Nurrabullgin Cave: preliminary results from a pre‐37,000 year old rockshelter, North Queensland

Evidence is presented for occupation pre‐dating 37,000 BP at Nurrabullgin Cave, a recently excavated site from southeast Cape York Peninsula. The site is well stratified and contains stone artefacts, bone and large quantities of charcoal, representing a number of distinct occupational phases separated by a series of hiatuses. Ochre fragments were also recovered from mid‐ and late‐Holocene levels; their absence from earlier deposits may indicate that the numerous paintings located on the walls date to relatively recent times. The precise antiquity of the earliest occupation remains unknown.