Examples of the clay ball heat retainers found in the earth mounds. Photo: River Murray and Mallee Aboriginal Corporation
New archaeological research has linked significant earth mound features created by Indigenous people in the Riverland region of South Australia to ancient cooking methods.
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The earth mounds were found during archaeological field work conducted by Flinders University, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, the University of Queensland and the River Murray and Mallee Aboriginal Corporation.
The team excavated six earth mounds on the Calperum Station floodplains in order to examine their contents using a range of scientific methods and to collect samples of charcoal and shell for radiocarbon dating.
The discoveries range in age from 4000 years old up until Europeans arrived.
Location of major earth mound provinces in south-eastern Australia.
Lead author Robert Jones said the earth mounds were formed by the repeated use of earth oven cooking methods in the same location over extensive periods of time.
“Clay balls were used to retain the heat in the underground ovens, which we believe were primarily used to cook aquatic plants such as bulrush tubers, to be used for food and fibre production,” he said.
Co-author Amy Roberts said “the introduction of this type of cooking on a large scale represents a major innovation in the lifeways of Aboriginal people in the Mid Holocene period, which would have had significant social and cultural implications”.
River Murray and Mallee Aboriginal Corporation’s Fiona Giles said the discovery revealed a lot about the knowledge of her ancestors.
“The recent excavations of the hearths situated on Calperum Station have revealed how our ancestors used a variety of cooking techniques when there were large, constant gatherings of First Nations people,” she said.
“This recent find has highlighted our ancestors’ knowledge of different soils within the landscape and how clay was used for retaining heat.”
The paper has been published in The Holocene.
Excavation of one of the Calperum floodplain earth mounds in 2019. Photo: River Murray and Mallee Aboriginal Corporation.
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