This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: While sorting through animal bones in a rock shelter in Queensland, Australia, archaeologists came across a tooth where something was "not quite right." Stuck to the tip of its root was a blackish-brown ball of glue-like resin. Eleven more teeth with the same sticky substance were found, making them the only known instance of this type of tooth ornament found outside burials in northeastern Australia and the first in the Cape York Peninsula (CYP), the new study published in Australian Archaeology reports.
The first tooth was spotted as archaeologist Lynley Wallis from Griffith University sorted through the dusty old remains of Windmill Way, a rock shelter in Quinkan Country. "I paused my automatic robot-like sorting to take a better look," Wallis said. She handed the odd find to Sam Lowdown, a Traditional Owner and member of the Laura Ranger team.
"I recall Sam looking confused initially, turning the tooth around in her hands, and then, as realization dawned, she broke out in the biggest grin, held it up and said loudly for the whole team to hear, 'That's resin!'" Australia's Aboriginal peoples have used wood, string, gum and other organic materials since they first arrived on the continent thousands of years ago. The problem is that these things rarely survive the ravages of time, even under good conditions. Windmill Way, in the southeast of the CYP, is a rare exception.
More than 500 plant-fiber string pieces have been found at the site, along with abundant ocher, shell, worked wood and thousands of gnawed animal bones, which initially led the team to almost write off the shelter as a dingo den. Tooth ornaments are equally ubiquitous in Australia, but most are dug up from burials. These grave goods meant to accompany the dead include impressive headbands made of kangaroo teeth, wily little Tasmanian devil canine necklaces and headbands made from small, cute wallaby teeth, almost all of which come from the southeast of the continent.
The CYP, on the other hand, has not produced a single piece of animal-tooth jewelry, even after decades of research. Wanting to know what the more than 1,000-year-old resin was made of, the researchers turned to the Elders and Rangers from the Laura community, who used their knowledge to point the researchers toward the likely plants used. Once found, two lab techniques were used to confirm their suspicions: One used infrared light, and the other used mass spectrometry.
The infrared analysis "works by shining infrared light onto a sample of uncertain material, and measuring how the chemical bonds absorb the light, producing a characteristic chemical 'fingerprint,'" co-author Carney Matheson from Griffith University said. That fingerprint is then matched with other fingerprints from known resins. Meanwhile, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry separates the resin mixture into distinct compounds and measures their molecular weights, allowing researchers to pinpoint the exact plant used, much like identifying a dish by its ingredients.
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