‘How old are the stone circles in southwestern Australia?’

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Earlier this morning I discovered an illustration by J.W.Curtis made in 1877, of ‘Stone circles near Mount Elephant, southwestern Victoria.’

So, I asked AI about the age of these monuments.

AI replied – ‘Stone circles and arrangements in southwestern Australia have a vast age range, with some domestic structures dating back 8,000 to 9,000 years old. The exact age of many sites is difficult to determine, but some are likely many thousands of years old. 

Specific examples of ancient stone arrangements in Western Australia include:

  • Rosemary Island “houses” Circular stone foundations discovered on Rosemary Island in the Dampier Archipelago, dated to between 8,000 and 9,000 years ago, are some of the oldest known domestic structures in Australia.
  • Murchison and South-West arrangements Indigenous people in the Murchison region and south of Western Australia created a wide array of stone arrangements, often on open rock surfaces or flat sandy plains. These sites are generally difficult to date precisely but are believed to be ancient, created over many generations. 

These structures highlight the long and sophisticated history of Aboriginal culture in Australia, predating similar stone structures in Europe like Stonehenge and the pyramids of Egypt by millennia. …

Stone circles near Mt. Elephant in Victoria, like the famous Wurdi Youang, are ancient Aboriginal astronomical sites, with some structures potentially over 11,000 years old, serving as sophisticated tools to track solstices and seasons, far predating European stone circles and even the nearby volcanic eruptions that formed the landscape itself. 

Key Facts About the Mt. Elephant Area Stone Circles:

  • Age: While Mt. Elephant’s volcanic activity is recent (around 180,000 years ago), the stone arrangements, such as Wurdi Youang, are incredibly ancient, with evidence suggesting they are over 11,000 years old.
  • Purpose: These aren’t just monuments; they are precise Aboriginal astronomical tools used to mark the sun’s movements (solstices) and predict weather for survival, functioning for thousands of years.
  • Context: These structures were built by Indigenous Australians long before European settlers arrived and used the local volcanic rock (scoria) from eruptions like Mt. Elephant’s to create their observatories. 

In essence, the stone circles near Mt. Elephant represent some of the world’s oldest known astronomical sites, demonstrating deep Indigenous knowledge of the cosmos long before comparable structures in Europe were built.’

The implications of this are profound.

This begs a wider question, were the peoples who built these astronomical monuments around the world in Megalithic times, a seafaring people, i.e. did long-distance contact take place between different cultures in the distant past?

In other words, did ancient peoples on other continents know about the existence of the Australasian landmass, long before the first recorded sighting and landing on what is today Australia, by the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon in 1606, and later, by Captain James Cook in 1770?

AI – ‘While physical wrecks of ancient Indigenous watercraft are rare due to the organic materials used (like bark and wood), archaeological evidence and rock art show that Aboriginal people were skilled mariners who traveled vast distances and had contact with people from Southeast Asia (such as the Macassans from the 17th century onward) long before European colonization. The earliest instances of human seafaring to Australia occurred around 65,000 years ago, a monumental achievement in maritime history.’ 

My further Q. – What do genetic studies reveal about any rare markers in Australian and Tasmanian Aboriginal DNA shared with the ancient peoples of other cultures?’

AI – ‘Genetic studies reveal that Australian and Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples carry Denisovan DNA and traces from an unknown, extinct hominin species, which are shared with other ancient and present-day populations in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Shared Ancient Hominin DNA

The primary rare markers shared with ancient peoples of other cultures involve interbreeding events with archaic hominins that occurred as modern humans migrated through Asia. 

  • Denisovan DNA: Aboriginal Australians and Papuans carry a significant percentage of Denisovan DNA, typically around 3-5% of their genome. This is a rare marker compared to most other world populations (e.g., Europeans have no Denisovan ancestry, while Chinese people have a very small fraction). The shared marker indicates interbreeding in Southeast Asia before the ancestors of Aboriginal Australians reached the supercontinent Sahul (which comprised present-day ustralia, New Guinea, and Tasmania) approximately 50,000 years ago.
  • Unknown Hominin Species: Some studies suggest the presence of a genetic trace from an uncharacterized and perhaps entirely unknown early human species, a distant relative of Denisovans, with whom their ancestors also interbred. The trace from this “ghost” lineage makes up about 4% of the genome in most Aboriginal Australians and Papuans.
  • Neanderthal DNA: Like all modern non-African populations, Aboriginal Australians also carry a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA (around 2%), a result of ancient interbreeding events in Western Asia or the Middle East before the divergence of Eurasian and Australasian populations. 

Unique and Shared Modern Markers

Within modern populations, several specific genetic markers are unique to or characteristic of Australian Aboriginal people and related groups:

  • Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) Haplogroups: Specific mtDNA haplogroups, such as M42a, M42c, N13, O, and S, evolved within Australia and are found almost exclusively in Aboriginal Australian populations. Haplogroup P probably evolved in northern Sahul and is found in both New Guinean and Aboriginal Australian populations. The deep divergence times of these haplogroups (over 40,000 years) confirm the long-term, independent genetic history of these populations.
  • Y-chromosome Haplogroups: Y-chromosome haplogroups C-M347, K-M526*, and S-P308 are Aboriginal Australian-specific and are very distinct from those in other populations, including Indian ones, confirming a deep divergence and refuting hypotheses of recent mass migration from India in the Holocene epoch based on Y-chromosome evidence. 

These genetic markers highlight a unique and ancient lineage, revealing that Aboriginal Australians are descendants of one of the earliest major human migrations out of Africa, a population that has been largely genetically isolated for tens of thousands of years.’ 

Since Adam’s Calendar (Blaauboschkraal) in South Africa is proposed to be the world’s oldest astronomical stone circle, potentially over 75,000 years old, predating Stonehenge and the pyramids, is it possible that Australian and Tasmanian Aborigines inherited a sophisticated knowledge of astronomy from the African people who built Adam’s Calendar, i.e. as a result of migration?