An island mystery Kartan culture archaeology presents a puzzle, according to historian
Rebe Taylor, who quotes the archaeologist Ronald Lampert: "The problem had all the characteristics of a classic mystery story: a large offshore island without people [today], separated .. nearly 10,000 years ago, yet with abundant evidence of human population." Indeed, Lampert called his book
The great Kartan mystery.
Heavy stone tools James Kohen, in his book
Aboriginal Environmental Impacts, describes the
Aboriginal stone tool assemblage of Karta as "heavy core tools and pebble
choppers". Such Kartan tools are also, writes Kohen, found on the South Australian coast, the
Flinders Ranges, and at
Lime Springs in
New South Wales. Some of the Kartan tools are "horsehoof" cores, defined by
Josephine Flood as having a "flat base, an overhanging, step-flaked edge, and a high, domed shape like a horse's hoof"; their function is unexplained, and while they might have been used as choppers, they could simply be waste cores from the production of flake tools. Over 120 Kartan sites have been found, yielding thousands of pebble choppers and hundreds of hammerstones. However, Kohen cautions, the possible link between Kartan industry and "butchering of large game" does not prove that large animals "were actively hunted".
Likely age Josephine Flood, writing in her
Archaeology of the Dreamtime, suggests that "the Kartan choppers are the earliest tools in Australia", most likely more than 16000 years old. ==See also==