands for a thousand years. Ignore the other elements.

The Aboriginal ancestors arrived in Sahul during the Pleistocene, a period of repeated ice ages broken by warmer periods. They arrived at a benign time with relatively comfortable temperatures and a higher rainfall sufficient to fill the lakes and rivers.

The archeological dates shown in black suggest that by 40,000 years ago the descendents of those first settlers had occupied the entire continent of Sahul from Papua and surrounding islands in the north to Tasmania in the far south.

The migration paths are subject to some dispute. One school of thought is that migration went down the east coast.

I disagree. I think that it is most likely that migration proceeded down the western slopes and immediate western plains where there was water and easier immigration paths.

Whatever the exact path, it seems clear that by 40,000 years ago Sahul was occupied. Herein lies a problem, for the dates we have for the broader New England are all later.

The Cuddie Springs site near Brewarrina suggests occupation as long ago as 35,000 years BP. However, dates here have been subject to considerable dispute.

Excluding Cuddie Springs, we have a date of greater than 20,200 years BP (Before Present) from a hearth at Glennies Creek 35 kilometres north of Branxton in the Hunter, while a site on a former terrace of Wollombi Brook near Singleton suggested a date range of 18,000-30,000 years BP. At Moffats Swamp near Raymond Terrace, a date of 17,000 years BP was obtained.

On the Liverpool Plains, Aboriginal occupation has been dated to at least 19,000 years BP. Further north in South-East Queensland, the Wallen Wallen Creek site on what is now North Stradbroke Island shows continuous occupation from about 20,000 years ago.

While these dates are all later, Aboriginal peoples moving south must have passed through the broader New England, so we can reasonably assume some Aboriginal occupation by at least 40,000 years ago, probably earlier.

In my next column, I will discuss what that occupation might have looked like. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 8 April 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020 

Arthur Ransome and his Australian connections

Originally history matters columns in the Armidale Express, this series of posts tells a little of the story of the well known English children's writer Arthur Ransome and his Australian and New England connections.  The idea for the series as well as key source material came from Armidale's Cathie Lamont, a Ransome aficionado.

Arthur Mitchell Ransome was born in Leeds on 18 January 1884, the eldest child of Cyril Ransome and his wife Edith nee Boulton. Ransome's Australian connection comes through his mother, the daughter of artist and pastoralist  Edward Baker Boulton.

The first part of the series focuses on Ransome and his fascinating early life,  Here we have revolution, spies and a long term romance mixed in with writing.

Russian beauty: Leon Trotsky's secretary Evgenia Shelepina. Tall, attractive and intelligent, Evgenia became the love of Arthur Ransome's life. Update. For reasons I do not understand, Google has blocked this photo although it is out of copyright and widely available

Our focus then switches to Edward Baker Boulton, Ransome's grandfather.

Boulton came to NSW to advance himself and with his brothers built a pastoral empire that finally centred on Bergen op Zoom station just outside Walcha. Here our story briefly traces through Bolton's life in the colony. including his involvement with the small intellectual and cultural set centred on Sydney's darling point.

Boulton was always more interested in his painting than the sheep that provided the income that supported he and his huge family.

Now largely forgotten, Boulton was a reasonably significant painter whose paintings include many New England scenes.

The posts are:

• Wednesday, January 22, 2020, First pages of a literary life
• Wednesday, January 29, 2020, Arthur Ransome's life of danger and intrigue
• Wednesday, February 05, 2020, Celebrated author Arthur Ransome's Australian connection
• Wednesday, February 12, 2020, Artist and pastoralist
• Wednesday, February 19, 2020, Building dynasties in New England
• Wednesday, February 26, 2020, Purchase of Bergen op Zoom, return to England, Mary's death
• Wednesday, March 11, 2020, A complicated family
• Wednesday, March 18, 2020, Artist's bleak conclusion

The peopling of New England - Mysteries of migration

Digging deep: Evidence from the Madjedbebe rock shelter suggests early occupation from 65,000 years ago plus or minus 5,000 years.This is the second in a series on the Aboriginal peopling of New England drawn from the introductory course I have been running on New England's history.

In my last column, I spoke of the mysterious Denisovans, a new hominid species only discovered in 2010. They are significant to Australian history because it is clear that the ancestors of both the Papuans and Australia’s Aboriginal peoples met and mated with them on their journey to Sahul, the name given to the continent of which both Australia and Papua New Guinea were once part.

Over the next few columns I will tell you a little of the remarkable story of Aboriginal occupation of Sahul, including New England. It’s a story still shrouded in mystery and uncertainty, but we know enough now to at least paint a broad picture.

We do not know exactly when the ancestors of Australia’s Aboriginal peoples arrived on Sahul. The earliest date we have comes from excavations at the Madjedbebe rock shelter in Kakadu near Jabiru. There earliest occupation was dated to 65,000 years plus or minus 5,000 years.

There have been some suggestions of earlier possible dates based on circumstantial evidence such as fire patterns. Most recently, an excavation at Moyjil Port Ritchie near Warnambool identified a possible hearth dating to 120,000 years ago. However, the team was cautious in their conclusions in the absence of any associated artefacts.

The evidence from Madjedbebe also suggests a sophisticated material culture from an early date. This is consistent with an emerging body of evidence that suggests that earlier hominin species including anatomically modern humans were far more advanced and at an earlier period than previously realized.

This bears upon the question of just how the ancestors of the Aboriginal and Papuan peoples reached Sahul.

The old view based upon then perceptions of “primitiveness” saw the original settlers almost as castaways, small groups who came by accident. This now seems highly unlikely and for two reasons.   

The first is that we now know that earlier peoples were far more capable of crossing open water than previously realized. The great voyages from East Asia into Polynesia are a later and very dramatic example.

The second reason is that population analysis suggests that the survival and then expansion of the early human occupants of Sahul required a minimum foundation population measured in at least the low thousands. To my mind, there are likely to have been a number of movements spaced over time, possibly using different paths.

We don’t know what caused these migrations.

It may have been because of population pressures on existing ranges or because of pressures created by in-migration from other groups. There may have been natural disasters or, perhaps, just the normal human spirit wishing to explore new territories.

We may never know the answers here. However, we do more about what happened once the Aboriginal ancestors reached Sahul.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 1 April 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020 

The peopling of New England - the mysterious Denisovans

Neanderthal cousins: Artists reconstruction of a Denisovan girl based on the combination of skeletal and DNA evidence.This is the first in a series on the Aboriginal peopling of New England drawn from the introductory course I have been running on New England's history.

We all carry our ancestry within us, imprinted in our DNA. We all know this in part because it provides the base for the increasingly popular ancestry DNA tests. What is perhaps less recognised is the way in which the science of genomics has totally transformed our knowledge of the deep human past. 

Genomics, an interdisciplinary field of biology, focuses on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes.

Genomics allows us to map and compare DNA from even ancient specimens. It allows us to map changes over time, and to estimate when certain changes might have taken place. This has resulted in a knowledge explosion.

The mysterious Denisovans are a case in point.

Denisova Cave lies in the Altai Mountains in south-central Siberia near the border with Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia.

In 2010, a Russian team announced that the DNA analysis of a juvenile female finger bone from the site had revealed a new hominin species that they named the Denisovans after the cave. The Denisovans were cousins to the European based Neanderthals, but had separated from them several hundred thousand years before.

This was remarkable enough, but more was to follow. DNA analysis of other remains and of modern human populations suggested that the Denisovans were widely spread across Asia with two distinct lines, one in East Asia, a second in South East Asia.

Further, the results show that the Denisovans overlapped with the Neanderthals at Denisova and with both Homo Erectus and anatomically modern humans in East and South East. The widespread nature of the Denisovan trace in dispersed anatomically modern human populations suggests extensive interbreeding with multiple Denisovan populations.

The DNA analysis also revealed that in their long journey out of Africa to the ancient continent called Sahul, the ancestors of the Papuans and Australian Aborigines had met and mated with the Denisovans.

This mating probably took place in what is now South East Asia close to Sahul. However, the trace is so strong among Papuans that it raises the possibility that the Denisovans may have lived in Papua or nearby islands until as recently 30,000 years ago.

This date is well within the period of Aboriginal occupation of Sahul. It raises an intriguing question: if the Denisovans were in Papua, then the northern extension of Sahul, did they penetrate further south into what is now the Australian continent?

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 25 March 2020. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019, here 2020