Hunter Hill, Hunter Island : archaeologic al investigations of a prehistoric Tasmanian site

Abstract

This volume describes one piece of research into the prehistory of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people. It recounts the excavation and analysis of one site, Cave Bay Cave, on Hunter Island, which lies just off the tip of northwest Tasmania, in Bass Strait (Fig. l ). Cave Bay Cave was the first Tasmanian archaeological site to have a f irmly dated Pleistocene antiquity (Bowdler 1 9 74b). It contains a 23,000-year-old discontinuous sequence of human occupation, thus establishing that people had penetrated to the southern extremity of the Bassian land bridge when it was exposed by eustatic lowering of the sea level during the la t glaciation. This work follows on from and builds on previous archaeological work in Tasmania, which will be briefly described.