King Island Skeleton

Australia: The Land Where Time Began

King Island Skeleton

A skeleton was found in a cave on King Island, Tasmania, in 1989. It was radiocarbon dated to 14270 +/- 640 BP. At that time the cave would have been on the side of a plateau overlooking a plain. King Island was at the time connected to Tasmania and the mainland by dry land. It would have been about 20 km from the sea.

This burial was apparently of the secondary disposal type, the bones being collected in a pile then covered by a pile of rocks inside the cave. There were small pieces of ochre on the cranium and femur, apart from these there were no grave goods. It is uncertain if the ochre was placed on the bones or had been on the body prior to decomposition, as had been recorded by explorers. A skull and a number of other bones were found. The skull was from a man about 25-35 years of age, and was of a gracile type. The fact that this skeleton was of the gracile type has been claimed by some as further evidence that the most southerly people were of the gracile type. This would imply that the first of the people to arrive in Australia were gracile, the later arrivals being more robust.

The form of the femur, short, robust femurs with big heads, is similar to that in modern people living at high latitudes or elevations, e.g., Inuit and Sherpas. It an adaptation to the cold. These people had been living in Tasmania for 35000 years and appear to have become short and stocky by 14000 BP, adapting to life in the cold Roaring Forties latitude.

This burial is the oldest evidence of the form of the earliest inhabitants of Tasmania. It also provides evidence for the early use of secondary disposal burials and probably the use of ochre in burial rites.

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