Geoff Bailey

Al Uyaynah is a low sandstone mound on an alluvial plain, long known for its extensive surface remains of stone‐built circular and rectangular structures. Following test excavations in 2012, more detailed excavation was undertaken in 2016 within one of the largest rectangular stone structures. This demonstrates a sequence with lithic and faunal remains in the time range 7190–6900 cal BC . The lithic industry includes Amuq points, burins, sickle inserts, perforators, awls and scrapers. The faunal remains are dominated by ovicaprids, with goats certainly present, and smaller numbers of cattle, gazelle and hare. An unusual feature is the large number (> 200) of small (2–5 cm) roughly‐formed clay objects at the base of the sequence, many with what appear to be deliberately made holes, grooves or inserts of flint and charcoal. We interpret the site as a small village settlement supported by animal husbandry and perhaps crop cultivation, occupied during a relatively short window of improved climatic conditions. Overall, the material shows close affinities with late Pre‐Pottery Neolithic B sites in the southern Levant, but with some distinctive features.

Recent studies conducted in Murujuga Sea Country have confirmed that Indigenous Australian archaeology does not end at the modern shore. Since the earliest peopling of the Australian continent, sea levels have fluctuated significantly, dropping as much as 130 m below modern mean sea-level during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). During this period, the continent (including Australia and New Guinea) represented a landmass one-third larger than present day Australia. As sea levels rose following the LGM, this extensive cultural landscape was inundated. The recent reporting of archaeological remains in a submerged context at Murujuga has enabled an integrated analysis of the archaeological landscape, based on direct evidence from archaeological sites that were originally formed on dry land, but are now located in intertidal and submerged environments. This study applies a landscape analysis centred on the submerged Cape Bruguieres channel site, and the Gidley Islands, where submerged, intertidal and coastal archaeology has been recorded. Aerial, pedestrian, and intertidal archaeological surveys were conducted to investigate the onshore and offshore landscape, providing new evidence with which to place the stone artefacts in the Cape Bruguieres channel into a wider context. Rock art engravings, grinding patches, quarries and upstanding stones – some of which are in the intertidal zone – point to the use of a landscape that is now submerged and to the possibility of discovering new underwater sites. By integrating evidence from subtidal and intertidal contexts with the onshore record, we explore the cultural landscape above and below the ‘waterline’ as a continuum.