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Commerce and academia unite to mount outback expedition

June 28, 2006

Expedition to the Simpson DesertA unique marriage of commerce and academia has seen Australia's most popular off-road magazine sponsor an archaeological expedition to the heart of the Simpson Desert. Dr June Ross (University of New England) and Dr Mike Smith (National Museum of Australia) undertook the expedition to Geosurveys Hill to study a group of gigantic Aboriginal geoglyphs – geometrical stone arrangements as much as 300 metres in length – first recorded by anthropologist Norman Tindale more than 40 year ago.

In October of 1962, Tindale received an invitation to visit the area from Reg Sprigg, managing director of Geosurveys Ltd, one of several companies prospecting in the Simpson for oil and gas at the time. Sprigg's workers had noticed “long lines of stones that disappear under sand hills”.

Tindale was delivered to the site in a light plane that set down on the claypans and flew off. A brief investigation of the area turned up extensive stone arrangements on several pans, as well as scatters of chipped stone artefacts that Tindale thought represented two phases of occupation; the older being around 6000-8000 years old and the more recent within the last 1000 years. Stormclouds prevented further study – the pilot, fearing a downpour would turn his landing strip into a quagmire, returned to collect Tindale less than 24 hours later. Tindale swore to return (“I am on 24 hours notice to go again”) but the opportunity never came. It would be four decades before the next expedition, lead by Drs Ross and Smith, would visit the area.

After curating an exhibition called “Extremes: Deserts of the Southern Hemisphere”, Dr Smith was approached by the technical editor of 4X4 Magazine, who was keen to sponsor a scientific expedition to Australia's red centre. Dr Smith had read about Tindale's aborted visit to Geosurveys Hill, and had always wanted to go back and explore. 4X4 agreed to mount the expedition and to run a feature on it in their magazine. Landrover Australia provided two brand-new Landrover Discoveries and US company Coopers Tires provided tyres. Dr Ross and Dr Smith were also accompanied by a video crew and stills photographer. A former airline pilot was their navigator.

After a challenging four-day drive across sand dunes, Dr Ross and her colleagues spent four days surveying the sites at Geosurveys Hill. The archaeologists found and recorded seven stone arrangements and extensive scatters of stone tools.They also found that Geosurveys Hill, a lone hill amongst a vast dune field, was, in fact, a silcrete outcrop that had been extensively quarried by Aborigines for the manufacture of stone tools. The team produced a detailed recording of the largest stone arrangement, which they will now compare to other Aboriginal stone arrangements in arid Australia. They believe the stone arrangements were produced over an extended period of time during the last 1500 years or so.

Dr Ross called the commercially-sponsored expedition a “unique opportunity”.

“An expedition such as this would be very difficult to mount through the normal grant agencies,” she said. “They're generally not interested in funding something so costly and with such an uncertain outcome.”

“The partnership between the sponsors and the archaeologists allowed us to gather extremely valuable information about past Aboriginal land use in arid environments, as well as giving the sponsors a chance to test their products under some of the country's toughest conditions.”

For more information contact Leon Braun (UNE Public Relations) on (02) 6773 3771. A photo is available to accompany this story.

Posted by Leon Braun at June 28, 2006 12:04 PM