Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

Coobool Creek Crania

In 1950 126 crania were found on the surface at Coobool Crossing on the Wakool River between Swan Hill and Deniliquin in the Murray River Valley. Bone from one of the skulls, Coobool Creek 65 (LLO-416), gave a uranium thorium date of 14,300 +/- 1000 BP. Studies comparing the Coobool Creek skulls with other populations from the Murray River Valley show affinities between the Coobool Creek population and that of  Kow Swamp, but not with any other known populations. The results of this comparison, particularly the form and thickness of the cranium, as well as tooth size, has led Brown to conclude they were a single Pleistocene population that was homogeneous. Thorne has pointed out that as the site was undated, the remains having been found on he surface, suggesting that because of this it could be possible that the remains were from burials that took place over a period of 20,000 years, and not a single population from the closing stages of the Pleistocene. Thorne and Webb still support a modified 2-population theory, but Brown and Habgood and others have questioned the 2-populations theory, basing their conclusion of the Coobool Creek material and a number of comparisons between gracile and robust forms.

Sources & Further reading

1. Josephine Flood, Archaeology of the Dreamtime, J. B. Publishing, 2004
2. Phillip J. Habgood & Natilie R. Franklin, The revolution that didn't arrive: A review of Pleistocene Sahul, Journal of Human Evolution, 55, 2008