Question

What is the volume of a lead ball at 30.00°c is dropped from a height of 6.2km?

Answer 1

Following the post-Pleistocene marine transgression,
broad plains formed along coastal northern Australia and
continued to develop throughout the Holocene through
processes of sedimentation and coastal progradation. They
contain large tidal flats and salt pans interspersed with
cheniers and are drained by substantial rivers with extensive
floodplains and estuaries (Lees & Clements 1987: 312).
There has been considerable archaeological and
geomorphological work undertaken on the Northern
Territory coastal plains, although mostly independent of
each other. The notable exceptions are joint studies on the
South Alligator River (Hope et al. 1985; Woodroffe et al.
1988), the Blyth River by John Chappell and Rhys Jones
(unpublished data), and the Sir Edward Pellew Group
(Prebble et al. 2005). The geomorphological evidence
demonstrates that the coastal plains of northern Australia
are relatively recent formations that have undergone
dynamic evolution from the mid to late Holocene. Studies
have been carried out on the Victoria and Daly Rivers in
the west, Darwin Harbour, the Adelaide, Mary and South
Alligator Rivers, Magela Creek, Blyth River, and Groote
Eylandt and the Edward Pellew islands in the east (Fig. 1).
The evolutionary sequence of the coastal plains was similar
right across the Northern Territory, the differences being
caused by topography and timing.
How did humans respond to these newly created
landscapes? This question has been addressed by an
extensive body of research over the past 40 years focused
on the archaeology of the Northern Territory coastal plains.
The early research effort was concentrated mainly in the
Alligator Rivers region of what is today Kakadu National
Park (Kamminga & Allen 1973; Schrire 1982; Jones 1985;
Allen & Barton 1989), but the last 15 years has seen many
other regions investigated. As a result of this research, many
more radiocarbon dates have become available, providing an
emerging pattern of Holocene settlement across the coastal
plains of the Top End as a whole. This paper presents a
synthesis of these new data to provide an overview of the
chronology of occupation and the changing nature of the
archaeological record, which includes several different
site types – rockshelters, shell mounds, shell middens,
earth mounds, artefact concentrations and contact sites.