Baiame Cave

The Aboriginal people of the east coast of New South Wales in Australia believe Baiame is the creator. 'Baiame cave', also known as - Creator Cave, Dhurramulan, Goign, Wabooee, Baiamai, Biami, Baimae, Biamie, Biaime, Byarmie and Byarme, is located in the Upper Hunter Valley of New South Wales. It is a very important spiritual site to the people of the Wonnarau Nation, and other Aboriginal people. Baiame is represented through art on the rear wall of the cave, as a large male figure with both arms outstretched, filled with red pigment and bordered with white pigment. 

Mention of Baiame and Baiame cave can be found in many fables of the Aboriginal people. 

"I am going on a long journey towards the setting sun," he told his people. "I will not stop until I come to the home of Baiame himself." 

"Have you come here to see my father?" she asked. 

"Yes. It has been a long journey, but my soul told me to come to see the Great Spirit." 

"You can see his body there," Byallaburragan told him. "It is many moons since any man has been bold enough to look at Baiame. he is asleep and you must not wake him. Look!"

(The Adventures of Yooneeara)

Reference:

Gml.Com.Au, 2022, 

https://www.gml.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Baiame-Cave-CMP-2018.pdf.

"Baiame Cave - Wikipedia". En.Wikipedia.Org, 2022, 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baiame_Cave.

Reed, A. W. Aboriginal Fables And Legendary Tales. Reed New Holland, 1999.

Note on Archaeological Anthropology

Archaeological anthropology can be simply defined as the study of human past based on material objects, recovered by systematic explorations and excavations, which are classified, analyzed, described, and interpreted, based on various scientific methods and theories.

As a subbranch of anthropology, it not only helps in understanding diversity around the World but also to see how people since prehistoric times related to the material World. As it tries to reconstruct the past human societies and their cultural processes, it provides the much-needed temporal dimension to the Anthropologist's study of contemporary simple societies. The major goals of this specialization is timeless and spaceless; the construction of cultural chronologies, the reconstruction of extinct lifeways, and the search for bio-cultural processes are some of the main objectives.

Before the 1960s, Archaeology remained for a long time a discipline concerned with the description and classification of ancient objects and features.

After the 1960s, Lewis Binford’s New Archaeology movement emphasized the larger anthropological goals of Archaeology.

Systems of measuring time are dependent on human thoughts and are relative in nature. Relative time is a system of temporal division to establish the sequence of events in history. The temporal division is required to realize the immense length of time.

The whole of human history has been divided into different ages for analytical purposes; on the basis of activities, ideas of change, concepts of progress, and variability in objects.

Material remains are considered proofs of these actions which mark time.

The entire range of material remains constituting the archaeological record belongs to 3 broad temporal divisions, namely, Prehistory, Protohistory, and Historical period. 

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Brief Summary: Pleistocene Epoch

The geologic time scale serves as the "calendar" for Earth's history. It subdivides all time into named units of abstract time called—in descending order of duration—eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages. Stratigraphy, or the correlation and classification of rock strata, is used to enumerate and classify those geologic time units. 

As mentioned, the geological time scale is divided into eras, and the last era, in which we live in is called Cenozoic. The Cenozoic era is divided into two periods, the Tertiary and Quaternary. Quaternary period covers a time span of two million years and is further divided into two epochs, Pleistocene and Holocene, Holocene being the recent time.  

The Quaternary period and the first epoch of the period, Pleistocene, began about 2.58 million years ago. The Pleistocene too is divided into 3 parts, lower, middle, and upper Pleistocene.

The beginning of the Pleistocene was fixed by IUGS (International Union for Geological Science) in the year 2009, at the base of Matuyama, Palaeomagnetic event.

This epoch lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, covering the World’s recent period of repeated glaciations. It is a very strange period in geological history of Earth, as it coincides with the history of man and also the time of dramatic climatic changes occurring on Earth.

Climatic Episodes of Pleistocene Period:

The work of Agssiz in 1840, followed by Penck and Bruckner in 1909. led to the classic Alpine chronology that includes 4 major glaciations, separated by 3 interglaciations, these stages form the framework for the Pleistocene and Palaeolithic studies. The glaciers were named after four little streams in the Alps, Günz, Mindel, Riss and Würm. Each glacial advance tied up huge volumes of water in continental ice sheets, resulting in temporary sea level drop of 100m or more. During the interglacial periods, such as the present time, the ice sheets melt, drowning the coastlines.

The terms pluvial and interpluvial are also used, corresponding to the terms glacial and interglacial. A pluvial refers to a warmer period, relatively wet climate, with increased rainfall, and interpluvial is a period with relatively dry conditions because of decreased rainfall. There are traces of lakes in regions which are now dry, which are evidence of the major climatic changes in the tropical region.

It is yet to be determined whether pluvial processes in low latitudes and glaciers in high latitudes occurred simultaneously.

The end of Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period, and also with the end of the Paleolithic age in Archaeology.  

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What is Paleoanthropology?

Paleoanthropology is the multidisciplinary branch of science that contribute to understanding the evolution and history of human beings, Homo sapiens, their extinct relatives and closest living relatives, the other primates.  It’s approach helps helps to reconstruct our evolutionary history from recovery and analysis of any relevant fossil evidence. It is a sub-discipline of anthropology, specifically physical anthropology.

Fossils supply the only direct evidence of our ancestors appearance and activities. It is fossils that have told us that human evolution has not been constant. Bursts of change have followed periods of relative stability. And The fact that human evolution has not been constant, bursts of change have followed periods of relative stability, has been found out through the study of fossils. Also fossils only have indicated the general sequence of our bodily evolution.

As paleoanthropologists interpret the fossil record,  try to identify the forces that have effected the evolution of humans. In doing so, they look for both biological (interaction with physical environment) and cultural factors (interaction with social environment), both of which have influenced the changes in human body.

To adequately understand human bio-cultural evolution, Paleoanthropologists need a broad base of information. Evidence of hominid activity between 8 and 2.5 million years ago usually only consists of bone remains available for study. Because of this very incomplete picture of the time period from the fossil record, various aspects of physical anthropology (osteometry, functional anatomy, evolutionary framework) are essential to explain evolution during these first millions of years. Evolution during this time is considered as the result of natural forces only.

Paleoanthropologists need to be well-versed in other scientific disciplines and methods, including ecology, geology, biology, anatomy, genetics, and primatology. Through several million years of evolution, humans eventually became a unique species. This process is similar to the evolution of other animals that are adapted to specific environments or "ecological niches". Animals adapted to niches usually play a specialized part in their ecosystem and rely on a specialized diet. Humans are different in many ways from other animals. Since 2.5 million years ago, several breakthroughs have occurred in human evolution, including dietary habits, technological aptitude, and economic revolutions. Humans also showed signs of early migration to new ecological niches and developed new subsistence activities based on new stone tool technologies and the use of fire. Because of this, the concept of an ecological niche does not always apply to humans any more.

Paleoanthropology is useful in many ways.

People are interested to learn about past lives, cultures, and habits; which is evident from the fact that thousands of people visit museums throughout the World. Exhibiting fossil is an application of Paleoanthropology too.

Paleoanthropology has some economic applications also. It can be used to locate gold and other ore deposits because the knowledge of fossils help in finding sequence of rocks in Earth’s crust. Limestone and fine grained sandstone with well preserved fossils find use in beautiful interior wall surfaces. Uranium also has been discovered in fossil wood and bones of dinosaurs and other mammals.

Paleoanthropologists use their knowledge to find out about the climatic conditions in the geological past. They can reconstruct the paleoecology, paleoenvironment and community structure.

Having its roots in anthropology and archaeology, paleoanthropology attempts to reconstruct modern humans on evolutionary lines, by working on biological indicators, such as petrified skeletal remains, bone fragments, footprints and cultural information as stone tools, artifacts, settlement localities, etc. With such a broad scope, paleoanthropology serves as a valuable tool in illustrating our past.

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Brief note on Archaeology and its relevance in Anthropology

Archaeology seeks to reconstruct human past through material remains. As such, it supplies the much needed temporal dimension to the anthropologist’s endeavor to study cultures of present day simple societies. Any kind of archaeological work is inter-disciplinary in nature as the remains of the past are product of cultural and natural activity. Due to the nature of Archaeology, archaeological methods tend to differ greatly from the methods used in other branches of Anthropology. It tends to focus more on quantitative, lab work, and scientific analysis. An archaeological operation, in brief involves, identifying a potential area, systematically collecting the data, organizing the data, situating it in a specific cultural period by using dating methods, conserving and preserving them, and also interpreting them. 

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