Cloggs Cave has loomed large in the archaeology of south-eastern Australia for half a century. Work undertaken by doctoral student Josephine Flood in the 1970s exposed stratigraphy 2.4m deep, which contained what were then the oldest known traces of human activity in the Australian Alps and its foothills. They were put there by the ancestors of today’s GunaiKurnai community, respectfully referred to as the Old Ancestors. But the Old Ancestors were not the only visitors to the cavern. Flood’s digging also revealed traces of extinct megafauna – large animals whose surviving members, such as the emu, cassowary, and red kangaroo, remain renowned among Australian wildlife – at around the same depth as the traces of human activity, though not in the same layers. Precisely when and how the extinct megafauna died out remains a source of scholarly dispute, with changes in climate, habitat change brought about by people, and overhunting seen as three possible culprits. Radiocarbon dates from the 1970s work at Cloggs Cave ensured the site played a prominent part in this debate, because they suggested there could have been an overlap between megafauna and people at the site, around 23,000 years Before Present (BP).
Flood certainly concluded that hunting was on the minds of those people using the cave, although she linked their presence to the pursuit of a rather more modest quarry than the megafauna. Drawing on knowledge of Aboriginal practices led Flood to suggest that the cave had been frequented during the summer months, by groups heading into the mountains to gather Bogong moths. Although insects tend not to feature heavily in modern Western diets, they can be an important source of sustenance and these moths have been described as highly nutritious, easily harvested, and very palatable. Early European settlers penned accounts of Aboriginal people enthusiastically exploiting this abundant foodstuff, but within 30 years of the colonial era commencing the seasonal trips to the high country for Bogong moth festivals had ceased.
The small number of stone tools found within Cloggs Cave seemingly suggested a temporary hunting camp, while another radiocarbon date indicated that visits ceased around 10,000 BP. Flood linked this to a rise in temperature after the last Ice Age, which prompted hunting parties to shun the cave in favour of congregating at an adjacent rockshelter. In recent years, Flood’s findings have prompted various questions, including why, if the cave was exploited by hunting parties, almost none of the animal bone found within it seems to be a product of human activity, and what insights could be gained from Aboriginal oral accounts concerning caves. Now a project re-examining Cloggs Cave has proposed a radical reinterpretation of its role: far from the cavern offering a convenient encampment, it was seen as a place of magic, medicine, and malevolent creatures.
