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Inside Dargan Shelter, the Blue Mountains cave home to artefacts linked to the Ice Age
The terrain in the upper Blue Mountains is impassable in sections. It's where eucalypts climb high and scribbly gums, banksia and wattles thrive.
Survival in this environment today would be tough — which makes a recent archaeological discovery all the more extraordinary.
Scientists have uncovered Ice Age artefacts deep inside a cave 1,100 metres above sea level, challenging long-held assumptions about ancient human life in Australia.
The discoveries, dated to as far back as 20,000 years, were found in a cave known as Dargan Shelter — now believed to be the oldest known site of human activity at high elevation on the Australian continent.
The Dargan Shelter is located in the upper-Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. ( ABC News: Michael Nudl ) The terrain near the cave is difficult to traverse. ( ABC News: Michael Nudl ) The upper-Blue Mountains near the location of the cave. ( ABC News: Tom Hartley ) Dr Amy Way and colleagues during one of the digs in the Dargan Shelter. ( Supplied: Meagan Warwick/Australian Museum ) The team involved in the discovery of the artefacts in Dargan Shelter. ( Supplied: Meagan Warwick/Australian Museum )
The shelter is around 25 metres high, 22 metres wide and 20 metres deep.
"We have the full sequence of occupation, right from when people started using it, from the last Ice Age or possibly even before that," Dr Amy Way, an Australian Museum archaeologist, told 7.30.
Members of the archaeology team inside Dargan Shelter. ( ABC News: Tom Hartley )
"It's a phenomenal cave in that you can absolutely see why people have been drawn to this space for thousands of years," she said.
"What makes it really significant archaeologically is actually what's beneath our feet."
The archaeologists discovered hundreds of artefacts during the digs. ( Supplied: Meagan Warwick/Australian Museum )
Over three digs between April 2022 and March 2023, where they dug down more than two metres, Dr Way and her team uncovered hundreds of ancient artefacts and items of cultural significance.
The evidence, they say, provides definitive proof of repeated occupation in this once frozen high-altitude landscape.
"The oldest object we found was around 20,000 years old," she said.
What was it like in the Ice Age?
An artwork by Leanne Redpath Wilkins imagining what Dargan Shelter looked like in the Ice Age. ( Supplied: Australian Museum )
Gomeroi man Wayne Brennan thinks the climate and terrain conditions would have been "extremely tough" this high up during the Ice Age, during a period called the Pleistocene.
Scientists believe the average temperature would have been 8 degrees Celsius cooler than it is today, and even more frigid during the winter months.
"It would have been a lot harsher around here," Mr Brennan told 7.30.
"The treeline would've been a lot lower, and while there would've been some shrubs, you'd be fighting for firewood."
The view from the cave. ( ABC News: Tom Hartley )
The evidence from the Dargan Shelter site also challenges the previous assumption that people just quickly crossed the Great Dividing Range, which includes the Blue Mountains, rather than spending time and settling in the mountains.
"What the artefacts tell us here is that there's a really big pulse of activity in that 18,000-year period," Dr Way said.
"This isn't just people running from one side to the other."
Dr Way told 7.30 that some stone artefacts originated from more than 100 kilometres away.
Dr Amy Way and a colleague during one of the digs in Dargan Shelter. ( Supplied: Meagan Warwrick/Australian Museum )
"Some had come in from the Hunter Valley and some from Jenolan ... to the north and south," she said.
"They're here, they're spending time, they're connected along the mountains."
Significant finds
The team used carbon dating to estimate the age of each object by measuring the date of charcoal from old fire-pits buried at the same depth.
Amy Way and Wayne Brennan inspect one of the artefacts in Dargan Shelter. ( ABC News: Tom Hartley )
Two of the more significant artefacts to have been found are what is believed to be a sandstone grinding slab bearing linear grooves. It is estimated to have been used more than 13,000 years ago.
"Those grooves were made when a person was sharpening either a bone or a piece of wood, and sharpening it into a point," Dr Way hypothesised.
"They could have been making a needle for sewing, which is quite likely considering how cold it was up here."
Another stone that piqued their interest was a piece of basalt that had been split and shaped, initially leading researchers to think it was an axe.
Further analysis showed it had been used for cracking open hard seeds or nuts around 9,000 years ago.
A stone tool thought to have been used to crack open seeds and nuts. ( ABC News: Tom Hartley )
"This is people sitting around having a feed, cracking open some nuts for a snack," Dr Way said.
"And the nuts, of course, haven't survived but because they made an impact mark on this stone, we can reconstruct what they were doing."
Protecting a sacred site
Looking out the mouth of a cave. ( ABC News: Tom Hartley )
Mr Brennan suggested the excavation was akin to "shaking hands with the past".
"We think Dargan Shelter was a stopover point for family groups on their way to ceremony or on their way back," he said
"The mountains weren't a barrier and I think that's the exciting part.
"Just to think our ancestors were coming up here and doing things around that period of time — it would've been tough, but that shows the obligation we have to country."
Wayne Brennan believes the cave was a place where families stopped over while travelling. ( ABC News: Tom Hartley )
Mr Brennan is a First Nations knowledge holder who was one of the authors of the research as an archaeology student at the University of Sydney.
"The Blue Mountains is a UNESCO World Heritage-listed site for the protection of flora and fauna, but there are no safeguards for our cultural heritage," he said.
"We hope that by combining our traditional knowledge with scientific research, we can protect these invaluable storehouses of our history for generations to come."
'Significant place'
Mr Brennan said the discoveries proved Dargan Shelter is on a "dreaming track".
"It's a songline track that brought in a lot of different mobs from up north, west, east and south," he said.
Erin Wilkins says walking into the cave "takes your breath away". ( ABC News: Tom Hartley )
While there's no certain way of identifying which groups accessed the mountains in the deep past, it is likely that multiple groups were connected to this country.
Today Wiradjuri, Gomeroi, Darkinjung, Dharawal, Wonnarua, Gundungara and other groups hold traditional connections to the region.
Direct custodians say it's a "magical" place.
"Coming into this shelter is like nothing you've ever done before — it takes your breath away and it's very settling for your soul, for your spirit as well," said Dharug woman Erin Wilkins, a First Nations knowledge holder who was also an author of the research.
The ceiling of the cave is about 25m high.. ( ABC News: Tom Hartley )
"To know my ancestors and many, many ancestors and many people have come through, sat in the same sand, in the same soil, in the same surrounds for thousands and thousands years, it gives us a lot more clarity, a lot more information.
"It connects our stories, but it's healing for her, it's healing for mother, that we're back here."
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