Koonalda Cave is a karst formation limestone cave with art dated to the Pleistocene, located near the southern coast of the Nullarbor Plain of South Australia, 60 meters below the ground.
Explorations into the cave have been conducted to a length of 250 meters into the cave, where a deep underground lake has been found. Rock art on the walls of Koonalda Cave include hand stencils and finger markings, and hearths found within its depths have been radiocarbon dated to 15,000 to 22,000 years before the present.
The cave was first studied in the modern era by Alexander Gallus in the 1950s.
Sources
More information about Koonalda Cave is available in Koonalda Cave: Australia's Deep History
This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology.
