Bone readers: atoms, genes and the politics of Australia's deep past

273 Pages·2009·18.18 MB·English

by  Jones, Cheryl;Tuniz, Claudio;Gillespie, Richard

Claudio Tuniz is a world-renowned expert in geochronology using
particle accelerators. He is Assistant Director of UNESCO’s International
Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, where he promotes the use
of atomic and nuclear physics in palaeoanthropology. He was director
of the accelerator dating centre at the Australian Nuclear Science and
Technology Organisation and has published widely on Australian
prehistory.
Richard Gillespie built a radiocarbon laboratory at the University of
Sydney before taking up research positions at Oxford University, the
University of Arizona and the Australian National University. He is an
authority on dating bones and shells, with wide fi eldwork experience in
Africa, North America and Australia.
Cheryl Jones is a science journalist who for many years has covered
developments in Australian prehistory for international and Australian
media, including The Australian Financial Review, The Canberra Times
and The Bulletin.
This page intentionally left blank
The Bone
ReadeRs
Science and
Politics in
Human Origins
Research
Claudio Tuniz
Richard Gillespie
Cheryl Jones
Originally published in Australia by Allen & Unwin under ISBN 978-1-74114-728-5
First published 2009 by Left Coast Press, Inc.
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © 2009 by Claudio Tuniz, Richard Gillespie, and Cheryl Jones
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only
for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available from the publisher.
ISBN: 1-59874-475-5
Illustrations by Mario Tiberio and Walter Gregoric
Index by Garry Cousins
Set in11/15 pt Sabon by Midland Typesetters, Australia
ISBN 13: 978-1-59874-475-0 (pbk)
For Maude, Patrizia
and the late Diana
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Junette 1
I LANDFALL 5
1 Timelords and god-scientists 7
2 Heat and light 17
3 Mungo Lady gets date 27
4 Stairway to heaven 48
II EXTINCTION 57
5 The melée 59
6 Inside Geny’s eggshell 67
7 Frank the Diprotodon 80
8 Silicon beasts 95
9 New World order 105
10 Blast from the past 114
11 Bison 117
12 Cosmic impact 125
13 Cool science, hot politics 129
14 Extinction science 136
III ORIGINS 141
15 Gene wars 143
16 Roots 153
17 Hobbit 166
18 Neanderthal 178
19 ‘Vampire’ project 188
20 Back to country 205
viii The BONE READERS
Epilogue 218
Notes 221
Bibliography 225
Acknowledgements 246
Index 247
Junette
Junette Mitchell did not hesitate when asked why she had given a DNA
sample to a geneticist studying the evolutionary history of Australian
Aborigines. ‘I wanted to see how close we were to Mungo Lady,’ said
the quietly spoken elder of the riverine Paakantji people from south-
western New South Wales.
Her motives when she gave the sample were strong enough to
overcome the suspicion many Aborigines have of genetics research.
They were also a match for opposition to ‘colonial science’.
Mitchell’s people, who have a history of frontier confl ict and dispos-
session stretching back more than 150 years to the time when Euro-
peans were encroaching on their territory around the mighty Murray,
Darling and Lachlan rivers, are among traditional owners of the
Willandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area, about 800 kilometres
west of Sydney. Her country takes in the relics of a 1,000-kilometre-
square system of fi ve huge lakes, dry for 18,000 years and now covered
with saltbush and mallee scrub. The Paakantji now lead tour groups
to the Walls of China, a 30-kilometre-long lunette, or crescent-shaped
sand dune, which rises up to 40 metres from the eastern and southern
shores of Lake Mungo, the centre of the system. They also work as
land and heritage managers at Mungo National Park, which attracts
50,000 tourists a year.
Dotted with strange forms beaten by the westerlies into white
quartz sand, the vast lunettes around the lakes have delivered up the
skeletons of more than 100 ancients. Mungo Lady illuminates an
ancient culture and its interaction with a new land. She was strolling
around Lake Mungo when the fi rst modern humans were venturing
1