A museum collection assessor was expecting teapots and farming equipment in a small coastal museum when she made a find that sent her back 100,000 years.
Historical archaeologist Christeen Schoepf was expecting to find the usual suspects during an assessment of the vast collection at the National Trust Museum in the small coastal South Australian town of Kingston SE.
On a shelf below an ostrich egg, and above photos of a creek, were three bones small enough to fit in her hands. To the left of the case, on an old wooden chest, are eight grey flat stones – fossilised algae collected from Biscuit Flat, 40 kilometres south of Kingston SE – that are more than 200,000 years old.It's hard to imagine, looking at the towns, forestry plantations, vineyards and paddocks in the region now, but 100,000 years ago the Limestone Coast was vast wetlands broken up by islands of forest and grassland, as well as the now-iconic caves.
"People were present with megafauna, so these were animals that people knew about, which is also really an interesting aspect of this story."After they were found at Blackford in 1954, a workman sent the bones to the SA Museum and it wasn't until 1999 that small samples were sent back to Kingston. "No doubt there were some casualties. Perhaps some got caught in the mud, some rolled ... and they finished up being fossilised in the mud stone."Ms Schoepf said she wants to negotiate with the SA Museum to exhibit more of the region's natural history, including the collection found at Blackford."I'm hoping that as we examine other museums that they will present themselves as a bigger story.
"The Kingston Museum is taking on a new shape through Christeen and I hope by the time she's finished we'll be able to tell a lot more stories in a far more efficient manner," he said.Skeletons of three-tonne ancient, wombat-like marsupial excavated in outback WAIsrael says it has entered 'the second stage of war' on Gaza StripAnne-Marie was diagnosed with a brain tumour.
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