The Keilor archaeological site was among the first places to demonstrate the antiquity of Aboriginal occupation of Australia when a cranium, unearthed in 1940, was found to be nearly 15,000 years old. Subsequent investigations of Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

 alluvial terraces revealed hearths about 31,000 years BP, making Keilor one of the earliest sites of human habitation in Australia. Remains of megafauna

Megafauna

In terrestrial zoology, megafauna are "giant", "very large" or "large" animals. The most common thresholds used are or...

 suggest a possible association with Aboriginal hunting.

Location

The site is located at the confluence of Dry Creek and the Maribyrnong River

Maribyrnong river

The Maribyrnong River rises about 50 km north of Melbourne, Victoria , near Mount Macedon. It flows generally southward and combines with the Yarra River to flow into Port Phillip....

, 1.5 km north of Keilor, Victoria

Keilor, Victoria

Keilor is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 18 km north-west from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area are the Cities of Brimbank and Hume...

 at . the site was found when artefacts were exposed in sand quarries, and as a result of increased bank erosion of the river terraces due to runoff from the then recently opened Tullamarine Airport.

Discovery and excavation

The Keilor cranium was discovered by James White in October 1940 while excavating a sand deposit near the junction of the Maribyrnong River and Dry Creek, about 2 km north of Keilor, Victoria (Mahony 1943:3). Geologist Alexander S Gallus, was among the first to recognise the importance of the river terraces in the 1960s and 70s and excavated the site with teams from the Archaeological Society of Victoria

Archaeological Society of Victoria

The Archaeological Society of Victoria was formed in 1964 from the efforts of University of Melbourne academic William Culican in response to the enthusiastic response to his archaeology lectures run through the CAE....

, the Victoria Archaeological Survey

Victoria Archaeological Survey

The Victorian state government established the Archaeological and Aboriginal Relics Office under the Chief Secretary's Department, following the enactment of the Archaeological and Aboriginal Relics Preservation Act 1972. One of the original aims of the Relics office was to compile a list of...

 and La Trobe University

La Trobe University

La Trobe University is a multi-campus university in Victoria, Australia. It was established in 1964 by an Act of Parliament to become the third oldest university in the state of Victoria. The main campus of La Trobe is located in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora; two other major campuses are...

 focusing on the lower stratigraphic layers known as the D-Clay and the underlying Older Dry Creek Alluvium.

Dating

The Keilor cranium has been radiocarbon dated at between 12,000 and 14,700 years BP

Before Present

Before Present years is a time scale used in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events in the past occurred. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use AD 1950 as the origin of the age scale, reflecting the fact that radiocarbon...

. Subsequent studies of the local geomorphology identified three terrace formations on the Maribyrnong River banks, which were linked to changes in sea level over the previous 150 000 years. In 1953 E.D. Gill of the National Museum of Victoria calculated the age of the cranium to be about 14700 years BP (Before Present), using radiocarbon dating and fluorine-phosphate analysis. Gallus excavated a hearth in 1971, from which charcoal was radiocarbon-dated to about 31,000 years BP

Before Present

Before Present years is a time scale used in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events in the past occurred. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use AD 1950 as the origin of the age scale, reflecting the fact that radiocarbon...

, making Keilor one of the earliest sites of human habitation in Australia.

Remains of extinct megafauna species within the site were assessed as being possibly as recent as 20,000 years ago, although dating of the bones is problematic. However the site continues to be relevant to the megafauna extinction debate.

Description of remains

The cranium and the few fragments of femur were heavily encrusted with carbonate when recovered. The cranim was initially considered large and robust but recent research comparing Keilor to a range of terminal Pleistocene and recent Australian Aboriginal crania have produced conflicting results. Thorne and Wilson concluded "cranial size in Pleistocene Australians was significantly greater than in Holocene Aboriginals... observable in the prehistoric crania from Kow Swamp-Cohuna, Mossgiel, Lake Nitchie and Keilor'. However, later publications placed Keilor within the modern female range of variation for size and robusticity.

Debate on origins

At the time of the discovery of the Keilor cranium, the origins of the continents first human inhabitants was being debated. One argument suggested successive waves of culturally and biologically distinct people, reflected in the varying appearance of modern day populations. Wunderly's concluded that Keilor "combined Australoid and Tasmanoid characteristics in about equal proportions". However this claim was disputed and the Keilor crania and Tasmanian populations were both considered to be within the range of the south-eastern mainland population..

Management

The land was acquired in 1976 by the State Government under the Relics Act 1972 in recognition of the importance of the area to studies of Aboriginal history and local geomorphological processes. The acquisition was one of the first major efforts to conserve Aboriginal archaeology in Victoria and came with the formation of the Archaeological and Aboriginal Relics Office, which later became the Victoria Archaeological Survey (VAS). While the Victoria Archaeological Survey and La Trobe University Archaeology Department jointly excavated the site for several seasons between 1978 and 1981, the results were still inconclusive. the major question of the nature and extent of human/megafauna interaction, remained unresolved. Plans for a major on-site education and interpretative centre were abandoned because of difficulties with soil erosion and a lack of stability. There are no plans for further excavation or research on the site, which is managed by Aboriginal Affairs, Victoria