Before Europeans arrived, thousands of Aborigines lived in the twilight world of Australias tropical rainforests. With their specialised knowledge of the environment that sustained them, they flourished and developed unique ways of life.
However, many basic questions about these societies have yet to be answered. Some of these questions include how long did Aborigines inhabit the forests? Where did they come from? Did they alter the forests for their purposes or use any forms of agriculture?
One person looking for answers is La Trobe Universitys Senior Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology, Dr Richard Cosgrove, who has been investigating human occupation of rainforests for many years, with his attention most recently turning to north Queensland.
Having completed a study, with technical support for dating deposits provided by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), he is continuing his work with a Discovery Grant from the Australian Research Council.
Dr Cosgrove says he believes that Aboriginal occupation of rainforests probably pre-dates the current oldest known dates found of human occupation, being around 5,000 years before the present.
He also hypothesises that the inhabitants may have brought their specialised knowledge from Melanesia during the late Pleistocene - but the challenge is to find the proof. Critical tools for finding this proof include the carbon dating and thermoluminescence facilities available at ANSTO.
"As the strongest evidence for the very earliest rainforest use comes from Melanesia, it is likely that the north-east Queensland rainforest culture has its original links, not with South-East Asia, but with Melanesia," Dr Cosgrove says.
"It follows that the successful exploitation and manipulation of Australian tropical rainforest has a very long antiquity, probably acquired before the drowning of the Torres Strait Island land-bridge around 9,000 years before the present."
The focus of Dr Cosgroves research is an area of north-Queensland between Mossman, Cardwell and the Atherton Tablelands, an area believed to have sustained a population of 5,500 Aborigines before Europeans arrived.
Although much of the coastal rainforest has since been cleared, the rainforest zone contained 12 distinct Aboriginal groups speaking a number of different dialects including two major languages that were as distinct as French and German.
Today, the Njatjon and Mamu people continue to have strong links with their tribal areas. Dr Cosgrove says that subsistence activities of the Aborigines revolved around their staple foods of nuts and fruit.
"During the wet season, the existence of large quantities of food permitted large annual ceremonial gatherings or pruns. As nut and fruit supplies at one danceground ran down, the festivals would be moved to another site," he says.
"Towards the end of the wet season, people supplemented their diet with rats, snakes, crocodiles, lizards, turtles, birds, possums, macropods and fish. The remains of these animals, particularly those of the green ringtail possum, musky rat kangaroo, wallaby and white-tailed rat, have been found in caves deep within the rainforest zone.
"Anthropological studies show that the 12 rainforest tribes of the area differed physically and economically from their neighbours in semi-arid habitats.
A number of items stand out among the many artefacts, the long, one-handed hardwood swords made from Red Penda, large painted wooden shields made from the buttress roots of fig trees, beaten bark blankets, bark cloth and lawyer cane baskets.
The baskets were used by women to leach toxins from various food stuffs," Dr Cosgrove explained.
One point of debate amongst historians is the extent to which the tribes altered their environments. Dr Cosgrove says it is believed from the large number of stone axes discovered in camp sites that large open areas were cleared and maintained for ceremonial grounds.
Other tools found in abundance include grinding stones, nut hammers and the ooyurka, a stone tool believed to have been used in the processing of plants, but with a specific usage that is still unknown.
Published: 06/12/2001