Rachel Wood

Australian National University | ANU · Research School of Earth Sciences

It is commonly accepted that some of the latest dates for Neanderthal fossils and Mousterian industries are found south of the Ebro valley in Iberia at ca. 36 ka calBP (calibrated radiocarbon date ranges). In contrast, to the north of the valley the Mousterian disappears shortly before the Proto-Aurignacian appears at ca. 42 ka calBP. The latter is...

The timing of Neanderthal disappearance and the extent to which they overlapped with the earliest incoming anatomically modern humans (AMHs) in Eurasia are key questions in palaeoanthropology. Determining the spatiotemporal relationship between the two populations is crucial if we are to understand the processes, timing and reasons leading to the d...

Radiocarbon dates form the basis of many archaeological chronologies that span the last 50,000 years. Since the first studies in the early 1950s the method has changed almost beyond recognition, with the major developments often described as revolutions. Dates are now more likely to be measured in an AMS than a radiation counter. This is allowing e...

It is rarely possible to directly radiocarbon date skeletal remains from hot environments as collagen rapidly degrades. Although able to survive in the majority of burial environments for longer, unburnt biological apatites frequently produce inaccurate radiocarbon dates due to contamination from carbonate in the groundwater. The location of this c...

An extensive series of 44 radiocarbon (14C) and 37 optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) ages have been obtained from the site of Riwi, south central Kimberley (NW Australia). As one of the earliest known Pleistocene sites in Australia, with archaeologically sterile sediment beneath deposits containing occupation, the chronology of the site is im...

Reliable chronological frameworks for archaeological sites are essential for accurate interpretations of the past. Geochronology represents the core of interdisciplinary research because it allows integration of diverse data on a common timeline. Since the radiocarbon revolution in Australian archaeology in the 1950s, thousands of ages have been pr...

Late Pleistocene to Holocene-aged microfaunal assemblages are rarely reported in Australia despite their critical importance for palaeoecological studies, as well as their bearing on the megafaunal extinction debate. Capricorn Caves, central-eastern Queensland, hosts three Late Pleistocene to Holocene deposits containing significant faunal records....

In the tropics, outdoor areas are important arenas of social life and the scene of economic and daily activities. Yet, outdoor areas are not often detected due to destructive post-depositional processes and low archaeological visibility. Here, we use microarchaeology to establish the settlement history and outdoor use of space at Lo Gach in Long An...

Global ecosystems underwent major changes through the Quaternary, as climates cycled from cool and dry glacial conditions to relatively warm and humid interglacial conditions. How these changes affected the diversity and composition of small-mammal communities is mostly unknown, especially for the southern-temperate regions of Australia. We used fo...

We present the discovery of a Middle Pleistocene fossil assemblage at Los Villares locality (Ruidera, Ciudad Real, Castilla-La Mancha), which has possible evidence of associated human activity. The potential of the site has been evaluated through multidisciplinary research including taxonomy, anatomy, deep learning, and direct dating of fossil rema...

Strontium isotopes (87 Sr/ 86 Sr) 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 87 Sr/ 86 Sr in a region is required. In this study, a large-scale 87 Sr/ 86 Sr baseline of Portugal is created based on 151 paired...

Fish otoliths from the Willandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area (south-western New South Wales, Australia) have been analysed for oxygen isotopes and trace elements using in situ techniques, and dated by radiocarbon. The study focused on the lunettes of Lake Mungo, an overflow lake that only filled during flooding events and emptied by evaporatio...

The burial mound of Le Tumulus des Sables, southwest France, contains archaeological artefacts spanning from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. Human remains have been found throughout the burial mound, however their highly fragmented state complicates the association between the burial mound structure and the archaeological material. Radiocarbon datin...

El Niño cave, located on the south-eastern border of the Spanish Meseta, hosts a discontinuous sequence including Middle Palaeolithic and Neolithic levels, along with Upper Palaeolithic and Levantine style paintings. It is a key site for understanding human occupations of inland Iberia during the Palaeolithic and early prehistory. This paper summar...

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 initi...

The original publication described FosSahul 2.0, the updated version of the FosSahul database comprising collated and quality-rated megafauna fossil ages of the Late Quaternary from Sahul, as well as R code to run the algorithm that rated the quality of each age based on criteria established by Rodríguez-Rey et al. 1. Since the paper was published...

Secret societies, involving restricted and hierarchically organised initiation rituals, are conspicuous in the chronicles of many past and present societies. These rarely leave a substantial written record and yet archaeology can provide vivid insight into past performances, for example in relation to Roman ‘mystery cults’. Far less research, howev...

Understanding of Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions in Australia and New Guinea (Sahul) suffers from a paucity of reliably dated bone deposits. Researchers are divided as to when, and why, large-bodied species became extinct. Critical to these interpretations are so-called ‘late survivors’, megafauna that are thought to have persisted for tens...

In this paper we report on new research at the iconic archaeological site of Cloggs Cave (GunaiKurnai Country), in the southern foothills of SE Australia’s Great Dividing Range. Detailed chronometric dating, combined with high-resolution 3D mapping, geomorphological studies and archaeological excavations, now allow a dense sequence of Late Holocene...

Mortuary contexts in geographical and chronological settings such as islands are key to investigating human migration pathways, population replacements, diet, health, occupational activities, belief systems as well as other aspects of social behaviour. Located between Mainland Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Island Southeast Asia is of particular i...

The Mongol Empire site of Avraga in eastern Mongolia has been proposed to be the site of Chinggis Khan's ordū, or winter base camp. We performed radiocarbon and multi-element stable isotope analyses of livestock bones and teeth from Avraga to assess its chronological association with Chinggis Khan and to investigate livestock husbandry and isotopic...

Explanations for the Upper Pleistocene extinction of megafauna from Sahul (Australia and New Guinea) remain unresolved. Extinction hypotheses have advanced climate or human-driven scenarios, in spite of over three quarters of Sahul lacking reliable biogeographic or chronologic data. Here we present new megafauna from north-eastern Australia that su...

The work undertaken at the Jarama VI site (Valdesotos, Guadalajara, Spain) in the 1990s resulted in the recovery of thousands of archeological remains from the three Pleistocene sedimentary units of this cavity. Prior to the systematic analysis of the lithic material and the reception of new geochronological data, it had been suggested that the upp...

Kiacatoo Man, a large, rugged Aboriginal adult buried in the Lachlan riverine plains of southeastern Australia, was discovered in 2011. Laser-ablation uranium series analysis on bone yielded a minimum age for the burial of 27.4 ± 0.4 ka (2σ). Single-grain, optically stimulated luminescence ages on quartz sediment in which the grave had been dug gav...

The migration of anatomically modern humans (AMH) from Africa to every inhabitable continent included their dispersal through Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) to Australia. Significantly, this involved overwater dispersal through the Lesser Sunda Islands between Sunda (continental Southeast Asia) and Sahul (Australia and New Guinea). However, the timin...

Human dental enamel forms in a regular fashion, producing incremental and periodic layers that can be studied microstructurally. Long-period lines, known as striae of Retzius, are used by histologists to reconstruct dental growth and development in modern and ancient human populations. Here we report first and preliminary insights into enamel forma...

Here we describe the excavation, chronology and assemblage from Gua Mo’o hono, a rockshelter in the Lake Towuti region in Southeast Sulawesi. The excavation produced glass, ceramics and pottery, dense faunal and lithic assemblages and a diversity of bone tools. The Gua Mo’o hono sequence demonstrates that humans were active in and around the rocksh...

Scholars endeavor to understand the relationship between human evolution and climate change. This is particularly germane for Neanderthals, who survived extreme Eurasian environmental variation and glaciations, mysteriously going extinct during a cool interglacial stage. Here, we integrate weekly records of climate, tooth growth, and metal exposure...

Large, 'complex' pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer communities thrived in southern China and northern Vietnam, contemporaneous with the expansion of farming. Research at Con Co Ngua in Vietnam suggests that such huntergatherer populations shared characteristics with early farming communities: high disease loads, pottery, complex mortuary practices and...

Here we present the first detailed analysis of the archaeological finds from Carpenters Gap 1 rockshelter, one of the oldest radiocarbon dated sites in Australia and one of the few sites in the Sahul region to preserve both plant and animal remains down to the lowest Pleistocene aged deposits. Occupation at the site began between 51,000 and 45,000...

The majority of archaeological remains found at El Castillo in northern Iberia were excavated between 1910 and 1914 by Hugo Obermaier. Since the 1980s El Castillo has been studied through a detailed analysis of Obermaier's original excavation notes, the cleaning and study of the extant section, and the excavation of material in the shelter entrance...

The third and final season of excavation on Pod Hradem Cave (Moravian Karst) reached bedrock at a maximum depth of 3.5 metres, although the bedrock in this part of the cave represents a very steeply sloping wall rather than the cave floor. Radiocarbon dates indicate that the basal layers in this part of the cave were deposited during the late Middl...

Fish-hooks discovered among grave goods associated with an adult female burial at the Tron Bon Lei rockshelter on the island of Alor in Indonesia are the first of their kind from a Pleistocene mortuary context in Southeast Asia. Many of the hooks are of a circular rotating design. Parallels found in various other prehistoric contexts around the glo...

Caves have been an important source of vertebrate fossils for much of Southeast Asia, particularly for the Quaternary. Despite this importance, the mechanisms by which vertebrate remains accumulate and preserve in Southeast Asian caves has never been systematically reviewed or examined. Here, we present the results of three years of cave surveys in...

In 1956-1958, excavations of Pod Hradem Cave in Moravia (eastern Czech Republic) revealed evidence for human activity during the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition. This spanned 25,050-44,800 cal BP and contained artefacts attributed to the Aurignacian and Szeletian cultures, including those made from porcelanite (rarely used at Moravian Paleolith...

Loc Giang is an early Neolithic settlement located on the east bank of the Vam Co Dong River in Long An Province, southern Vietnam. Archaeological excavations at the site have identified sequences of midden deposit, floor surfaces, postholes and hearths, suggesting that the settlement consisted of ground-built dwellings. Throughout the life of the...

The δ¹⁸O, Strontium/Calcium and Barium/Calcium values recorded in golden perch otoliths collected from two evaporative lakes, modern Lake Hope and ancient Lake Mungo, have been used to reconstruct changes in water composition and environmental conditions during the life of the fish. Lake Hope was filled by floodwaters in 1989 and 1990, then a perio...

Article in press doi: 10.1002/oa.2578 Mesolithic human remains are rare in the archaeological record of the French Mediterranean. Only the island of Corsica has so far produced relatively well preserved burials, and recent archaeological excavations have brought to light new Mesolithic human remains. The site of Campu Stefanu, located in Sollacaro...

Loc Giang is an early Neolithic settlement located on the east bank of the Vam Co Dong River in Long An Province, southern Vietnam. Archaeological excavations at the site have identified sequences of midden deposit, floor surfaces, postholes and hearths, suggesting that the settlement consisted of ground-built dwellings. Throughout the life of the...

Mesolithic human remains are rare in the archaeological record of the French Mediterranean. Only the island of Corsica has so far produced relatively well-preserved burials, and recent archaeological excavations have brought to light new Mesolithic human remains. The site of Campu Stefanu, located in Sollacaro in the southeast of the island, contai...

Replying to C. M. Stojanowski et al. Nature 539, 10.1038/nature19778 (2016) "Contesting the massacre at Nataruk".

Skeletal remains from a burial in New South Wales exhibit evidence of fatal trauma, of a kind normally indicative of sharp metal weapons, yet the burial dates to the mid thirteenth century - 600 years before European settlers reached the area. Could sharp-edged wooden weapons from traditional Aboriginal culture inflict injuries similar to those res...

Wood charcoals excavated from archaeological sites provide a useful tool for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, particularly in arid and semi-arid zones, where suitable catchments for palynological archives are often limited. Preservation of organic material in northern Australia is characteristically poor, and wood charcoal analysis provides a vi...

Zilhão et al 2016. Cueva Antón: A multi-proxy MIS 3 to MIS 5a paleoenvironmental record for SE Iberia. Quaternary Science Reviews, 146. Supplementary Information – Tables.

Zilhão et al. 2016. Cueva Antón: A multi-proxy MIS 3 to MIS 5a paleoenvironmental record for SE Iberia. Quaternary Science Reviews, 146. Supplementary Information – Figures.

Overlying a palustrine deposit of unknown age (complex FP), and protected from weathering and erosion inside a large cave/rock-shelter cavity, the sedimentary fill of Cueva Antón, a Middle Paleolithic site in SE Spain, corresponds in most part (sub-complexes AS2-to-AS5) to a ca.3 m-thick Upper Pleistocene terrace of the River Mula. Coupled with the...

The nature of inter-group relations among prehistoric hunter-gatherers remains disputed, with arguments in favour and against the existence of warfare before the development of sedentary societies. Here we report on a case of inter-group violence towards a group of hunter-gatherers from Nataruk, west of Lake Turkana, which during the late Pleistoce...

Na monografía clásica de Puig y Larraz (1896: 250-252) amiéntense delles cavidaes del Conceyu de Piloña, pero non la Cueva d’El Sidrón (Fig. 1). Esta conocíase, ensin dulda, dende la Guerra Civil y el maquis al servir d’abellugu a persiguíos políticos, y guarda una alcordanza imborrable nuna de les sos múltiples entraes, yá qu’ellí ta enterrada Olv...

Archaeological evidence from survey and cave excavation in the Towuti–Routa region of Sulawesi suggests the following sequence of late Holocene cultural change. Settled communities whose subsistence included an agricultural component had established themselves by the early centuries a.d. and began the use of caves for mortuary purposes. Extended in...

The rare recovery of hafting technology from archaeological deposits around the world prevents a clear picture of Palaeolithic hafting arrangements. Without the recovery of hafted stone tools, our understanding of this technology is limited to extrapolation from artefact morphology and ethnographic analogy, and such is the case in Australia. Here w...

To explore the transport of carbon into water masses from the surface ocean to depths of in the southwest Pacific Ocean, we generated time series of radiocarbon from fish otoliths. Otoliths (carbonate earstones) from long-lived fish provide an indirect method to examine the “bomb pulse” of radiocarbon that originated in the 1950s and 1960s, allowin...

Shell artefacts in Island Southeast Asia have often been considered local variants of ground-stone implements, introduced in the Late Pleistocene from Mainland Southeast Asia. The discovery of a wellpreserved Tridacna shell adze from Ilin Island in the Philippines, suggests, however, a different interpretation. Using radiocarbon dating, X-ray diffr...

Bones from extinct Australian marsupials found at Spring Creek, Victoria, and in the Mowbray Swamp, Tasmania, have yielded scattered and anomalously young radiocarbon ages measured on collagen, gelatin or ultrafiltered gelatin. We resampled previously dated material from those two sites and from Mt Cripps, Tasmania, as well as a control sample from...

Studies of trade routes across Southeast Asia in prehistory have hitherto focused largely on archaeological evidence from Mainland Southeast Asia, particularly the Thai Peninsula and Vietnam. The role of Indonesia and Island Southeast Asia in these networks has been poorly understood, owing to the paucity of evidence from this region. Recent resear...

The aim of this paper is to review the current state of research for the Early Neolithic (c.5000–c.4300 cal BC) in Cantabrian Spain. Bayesian chronological models have been constructed to examine the neolithisation process and assess the role radiocarbon dates may play in understanding this period. The models suggest that the disappearance of hunte...