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Here, we report the first attempt to use isotope geochemistry to improve understanding of the experiences of Indigenous Australians living on the colonial frontier in late 19th century CE Australia. In the study, we analysed strontium (87Sr/86Sr), carbon (δ13C), and oxygen (δ18O) isotope ratios from the tooth enamel and dentine of six individuals who died in Normanton, Queensland, in the 1890s. The study was a collaboration between scientists and the local Traditional Owners, the Gkuthaarn and Kukatj people, and was carried out to promote truth and reconciliation. The enamel 87Sr/86Sr results suggest that the individuals moved to Normanton from three geologically distinct regions during the period of European expansion into the Gulf of Carpentaria, Cape York. This is consistent with the oral histories and historical documents, which suggest that many Indigenous people in the Gulf Country were displaced to camps on the outskirts of towns like Normanton because of European settlement. The δ13C values we obtained indicate that the individuals mostly ate C4 plants and/or C4-plant-consuming herbivores. When combined with the fact that some of the individuals’ teeth had dental caries, this suggests that the individuals may have had regular access to introduced foods. The enamel δ18O values are high compared to an international comparative sample, at 0.72–4.69‰ VPDB. We suspect the elevated values are due to a combination of a high degree of preferential loss of 16O through evaporation of surface water, the amount effect associated with the Australian monsoon, and high prevalence of introduced infectious diseases. Together, the results of our study demonstrate that isotopic analysis of human remains has the potential to further illuminate the effects of European colonisation on Indigenous people in Australia. Perhaps most importantly in connection with this, our study’s results show that isotopic analyses of human remains can provide surprisingly detailed information about the lives of a category of Indigenous Australians who rarely appear in the documents written by early ethnographers and colonial officials—subadults. That the analysis of the skeletal remains of Indigenous Australians can now contribute to the truth and reconciliation process is an unexpected, interesting, and welcome development in the story of bioarchaeology in Australia.

It has long been accepted that the Indigenous groups of Australia's Cape York Peninsula have numerous cultural traits that were adopted from people in New Guinea and/or the Torres Strait Islands after the formation of the Torres Strait around 8000 years ago. However, opinions differ on whether the movement of the traits in question was accompanied by gene flow events. Some argue for a significant amount of gene flow resulting from voyages from New Guinea and the Torres Strait Islands down the east coast of Cape York. Others contend that there was only contact at the northern end of the Cape and that the cultural traits spread through down-the-line transmission. In recent years partnerships between Australian institutions and Indigenous communities in Cape York have led to new genetic research that provides benefits to both parties. We review the currently available genetic data that have the potential to shed light on this issue, concluding that the data are inconsistent with significant gene flow between Indigenous Australians and Papuan people between 8000 years ago and the colonial period. There are indications of gene flow, but it most likely occurred in the Pleistocene rather than the Holocene. As such, the currently available genomic data do not support the hypothesis that the diffusion of cultural traits from New Guinea and/or the Torres Strait Islands into Cape York was accompanied by gene flow. The data suggest instead that the cultural traits most probably spread via down-the-line trade, exchange, and imitation. Our review highlights the gaps in the available genomic information from contemporary and ancestral descendants of Australia's first settlers, and we suggest that researchers adopt a more collaborative approach, involving Indigenous communities and their knowledge in project design, data collection, and dissemination, in future genomic studies in Australia.

Ethnohistoric accounts indicate that the people of Australia's Channel Country engaged in activities rarely recorded elsewhere on the continent, including food storage, aquaculture and possible cultivation, yet there has been little archaeological fieldwork to verify these accounts. Here, the authors report on a collaborative research project initiated by the Mithaka people addressing this lack of archaeological investigation. The results show that Mithaka Country has a substantial and diverse archaeological record, including numerous large stone quarries, multiple ritual structures and substantial dwellings. Our archaeological research revealed unknown aspects, such as the scale of Mithaka quarrying, which could stimulate re-evaluation of Aboriginal socio-economic systems in parts of ancient Australia.

Strontium isotopes (Sr-87/Sr-86) provide valuable information to help reconstruct past mobility. For the analysis of archaeological tooth enamel to provide a direct assessment of mobility, a comparison to the baseline Sr-87/Sr-86 in a region is required. In this study, a large-scale Sr-87/Sr-86 baseline of Portugal is created based on 151 paired plant and soil leachate samples combined with previously published data (20 additional plant and 33 additional soil leachate sites). Spatial patterns of Sr-87/Sr-86 are evident, following Portugal's geology and terrain, with higher Sr-87/Sr-86 in the granite dominated north and further inland. Influences from sea spray are observed along the coastal regions of the country. The bioavailable strontium range for Portugal is 0.70575-0.73487, and paired plant-soil leachate site measurements show a strong positive relationship. Empirical Bayesian Kriging (EBK) alongside mean Sr-87/Sr-86 per geological unit are used to provide predictive surfaces for bioavailable Sr-87/Sr-86. We find that the addition of archaeological site-specific measurements is required in archaeological mobility studies to ensure local-scale Sr-87/Sr-86 variation is captured, illustrated in this study using the Late Middle Neolithic to Early Bronze Age site of Perdigoes. The bioavailable strontium isoscape for Portugal provides a baseline map for future archaeological and palaeoecological studies in this region and contributes to the global efforts to map strontium isotope variability. ARC Discovery Project DP160100811 Grant agreement number 948913 info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Bioarchaeological research in Australia has lagged behind that in other regions due to understandable concerns arising from the disregard of Indigenous Australians rights over their ancestors’ remains. To improve this situation, bioarchaeologists working in Australia need to employ more community-oriented approaches to research. This paper reports a project in which we employed such an approach. The project focused on burials in the Flinders Group, Queensland. Traditional Owners played a key role in the excavations and helped devise analyses that would deliver both scientific contributions and socially relevant outcomes. The fieldwork and laboratory analyses yielded a number of interesting results. Most significantly, they revealed that the pattern of mortuary practices recorded by ethnographers in the region in the early 20th century—complex burial of powerful people and simple interment of less important individuals—has a time depth of several hundred years or more. More generally, the project shows that there can be fruitful collaboration between archaeologists and Indigenous communities in relation to the excavation and scientific analysis of Aboriginal ancestral remains.

In this paper we outline a worked example of the combined use of genetic data and archaeological evidence. The project focuses on Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula and has two goals. One is to shed ...

It has been estimated that up to 25% of Indigenous human remains held in Australian institutions are unprovenanced. Geochemical tracers like strontium isotope ratios ( Sr/ Sr) have been used globally for over 40 years to discern human provenance and provide independent data to aid in repatriation efforts. To reliably apply this technology, landscape Sr/ Sr isotope ratio variability must be quantified. In Australia, only a few studies have used this technique and they are lacking in detail. Here, we present Australia's first regional strontium isotope ratio variability study. We measured strontium isotope ratios in soil, plant, water, and faunal material throughout Cape York, Queensland, the most northerly point of mainland Australia. Results show a close correlation between surface soil leachates, vegetation, surface water, and faunal Sr/ Sr results with extremely high values (0.78664) associated with ancient Precambrian geology. Our study suggests that measuring Sr/ Sr in soil and plant samples offer a reliable approach for assessing regional Sr isotope distribution, although the inclusion of mammal and freshwater samples is also important to assess exogenous inputs. This study provides an important tool for modern and prehistoric provenance studies and may aid in answering some of Australia's most enduring archaeological questions.

Isotopic analyses of human remains have the potential to alter our understanding of prehistoric lifeways and migration in Australia, but very few such analyses have been conducted in the country to date. Here, we report the first regional multiproxy isotope study of pre-contact human remains from Australia. We obtained δ13Ccollagen, δ15Ncollagen, δ18Obioapatite, δ13Cbioapatite and 87Sr/86Sr isotope values from three complex interments and two simple beach burials from the Flinders Group of Islands, Queensland. The study had two goals. One was to assess how the diets of the individuals compared to those of pre-contact populations elsewhere in the region. The other goal was to test the hypothesis that burial type was indicative of local/non-local status. We found that the individuals’ diets were diverse and included a relatively high percentage of low trophic level foods. With regard to the difference in burial practices, we found those afforded complex burials had grown up in the Flinders Group, while those given beach burials likely grew up away from the islands. These results highlight the intricacies of the lives of the Indigenous Australians who inhabited the islands and inform our understanding of their pre-contact diet and mobility. The results also suggest that multiproxy isotope studies may be able to aid with the repatriation of unprovenanced remains of Indigenous Australians.

Paleogenetics is a relatively new and promising field that has the potential to provide new information about past Indigenous social systems, including insights into the complexity of burial practices. We present results of the first ancient DNA (aDNA) investigation into traditional mortuary practices among Australian Aboriginal people with a focus on North-East Australia. We recovered mitochondrial and Y chromosome sequences from five ancestral Aboriginal Australian remains that were excavated from the Flinders Island group in Cape York, Queensland. Two of these individuals were sampled from disturbed beach burials, while the other three were from bundle burials located in rock shelters. Genomic analyses showed that individuals from all three rock shelter burials and one of the two beach burials had a close genealogical relationship to contemporary individuals from communities from Cape York. In contrast the remaining male individual, found buried on the beach, had a mitochondrial DNA sequence that suggested that he was not from this location but that he was closely related to people from central Queensland or New South Wales. In addition, this individual was associated with a distinctive burial practice to the other four people. It has been suggested that traditionally non-locals or lower status individuals were buried on beaches. Our findings suggest that theories put forward about beach burials being non-local, or less esteemed members of the community, can potentially be resolved through analyses of uniparental genomic data. Generally, these results support the suggestion often derived from ethnohistoric accounts that inequality in Indigenous Australian mortuary practices might be based on the status, sex, and/or age of individuals and may instead relate to place of geographic origin. There is, however, some departure from the traditional ethnohistoric account in that complex mortuary internments were also offered to female individuals of the community, with genomic analyses helping to confirm that the gender of one of the rockshelter internments was that of a young female.

Paleogenetics is a relatively new and promising field that has the potential to provide new information about past Indigenous social systems, including insights into the complexity of burial practices. We present results of the first ancient DNA (aDNA) investigation into traditional mortuary practices among Australian Aboriginal people with a focus on North-East Australia. We recovered mitochondrial and Y chromosome sequences from five ancestral Aboriginal Australian remains that were excavated from the Flinders Island group in Cape York, Queensland. Two of these individuals were sampled from disturbed beach burials, while the other three were from bundle burials located in rock shelters. Genomic analyses showed that individuals from all three rock shelter burials and one of the two beach burials had a close genealogical relationship to contemporary individuals from communities from Cape York. In contrast the remaining male individual, found buried on the beach, had a mitochondrial DNA sequence that suggested that he was not from this location but that he was closely related to people from central Queensland or New South Wales. In addition, this individual was associated with a distinctive burial practice to the other four people. It has been suggested that traditionally non-locals or lower status individuals were buried on beaches. Our findings suggest that theories put forward about beach burials being non-local, or less esteemed members of the community, can potentially be resolved through analyses of uniparental genomic data. Generally, these results support the suggestion often derived from ethnohistoric accounts that inequality in Indigenous Australian mortuary practices might be based on the status, sex, and/or age of individuals and may instead relate to place of geographic origin. There is, however, some departure from the traditional ethnohistoric account in that complex mortuary internments were also offered to female individuals of the community, with genomic analyses helping to confirm that the gender of one of the rockshelter internments was that of a young female.

This study heeds the call for a ‘truth-telling’ of injustices carried out on Aboriginal communities during the colonial acquisition of Australia as stated in the Uluru Statement from the Heart 2017. Here, we discuss the lives of eight Indigenous people buried in Normanton in north-west Queensland (QLD) who died and had their remains collected in the late 1890s as scientific specimens. The remains were later repatriated to the community before being further exposed by erosion in 2015. With the consent and participation of local traditional owners—the Gkuthaarn and Kukatj people—this assessment utilised bioarchaeological, historical and anthropological methodologies to gain a better understanding of Indigenous life and health on the Australian colonial frontier. Gkuthaarn and Kukatj people were engaged throughout the investigation, and statements throughout this piece made by them illustrate how bioarchaeology can inform on past injustices in Australia’s history, bringing them into the public consciousness and aiding the transition to reconciliation through ‘truth-telling’.

Archaeological and paleoecological studies of cave and rock shelter deposits have been essential in understanding human and biotic responses to Late Quaternary environmental changes. While numerous studies have focused on identifying accumulation agents responsible for site assemblages, there has been less emphasis on exploring the biases they impose or their potential to skew ecological interpretations. This study reports new findings from a paleontological investigation of a cave deposit on Kangaroo Island, South Australia, where mammalian species richness and relative abundances were used to infer changes in regional paleoecology over the past 20,000 years. These data were then compared to faunal species richness and relative abundance derived from archaeological excavations within the same ecotone on Kangaroo Island to better understand how accumulator biases affect species representation. This study shows that the archaeological assemblages underrepresent local diversity and do not record significant changes revealed by the paleontological record. Although species richness decreased during the early Holocene, most species survived isolation of the island 9000 years ago and persisted until Europeans arrived in the 19th century. Our work highlights the importance of not only identifying accumulation agents but understanding how they bias assemblages differently if we are to successfully assess late Quaternary anthropogenic impacts versus climatic change.

The creation of bioavailable strontium baseline maps are critical for interpreting bioarchaeological data. With the increasing production of local archaeological site-specific, regional or national maps, devising an approach for combining these datasets to create larger or higher density isoscapes is crucial. Using Portugal as a case study, this presentation will discuss how combining different archives and scales of strontium isotope data can provide a robust baseline for archaeological mobility studies. The presentation will introduce the first country-wide bioavailable strontium baseline for Portugal, created using paired plant and soil leachate measurements from 151 sampling sites. Our dataset will be used as a foundation, with additional data from published archaeological site baselines (using modern plant, human bones and faunal remains), our recently collected regional plant samples, and published European and global datasets (on agricultural soils and mineral waters) compared. Plant samples provide the majority of strontium data in Portugal, and are a solid base for archaeological studies. This approach provides an opportunity to compare different archives to this plant base to highlight the variability in the archives used for strontium mapping and to highlight inadequacies in our current sampling strategies. Comparing datasets also allows for an evaluation of isotopic variation on varying scales; wide-scale sampling highlights how the diverse geological, geographical, and climatic regions of Portugal lead to an interesting spatial distribution of 87Sr/86Sr across the country. Furthermore, regional and site-specific sampling allows for the assessment of residential mobility and the range of landscapes used by past human populations. Reconstructing palaeomobility patterns requires a full picture of isotopic diversity at both the local, regional and broader level, combining datasets of varying scales moves us one step closer to creating the robust baselines required.