Post by L Roebuck on Mar 13, 2006 8:12:31 GMT -5
Cave reveals Indigenous ice age lifestyle secrets
A broader picture of Tasmanian Aboriginal life around the time of the last ice age is emerging through research on bone fragments from a south-west cave.
Researcher Dr Jillian Garvey says the animal bones from the floor of the Kutikina cave show people mostly hunted bennetts wallabies, then took the meaty hindquarters back to the cave, where the flesh was eaten and bones cracked to extract the nutritious marrow.
Also on the menu were wombat, grey kangaroo and the tasmanian emu, which became extinct after European settlement.
The cave, near the Franklin River in Tasmania's south-west, was used as a winter base by Aborigines.
Dr Garvey says the environment during the last glacial maximum was harsh and her research is illuminating how Tasmanian Aboriginals survived.
"We can now start to look at the overall landscape picture of the cave usage in that area because Kutikina is only one of several caves in the area and we already have an idea of the fauna in the other caves," he said.
"So what we want to do now is put together a perspective of how people were utilising these different caves over time, so we're going to start looking at teeth analysis to try and understand the season of hunting."
Dr Garvey spent months at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery sifting through bone samples taken from the cave several years ago.
"Nearly all of these bones are then cracked and they've been cracked longitudinally so they extract the bone marrow from these lower limbs," she said.
"Not only were they going for the meat but they were also going for the bone marrow, which is what you'd expect because this cave in particular was used during the last glacial maximum when the environment would've been at its most harsh.
"So even though meat was a good resource, bone marrow was much more nutritious than the meat itself."
au.news.yahoo.com/060311/21/y764.html
A broader picture of Tasmanian Aboriginal life around the time of the last ice age is emerging through research on bone fragments from a south-west cave.
Researcher Dr Jillian Garvey says the animal bones from the floor of the Kutikina cave show people mostly hunted bennetts wallabies, then took the meaty hindquarters back to the cave, where the flesh was eaten and bones cracked to extract the nutritious marrow.
Also on the menu were wombat, grey kangaroo and the tasmanian emu, which became extinct after European settlement.
The cave, near the Franklin River in Tasmania's south-west, was used as a winter base by Aborigines.
Dr Garvey says the environment during the last glacial maximum was harsh and her research is illuminating how Tasmanian Aboriginals survived.
"We can now start to look at the overall landscape picture of the cave usage in that area because Kutikina is only one of several caves in the area and we already have an idea of the fauna in the other caves," he said.
"So what we want to do now is put together a perspective of how people were utilising these different caves over time, so we're going to start looking at teeth analysis to try and understand the season of hunting."
Dr Garvey spent months at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery sifting through bone samples taken from the cave several years ago.
"Nearly all of these bones are then cracked and they've been cracked longitudinally so they extract the bone marrow from these lower limbs," she said.
"Not only were they going for the meat but they were also going for the bone marrow, which is what you'd expect because this cave in particular was used during the last glacial maximum when the environment would've been at its most harsh.
"So even though meat was a good resource, bone marrow was much more nutritious than the meat itself."
au.news.yahoo.com/060311/21/y764.html