3,000-Year-Old Pottery Rewrites Aboriginal History in Australia; Chemical Analysis of Sherds Reveals Trade Networks in the Continent

Pottery production and use were unknown in Australia before European colonization, despite well-known ceramic-manufacturing practices in eastern Indonesia, southern Papua New Guinea, and the western Pacific. The absence of pottery production in ancient mainland Australia has long puzzled archaeologists, given other documented deep-time Aboriginal exchange routes across the continent.

Oldest Pottery in Australia

Just recently, archaeologists have discovered dozens of broken pieces of pottery on a windswept island on the Great Barrier Reef. These artifacts date between 2,000 and 3,000 years old, making them the oldest pottery ever discovered in Australia.

The discovery was made by the Traditional Owners and members of the Dingaal and Ngurrumungu Aboriginal community. The remnants were found less than a meter below the surface while the researchers were steadily excavating a shell maiden about 8 feet (2.4 meters) deep. They were found lying among the remains of fish, charred plant materials, shellfish, and turtle bones. They mark a thousand-year-long practice of First Nations people who made ceramics on Jiigurru (Lizard Island).

Known as sherds, the broken pottery pieces were found in an intertidal lagoon on Jiigurru in 2006. At that time, archaeologists did not know how old they were or who made them. Since daily tides have eroded the sherds, dating was inconclusive, and the researchers are left with nothing more than the hope that locally made pottery may one day be found on the island.

The research team, led by archeologist Ian McNiven from Monash University, kept digging. Still, it failed to find any other signs of pottery in another nearby shell midden dating back 4,000 years. Then, in 2017, an archeology student found the first piece of pottery just 16 inches (40 centimeters) below the surface.

Radiocarbon dating revealed that the deepest layers of the excavated midden had been deposited about 6,510 to 5,790 years ago, making Jiigurru the oldest offshore island on the northern Great Barrier Reef. The site's occupation increased dramatically around 3,000 years ago when marine shells began piling up, and the oldest ceramics fell into their final resting place.

Local people manufactured, used, and discarded ceramics for another thousand years. The pottery was made from locally sourced sand and clay, fired thousands of years before British invaders colonized Australia in 1788. This happened when other island communities in the region were also producing ceramics.

Rewriting Aboriginal History

According to McNiven, the discovery opened a new chapter in Pacific, Melanesian, and Australian archeology and challenged colonialist stereotypes by highlighting the innovation and complexity of Aboriginal communities.

The people of Jiigurru were seafarers who knew how to make pottery and made it locally. This practice involved swapping technological know-how, ideas, and goods with other communities on the island. The researchers thought that the ancestors of modern-day Traditional Owners were involved in a widespread trading system that included cultural exchanges with pottery-making communities in Papua New Guinea.

However, the skill of pottery-making has long been lost, either due to community fragmentation or for reasons unknown before the British invasion. The discovery of expertly made ceramics produced thousands of years ago could help local communities revitalize the tradition of pottery making and protect Jiiguuru into the future. The artifacts provide tangible evidence of the ancient practices on the island, which are otherwise recorded in oral histories.