An update on the human bones found under a house on Riverside Dr, Nambucca Heads, has come to light.
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For over half a year there’s been nothing but radio silence from the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) about the age and ancestry of the bones unearthed by excavators in October last year.
The last we heard was that tests completed by an archaeologist at the Department of Forensic Medicine in Glebe were inconclusive about the heritage of the bones, but dated them at over 100 years old.
Guardian News has this week received confirmation that radiocarbon dating tests have been completed by the University of Waikato Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory and concluded the remains were approximately 750 years old.
The ancestry has been determined too, which will hopefully put public speculation to bed.
“DNA analysis was conducted by the Adelaide University Australia Centre for Ancient DNA and concluded that the remains were definitely Aboriginal,” a spokesperson from the OEH said.
While 750 years is just a blip on an ancient cultural timeline that extends tens of thousands of years into the past, it’s comparatively an aeon ago in Western history.
To provide context, the Magna Carta had just been signed, William Wallace was rebelling against the British, The Khan dynasty ruled most of Central Asia, the Ottoman Empire was in its infancy, and Marco Polo was just setting off to China.
If any more updates surface, we will keep you in the loop.