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Kitava is the most easterly island of the Trobriand group. It is an uplifted coral atoll, oval in plan, with a maximum diameter of 4 1/2 miles. The centre of the island is swampy and surrounded by a rim that reaches a height of 142 m. Caves occur in various parts of the rim and several have been described in a previous article (Ollier and Holdsworth, 1970). One of the caves, Inakebu, is especially important as it contains the first recorded cave drawings from the Trobriand Islands. Inakebu is situated on the inner edge of the island rim at the north-eastern end of the island. Map 1 shows the location of the cave on Kitava Island. Map 2 is a plan of the cave, surveyed by C.D. Ollier and G. Heers. The location of the cave drawings is shown on the plan. Inakebu is a "bwala", that is a place where the original ancestor of a sub-clan or dala is thought to have emerged from the ground. The bwala tradition is common throughout the Trobriands and neighbouring islands. It has been described by many writers on the anthropology of the area, and was summarised in Ollier and Holdsworth (1969). The people believe that if they enter such places they will become sick and die. Until November, 1968, no member of the present native population had been in the cave, though there is a rumour that a European had entered it about 20 years before, but turned back owing to lack of kerosene. It must be admitted that this tale sounds rather like the stories one hears in Australia that Aborigines were afraid of the dark caves and therefore did not go into them. In fact, the many discoveries in the Nullarbor Plain caves show that they did, and the cave drawings in Inakebu show that someone has been in this cave. The point is that it does not seem to be the present generations who entered the caves but earlier ones; people from "time before" as they say in New Guinea. The first known European to enter the cave was Gilbert Heers, a trader in copra and shell who lived on the nearby island of Vakuta. He went into the cave on 8 November 1968 accompanied by Meiwada, head of the sub-clan associated with Inakebu, who had never been inside before. Heers and Meiwada investigated the two outer chambers but then turned back because they had only poor lights. They returned with better light on 15 November. Since they had not become sick or died, they then found seven other men willing to accompany them. They found the narrow opening leading to the final chamber, and discovered the drawings. None of the men, many of whom were quite old, had ever seen the drawings or heard any mention of them before. The drawings are the only indication that people had previously been in this deep chamber. There are no ashes or soot marks, no footprints, and no pottery, bones or shells such as are commonly found in other Trobriand caves, though bones and shells occur in the chamber near the entrance. With one exception, the drawings are all on the same sort of surface, a clean bedrock surface on cream coloured, fairly dense and uniform limestone, with a suitably rough texture. Generally the surface has a slight overhang, and so is protected from flows or dripping water. On surfaces with dripstone shawls or stalactites, the drawings were always placed between the trickles, on the dry rock. We have found no examples that have been covered by a film of flow stone. The one drawing on a flow stone column is also still on the surface and not covered by later deposition. A film of later deposit would be good to show the age of the drawings, but since the drawings appear to have been deliberately located on dry sites the lack of cover does not indicate that they are necessarily young. There are stencil outlines of three hands, a few small patches of ochre which do not seem to have any form, numerous drawings in black line, and one small engraving.
The Trobriand group of coral islands is situated a hundred miles off the north-east coast of Papua and north of the D 'Entr'ecasteaux Islands. In previous papers we have described caves on Kiriwina (the main island), Vakuta and Kitava (see References). We now describe caves of Kaileuna and Tuma (see Figures l and 2). In August 1970, we spent one week of intensive search for caves on these two islands, making our headquarters in the copra store in the village of Kadawaga. Kaileuna island is six miles long and almost four miles wide, and supports a population of 1,079 (1969 Census). It is separated from the large island of Kiriwina by a channel two miles wide between Mamamada Point and Boll Point, though the main village of Kadawaga on the west coast of Kaileuna is 18 miles from Losuia and 14 miles from Kaibola. The island is generally swampy in the centre with a rim of uplifted coral around the edge. We were assured that the correct name of the island is Laileula, but since Kaileuna is used on all previous maps it is retained here. However, we prefer Kadawaga to the Kudawaga or Kaduwaga that appear on some maps. The inhabitants are of mixed Melanesian-Polynesian Stock, who are almost totally self-supporting, being in the main farmers and fishermen. The yam (taitu) constitutes the staple crop and the harvest is still gathered in with ceremonies unchanged for centuries. There is great competition among families for the quantity and quality of the crop, which is displayed firstly in garden arbours (kalimonio), later in the village outside the houses; traditionally styled yam huts (bwaima) are then constructed to display the harvest until the next season. The transfer of yams from the garden to the village is occasion for a long procession of gatherers to parade through the village blowing conch shells and chanting traditional airs (sawili) to attract the attention of villagers to the harvesting party, After storage of the harvest, a period of dancing and feasting (milamala) continues for a month or more, Traditional clothing is the rule, Women and girls wear fibre skirts (doba), most of the men, especially the older ones, wear a pubic leaf (vivia) made from the sepal of the betel nut palm flower (Areca catechu Linn.). Tuma, the northernmost of the main islands in the Trobriand group, is six miles long and less than a mile wide. It is a low ridge of coral with swamps in the centre and along much of the western side. The island has been uninhabited since 1963 when the last few residents abandoned it and moved to Kiriwina, but it is still visited from time to time by other islanders who collect copra and fish. Tuma is believed by all Trobriand Islanders to be inhabited now by the spirits of the dead. It is also generally believed that Tuma is the original home of the TrobIiand ancestors; these ancestors are also said to have emerged at Labai Cave on Kiriwina Island, and from many other places of emergence or 'bwala". Lack of consistency in the legends does not appear to concern the Trobrianders very much. The cave maps in this paper are sketches based mainly on estimated dimensions, with a few actual measurements and compass bearings. Bwabwatu was surveyed more accurately, using a 100 ft steel reinforced tape and prismatic compass throughout.
In a previous paper (Ollier and Holdsworth, 1970) we described the island of Kitava and many of the caves on the island. This note supplements that account and describes caves and related features discovered during a brief expedition to the south of the island (Figure 1) in 1971. Kitava is a coral island with a number of terraces and reaches a height of 466 feet. There is a central depression in the top of the island, the site of the lagoon before the reef was uplifted. Some caves are associated with the rim of the island, a few occur on mid-slopes, and others are found along the sea cliffs. Many of the caves have been used for burial of human remains, sometimes associated with pots, clam shells or canoe prows. Canoe prow burials are reported here for the first time. Some caves are associated with megalithic structures and legends of the origin of the various sub-clans (dala) of the island.
Five genera of shells were collected from the sediment around Cocklebiddy Cave lake in the Nullarbor Plain (Western Australia). All shells belong to small modern gastropod terrestrial snails.
The entrance into Zadlaźka jama lies in Maastrichtian limestone breccias at the extreme northern border of the Outer Dinarid tectonic unit; from the presence of Megalodontid shells it is presumed that the northern parts of the cave developed in Upper Triassic limestones. Tectonically the Cretaceous and also Triassic carbonates are strongly broken. Several systems of former water passages controlled by geological factors are found in the cave. Two of them are more distinctive: one developed along bedding-planes or at the contact of beds parallel to bedding and the other along fissures and faults which are transverse to local bedding. The cave is an anastomosis network system of initial tubes that develop into passages. The first and the most important factor was water that slowly flowed through the passages. Later the cave was filled by fine-grained sediments. Water flowed above them leaving above-sediment rocky features. The parts of the lower lying passages from which the sediments had been removed were shaped by fast water flow after the lowering of the underground water level. Relatively soon the cave remained hanging in the slope and was dry. Then the rocky perimeter was partly reshaped by condensation water.
Numerous shells of molluscs were found in loamy sediments rich in limestone and dolomite scree filling small karst forms and forming debris fans. They have been analysed from several logs in the Tatra Mountains. Woodland and open-country snails are the main components of fauna. Relations between two mentioned ecological groups of molluscs indicate climatic changes and moving the timberline. Three phases of warming separated by two stages of the colder climate were recognised. They can be related to following ages: XIII and first half of XIV centuries AD (warm phase), second half of XIV - XVII centuries AD (cold phase), XVIII and the first half of XIX centuries (warm phase), second half of the XIX century (cold phase) and finally to XX century (warm phase).
The Cosquer Cave is a French Palaeolithic painted and engraved cave (27.000-18.500 BP), which is located under the sea, in the Urgonian limestones of Cap Morgiou (“Massif des Calanques”, Marseille). The entrance was submerged at the end of the Last Glacial Stage and is presently 37 m under sea level. A synthesis about the Cosquer Cave environmental studies is presented here. Structural studies show that caves planimetry is determined by Cap Morgiou jointing (mainly NW-SE and N-S vertical faults). Through archaeological studies, a speleothem breaking period can be dated between 27.000 and 18.000 BP. Geomorphologic study of the continental shelf at the foot of the Cosquer Cave area shows fossil shorelines at -36 m, -50/55 m, -90 m, -100 m depth. Radiocarbon dating from shells collected in -100m sediments yielded a date of 13.250 BP. Direct scuba diving observations and submarine cliff profiles sketching show several eustatic still stand¬ levels between -36m and the current sea surface indicating a probable tectonic stability during the last 10.000 years.
Electron spin resonance (ESR) dating has been developed for many materials, including hydroxyapatite in enamel, bone, and some fish scales, aragonite and calcite in travertine, molluscs, and calcrete, and quartz from ash, which have many potential applications in karst settings. Although the complexity of the signals in some materials has hampered routine application, research is solving these problems to make the method even more widely applicable. When tested against other dating techniques, age agreement has usually been excellent. Generally, the most reliable applications seem to be tooth enamel, some mollusc species, calcite deposits, and quartz minerals. ESR dating uses signals resulting from trapped charges created by radiation in crystalline solids. Ages are calculated by comparing the accumulated dose in the dating sample with the internal and external radiation dose rates produced by natural radiation in and around the sample. For fossils and authigenic minerals, no zeroing is necessary to obtain accurate ages. In sediment which contains reworked mineral clasts, ESR can be used to date the age of the mineral grain itself if it was not zeroed during erosion. For dating the sedimentation age, however, ESR signals must have been zeroed in order to give the correct age. High pressure, heating, and in some minerals, light exposure and grinding can zero an ESR signal, but some like hydroxyapatite have very high stability at surface temperatures. For materials that absorb uranium (U) during their burial history, such as teeth, bones, or mollusc shells, the age calculation considers their U uptake by cross calibrating with U series or U/Pb dating or by assuming different uptake models. Some difficulties in calculating the external dose rate can be overcome by applying the ESR isochron method, in which the sample acts as its own dosimeter. In open-air karst environments, changes in the external dose rate due to altered sediment cover, and hence, changing cosmic dose rates, need to be modelled. For all karst environments, sedimentary water concentration and mineralogical variations with time also need to be considered. Many ESR applications are currently used in karst settings, but several more are also possible.
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