The Deep History of Sea Country: climate, sea level and culture

(DHSC)

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ARC Discovery Project (2017-2019)

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This is a pioneering, multi-disciplinary study of submerged landscape archaeology in Australia designed to investigate the records of the now-submerged Pilbara coast (spanning 50,000 to 7000  years ago). Information from drowned contexts will help address critical debates in Australian prehistory relating to past sea-level rise,
population resilience, mobility, and diet. The project integrates cultural and environmental studies and contributes a unique southern hemisphere insight into world prehistory through material analysis and an adaptation of method from the world’s only confirmed submarine middens. A suite of cutting edge marine and aerial survey techniques will be developed to investigate physical and cultural submerged landscapes.

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ARA will use its airborne bathymetric and topographic LiDAR to map the submerged landscapes in the intertidal zone along the coast from Port Hedland to Cape Leveque in NW-Western Australia.

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Participants in the ARC grant are: Jonathan Benjamin, Flinders University; Sean Ulm, James Cook University; Peter Veth; University of Western Australia; Jorg Hacker, ARA & Flinders University; Michael O'Leary, University of Western Australia; Geoffrey Bailey, University of York, UK; Mads Holst, Aarhus University, Denmark.