A handful of small teeth found in a Queensland rock shelter have turned out to be something far more unusual than animal remains. Archaeologists identified twelve wallaby incisors coated with dark plant resin, probably the surviving parts of a necklace, headband or another personal ornament made about 1,200 years ago.
The teeth came from Windmill Way in Quinkan Country on Cape York Peninsula. The first was noticed while archaeologist Lynley Wallis was sorting through a large collection of animal bones. A sticky-looking ball at the root did not fit the pattern of an ordinary tooth, and further examination revealed eleven more with the same attachment.
Clues in the resin
Animal-tooth ornaments are known from other parts of Australia, especially as grave goods. Cape York Peninsula, however, had produced no confirmed example of this kind despite decades of archaeological work. The Windmill Way finds are the first recognised tooth ornaments from the peninsula and the only known example of this type found outside burials in northeastern Australia.
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The resin preserved clues about how the pieces were made. Researchers used infrared analysis and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to identify the plant compounds. The main resin came from grass trees growing on the rocky slopes around the shelter, while one tooth also carried traces of gum from ironwood trees found near local waterways.
Small fibres and a fragment of animal hide remained stuck to some of the resin balls. Those traces suggest the teeth were once threaded together, with the resin acting as a stopper so they would not slide off the cord. None of the teeth showed the wear expected from chisels or drills, another reason the team interprets them as ornaments rather than tools.
A rare survival
Organic materials rarely survive for long in the archaeological record. Windmill Way is an exception: excavators have also recovered plant-fibre string, ochre, worked wood, shell and thousands of animal bones. The shelter was initially easy to dismiss as a dingo den, but its contents now show repeated human activity and the use of materials that are normally lost to decay.
The discovery does not show how common resin-mounted jewellery was across Cape York. It may have been a local tradition, a rare form of decoration or an object made for a particular person or ceremony. It does show that a small residue on an otherwise ordinary tooth can preserve a chain of choices about plants, craft and identity.
Source: Phys.org; Lynley A. Wallis et al., Australian Archaeology, DOI 10.1080/03122417.2026.2694015.
