WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT - Department of Sustainability ...

Evidence for uninterrupted occupation spanning the Pleistocene into the Holocene is
also not unique in the Australian archaeological record. Puritjarra rock shelter
provides evidence of continued human occupation, albeit of varying intensity, dating
from about 32,000 BP through to the late Holocene (Smith, 2006). Evidence from
Willandra Lakes also shows continuous occupation beginning in the Pleistocene and
persisting into the late Holocene (Allen et al. 2007).
Culturally deposited botanical material dating to the Pleistocene has also been
uncovered at Devil's Lair (Dortch 2004) and at Puritjarra rock shelter (Smith et al.
1995). However, in both cases, only hearth charcoal is present (Smith et al. 1995;
Shackley 1978). In terms of evidence on human adaptation to climate change,
Puritjarra rock shelter again offers some insights through stone tool development
(Smith 2006). Several sites in Arnhem Land also record evidence of human
adaptation to smaller climate change events caused by the el Niño/la Niña
phenomenon during the Holocene (Bourke et al. 2007).
The evidence provided by Carpenter's Gap 1 is exceptional as it has provided
researchers with a micro and macro-botanical collection of incomparable antiquity
and breadth of botanical variation, spanning 40,000 years. The micro-botanical
material, including phytoliths carried in the air and by water flows, are likely to
represent the vegetation of an extremely large catchment area, whilst the macrobotanical
remains including stems, leaves and seeds are likely to have been deposited
by human cultural actions or faunal activity from sources in closer proximity to the
rock shelter (Wallis 2001, 107-109). The combined botanical record allows for the
Carpenter's Gap 1 material to be used in creating both a broad geographic spectrum
and a predominantly localised model of the changing Kimberley environment over
time.
Carpenter's Gap 1 rock shelter has outstanding heritage value to the nation
under criterion (b) for its rare archaeological sequence of micro and macrobotanical
remains spanning 40,000 years that contributes to our understanding
of the impacts of climate change on flora composition though time, and the rare
evidence it provides of plant procurement strategies used by Aboriginal people
from the Pleistocene, through the last glacial maximum, a period when many
occupation sites were abandoned across Australia, and into the Holocene.
CONTACT, CHANGE AND CONTINUITY
European explorers
Karrakatta Bay
The association of Karrakatta Bay with William Dampier has been addressed under
criteria (a) and (h).
Careening Bay
Just as Dampier has an important place in the process of accumulating knowledge
about the Australian continent as the first to make direct information about Australia
widely available to the European public, so too Phillip Parker King has a pivotal role
as the man who completed that process through his work in charting the majority of
the last unmapped areas of the Australian coast. With King, the last uncharted parts of
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