An archaeological reconnaissance of karst caves within the Southern Forests region of Tasmania, September 1987.

A recent archaeological exploratory expedition to limestone and dolomite caves in Ihe 'Southern Forests' region of south - central Tasmania has revealed fundamentally new aspects concerning the Pleistocene archaeological record of Tasmania. Plans by the Tasmanian H}'dro-Electric Commission to dam lhe lower Gordon river system led in the early 1980's to a series of archaeological reconnaissances being carried out in karst outcrops, especially along the lower Franklin River and later in Ihe valleys of some of its tributaries such as the Andrew and Acheron. This revealed a pattern of systematic human occupation of these valleys during late Pleistocene times corresponding to the full last Ice Age, some 20 to 12.5 k. yr ago; the preliminary results being published in Australian Archaeology (Jones et al 1983. Blain et al 1983, Jones and Allen 1984) and in Nature (Kiernan et al 1983, Jones 1983), as well as in lhe popular scientific liIerature (Jones 1981. Ranson et al 1983, Jones 1987).