Cloggs Cave is a

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

cave and rockshelter with significant Aboriginal archaeological deposits, located on a cliff along the

Snowy River The Snowy River is a major river in south-eastern Australia. It originates on the slopes of Mount Kosciuszko, Australia's highest mainland peak, draining the eastern slopes of the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales, before flowing through the ...

gorge near the town of

Buchan, Victoria Buchan ( ) is a town in the east Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia. The town is situated adjacent to the Buchan River, in the Shire of East Gippsland, upstream from the river's junction with the Snowy River. At the 2011 census, Buchan a ...

. The cave was within the country of the Krowathunkooloong (Krauatungalung) clan of the

Gunaikurnai The Gunaikurnai or Gunai/Kurnai ( ) people, also referred to as the Gunnai or Kurnai, are an Aboriginal Australian nation of south-east Australia. They are the Traditional Custodians of most of present-day Gippsland and much of the southern slop ...

nation. The roof of the rock shelter outside the cave is heavily blackened, evidently from campfires. A passage leads to an inner chamber with a high cathedral-like roof. Cloggs Cave was the first

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

occupation site to be found with intact bone. Evidence of bones from megafauna and extinct

marsupial Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a ...

s was found to be dated between 27,500 and 24,500 years old, but were not associated with the human occupation layers. The first European known to have found the cave was Josephine Flood, when driving to another site in eastern Victoria. Her subsequent excavations within the dry floor of the rock shelter revealed extensive evidence of stone tool-making from the Australian Small Tool Tradition, with the basal layer dated to the last 1,000 years. Further inside the cave dates from the excavation showed the site was probably first occupied around 17,000 years ago, but appears to have been abandoned by 1,000 years when the outer area was occupied. Based on the relatively small quantities of discarded stone tools, the site has been interpreted as an intermittently occupied hunting site rather than a permanent campsite, with deeply stratified layers containing both stone and bone tools along with ochre and a rich faunal assemblage. The artefact assemblage is from what is described as the Australian Core Tool and Scraper Tradition. The cave was also important in demonstrating the antiquity of Aboriginal occupation in south-east Australia and for its almost continuous sequence of occupation layers, extending into the post European settlement period in the 1830s and 1860s.Geoffrey S. Hope, Altered Ecologies: Fire, Climate and Human Influence on Terrestrial Landscapes An excavation reported in early 2021 revealed

microscopic The microscopic scale () is the scale of objects and events smaller than those that can easily be seen by the naked eye, requiring a lens or microscope to see them clearly. In physics, the microscopic scale is sometimes regarded as the scale be ...

remains of

bogong moth The bogong moth (''Agrotis infusa'') is a temperate species of night-flying moth, notable for its biannual long-distance seasonal migrations towards and from the Australian Alps, similar to the diurnal monarch butterfly. During the autumn an ...

on a small

grinding stone Millstones or mill stones are stones used in gristmills, for grinding wheat or other grains. They are sometimes referred to as grindstones or grinding stones. Millstones come in pairs: a convex stationary base known as the ''bedstone'' and ...

, estimated to be about 2,000 years old. This is the first confirmed evidence of insect food remains discovered on a stone artefact in the whole world. The Gunaikurnai people were one of several Aboriginal peoples who used to travel to the mountains to obtain the high-fat, energy-rich moths as food, and stories of these travels had been passed down in their oral history. The excavation was done by researchers from

Monash University Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university h ...

in collaboration with the

traditional owners Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have right ...

, represented by the Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Corporation (GLaWAC). The findings were analysed using a special staining process. After the residues were placed on a microscope slide, they were stained with a special dye which turned

fluorescent Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, the emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore a lower photon energy, ...

, which aided identification of the collagen and

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, res ...

s, being the remains of the moth left on the rock.

References

* Josephine Flood, Archaeology of the Dreamtime, J. B. Publishing * Phillip J. Habgood & Natilie R. Franklin, The revolution that didn't arrive: A review of Pleistocene Sahul, Journal of Human Evolution, 55, 2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:Cloggs Cave Pleistocene paleontological sites of Australia History of Victoria (Australia) Limestone caves Caves of Victoria (Australia) Rock shelters in Australia

See also

References