Late Pleistocene behavioural variation and time trends: the case from Tasmania

Abstract

Abstract The newly discovered archaeological site of Parmerpar Meethaner, located in the Forth River valley Tasmania, is described. This important site, 1) has evidence of repeated long term human occupation extending from c.780 BP to c.34,000 BP, 2) crosses all the major large scale climatic events such as the beginning, middle and end of the LGM and the late Pleistocene/Holocene boundary, 3) supports the notion that Tasmania was first occupied 35,000 radiocarbon years ago, 4) has a different settlement history to sites in Southwest Tasmania, and 5) provides the missing archaeological evidence of human responses to changing forested conditions. The paper describes the material from Parmerpar Meethaner and examines how they fit with what is currently known about late Pleistocene Tasmanian occupation in terms of dating patterns of discard behaviour, Bass Strait landbridges and colonising events.