Did devils and human co-exist in the Pilbara for 45,000 years? And did dingoes disrupt that bond?
New research from Juukan Gorge has uncovered the first definite evidence that this may have been the case in Western Australia.
UNSW researchers and First nations people have identified two Tasmanian devil bones from the Juukan 2 rock shelter: a partial jaw dated at 6900-7300 years and part of a tooth from deposits dated at 42,500-47,100 years old.
The gorge’s landscape and history of people, devils and dingoes was nearly lost when mining giant Rio Tinto blasted the site in 2020.
The researchers say their finds, combined with thousands of other animal and human remains, suggest devils had scavenged around human camps for thousands of years.
Then they died out on the Australian mainland with Tasmania their sole habitat.
“This discovery shows just how ecologically adaptable devils were,” says lead study author and University of NSW palaeontologist Dr Tim Churchill.
“They thrived in the arid, rocky gorges of the Pilbara and persisted there through major climatic upheavals, including the Last Glacial Maximum (Ice Age).”
The university says the dig site reveals a pattern of devil-like damage to animal bones found amid other archaeology such as stone artefacts, campfires, shell beads, bone tools and a belt made from human hair.
Researchers examined more than 8000 bones on-site, many of them had been chewed or digested by carnivores; tooth marks most closely matched those made by Tasmanian devils.
The UNSW says these traces of deposits span much of Juukan 2’s 47,000-year history, suggesting devils scavenged at the rock shelter through major environmental changes, including a severe drought during the last Ice Age.
Many of larger bones found at the site, including those of kangaroos and goannas, were brought there by people and may later have been scavenged by devils, signs of a bond between them.
DID DINGOES DISRUPT THE DEVILS-HUMAN BOND?
The researchers say the arrival of dingoes may have disrupted this relationship by cutting devils off from a predictable food source, possibly contributing to their extinction on the mainland (with thylacines), about 3200 years ago.
“Dingoes have long been blamed for driving mainland devils extinct by competing for carrion, and perhaps even killing them directly,” says Dr Churchill.
“What’s been largely overlooked is competition for another resource: access to people and the food scraps around human camps.”
The team says sites like these must be protected before evidence of the earliest human stories disappears forever.
“Juukan Gorge contains an irreplaceable record of how people, animals and environments changed together over tens of thousands of years,” says Dr Churchill.
“The fact that so much of that record was nearly lost makes every new discovery from the site especially significant.”
