We report Australia’s first confirmed ancient underwater archaeological sites from the continental shelf, located off the Murujuga coastline in north-western Australia. Details on two underwater sites are reported: Cape Bruguieres, comprising > 260 recorded lithic artefacts at depths down to −2.4 m below sea level, and Flying Foam Passage where the find spot is associated with a submerged freshwater spring at −14 m.
The DHSC project team recognises the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation Council of Elders and Murujuga Land and Sea Rangers Unit as core collaborators on this project.
The DHSC project was supported by the Australian Research Council, Flinders University and the Hackett Foundation. We thank our many colleagues, volunteers, and friends of the project including Ken Mulvaney, Shakti Chakravarty, Victoria Anderson, Sarah de Koning, Hiro Yoshida, Kerry Ludwig, Mads Holst, Sam Wright, Annette George, Tom Allardyce and Graham and Michelle Evans and the AustMarine staff for their support throughout the DHSC project. Further thanks to EGS Surveys and the Pilbara Ports Authority for supplying additional survey data.
Link to the full article published in the Public Libarary of Science (PLOS ONE):
UWA-based researcher and DHSC CI Dr Mick O’Leary has been busy testing our hypothesis that the stone tools located on the seabed of Murujuga Sea Country remain relatively stable over time, despite strong tidal currents in the archipelago.
Observations by DHSC scientific divers led to our appraisal of stability on the seabed. A series of artefacts were tested at various orientations under different current velocities to see if they would remain in situ or would be subject to transportation under high velocity current flow.
Stay tuned for more scientific data and analysis in the coming months while we prepare this exciting information for publication!
The Deep History of Sea Country Project Team was once again back in the field for June 2022, with familiar faces and new postgraduate student team members undertaking scientific diving on Murujuga Sea Country. This year diving from the new Flinders Maritime Archaeology Research Vessel (RV) Bungaree.
Stay tuned for more project team member blogs, and some exciting new material in forthcoming publications later this year (and a fun surprise we can’t yet disclose coming in early 2023).
When people arrived in Australia more than 65,000 years ago, they landed on shores that are now deep under water. The first footprints on this continent took place on these now-submerged landscapes.
More than 2 million square kilometres of Australia’s continental landmass — an area larger than Queensland — was drowned by sea-level rise over the last 20,000 years. This land was once home to thousands of generations of Indigenous peoples.
Despite the scale of this vast drowned cultural landscape, Australia has fallen behind international best practice in locating, recording and protecting submerged Indigenous cultural places.
This is what Australia looked like for most of human history, complete with massive lakes in what is now the Gulf of Carpentaria and Bass Strait (Image: S. Ulm)
This discovery demonstrated that submerged Indigenous sites are likely to exist around the continent, but remain unknown due to a lack of investigation.
In two new studies published in Australian Archaeology, we outline approaches to help us better understand and manage Indigenous underwater cultural heritage.
Through a two-pronged approach at both the local and regional level, we review big data to predict the location of sites. We also put boots on the ground and divers in the water to find and record them.
At the local level, our research at Murujuga in northwest Australia indicates we must combine archaeological data from above and below the water to understand the past landscape at periods of lower sea level.
Drawing on evidence from across terrestrial, coastal and submerged environments, we found archaeological material in all three zones.
The interface between land and sea. The intertidal zone of today used to be dry land (Photo: S. Wright)
Our study also aligns archaeological practice with histories of Indigenous Australians, who describe cultural landscapes extending into Sea Country. Some oral histories describe past sea-level rise and drowned cultural landscapes.
Archaeologists investigate a drowned cultural landscape at low tide to reveal stone artefacts (Photo: S. Wright)
At the regional scale, our study shows how research into submerged landscapes can be expanded across Australia. Taking the Northern Territory as a case study, we assessed the potential for archaeological material to be preserved on the seabed.
National environmental frameworks, such as Marine bioregional plans for Australia’s seabed focus largely on marine biodiversity and habitats, only acknowledging archaeology through a selection of historic shipwrecks.
With few regional or state-level mechanisms in place to inform marine management planning, Indigenous underwater cultural heritage has been ignored or marginalised. There is now an opportunity and an ethical obligation to integrate Indigenous perspectives and traditional knowledge into marine science research.
Divers discovered an ancient archaeological site that included stone tools used for grinding (Photo: S. Wright)
Threats to underwater Indigenous heritage
Indigenous underwater cultural heritage is threatened by a variety of activities, including dredging, offshore cables and pipelines, seabed mining, and oil and gas exploration.
Such developments can cause significant damage and even explosions and fires in the sea, as witnessed recently in the Gulf of Mexico.
We can expect increased pressure on coastal and submerged sites with the increasing impacts of climate change. Without mechanisms to consider the archaeology in the intertidal zone of Australia (the transitional area between land and sea) and the seabed, such disturbances will occur out of sight and out of mind.
This stone cutting tool with a serrated edge was found in the intertidal zone (Photo: J. Benjamin)
Some state and local laws protect underwater cultural heritage, but these vary across the country. The national Underwater Cultural Heritage Act also does not adequately protect Indigenous cultural heritage.
Archaeologists working in partnership with Indigenous communities must take a central role in scientific research, management of marine environments and industry-led campaigns, incorporating archaeology into environmental impact assessments.
Industry has begun to respond. One company, Woodside Energy, for example, has acknowledged the importance of this issue, and has engaged with the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation. The company says it has sought to understand the potential heritage values of the submerged cultural landscape for the proposed Scarborough pipeline.
Industry has begun to acknowledge the significance of Sea Country and the industrial impacts on drowned Indigenous cultural heritage (Photo: S. Wright)
Coastal peoples all over the world have made a significant contribution to human history. Only through underwater archaeology can we fully understand these past peoples who called coastal environments their home.
Scientific divers investigate the underwater world, revealing a drowned cultural landscape (S. Wright)
Deep History of Sea Country 