100 thousand years ago - time of the giants
About Naracoorte Caves
Naracoorte Caves are located in south-east South Australia. Many of these limestone caves contain Pleistocene fossils. The richest of these deposits is in Victoria Fossil Cave. For more than 30, 000 years, animals that fell into this cave were unable to escape and a huge pile of bones and sediment built up until about 15, 000 years ago when the pile reached the ceiling, blocking the entrance. This pile contains the greatest number, most diverse and best preserved fossils of this time period in Australia. For this reason, in 1994 Naracoorte Caves was inscribed (with Riversleigh) on the World Heritage list of fossil sites.
Significant fossils at Naracoorte
Thousands of fossil specimens of at least 93 different animal species have been excavated from only about four per cent of the pile over nearly 30 years. They include examples of the extinct Megafauna such as the 2-3m tall Giant Short-faced Kangaroo (Procoptodon goliah), the marsupial 'tapir' (Palorchestes azael) and a giant snake (Wonambi naracoortensis).
Fossils of modern animals such as the Tasmanian Devil and Tiger, wallabies, possums, bettongs, mice, bats, snakes, parrots, turtles, lizards and frogs are also found at this site.
Fossil-hunting at Naracoorte
Small areas of the pile, which is divided into a grid of 1.5m sections are selected for excavation. Slowly and carefully, palaeontologists from Flinders University excavate the sediment from around the bones. The bones are mapped, sketched and photographed before they are removed. Information about the position and orientation of the fossils can help us understand the history of the pile formation. The excavated sediment is washed through a fine sieve to recover small fossils.
Fossils in Naracoorte Caves.
Photo: © S Hand.
Careful excavation of the fossil deposits has yielded more than 5000 catalogued specimens.
Photo: © H Godthelp.
The enormous pile of bone and sediment in the Fossil Chamber reaches up to block the entrance in the ceiling like the sediment pile in Sand Cave pictured here. It is estimated that the Fossil Chamber contains more than 5000 tonnes of bone-rich sediment.
Photo: © R Wells.
