A preliminary report on the stone artefacts from Colless Creek Cave, northwest Queensland

Today the gorge system of which Colless Creek is a part is an oasis, a permanent stream system lined by tropical gallery forest running through semi-arid terrain. Colless Creek Cave itself is currently an oasis of information within the archaeological literary desert of the Top End; no other sites have been published within a 500km radius. This paper is a preliminary report on the analysis of stone artefacts from the cave. It is preliminary in two senses. First, it analyses material from only two test squares excavated in 1979. Second, it describes only artefact densities, rates of discard, artefact sizes, and the proportions of artefact types. No analysis of stone working technology is presented. This paper is concerned only with chronological changes within the cave; no account is taken of spatial variations within the cave, or of relationships to other sites.