association between humans and megafauna. First are the finds themselves, such as relatively large number of grinding stones in Pleistocene-age layers, as well as tula-adze-like flakes. The Pleistocene grinding stones are notable because they imply a broad-spectrum plant-processing economy much earlier than previously known in Australia. These finds are anomalous because in other parts of Australia they are restricted to late Holocene contexts. Amongst the megafauna bone layers there is a tooth of a crocodile, Pallimnarchus sp., that became extinct long before 40,000 years ago. The tooth is also exfoliated and heavily mineralised and the preservation is not consistent with other bone and teeth in the same level. There are stone artefacts with hair and blood adhering, but in the same layers there are megafauna bones with not even traces of protein remaining. These inconsistent finds suggest that the process of site formation may have involved some mixing of materials of different ages. This leads to the second important detail, the stratigraphy. Cuddie Springs is unusual in having a dense deflation pavement that separates recent materials (such as cow bones) from the Pleistocene layers. The layers above the pavement contains cow bones mixed with megafauna bones but the layers below contain no cow bones. Archaeology Professor Bruno David has asked where the rocks in this pavement come from in a stone-poor riverine plain, and suggested that they may have been carried by Aboriginal people from a gibber plain 4 km from the site or by farmers during the late 19th or early 20th century to create a firm footing for people or cattle. Gillespie and Brook also suggest that the stone artefacts in the pavement are unusually dense for a Pleistocene archaeological site and may have been transported during well construction or represent an in situ but late Holocene archaeological site overlaying disturbed Late Pleistocene sediments. There is a long history of European activity at Cuddie Springs, with a well dug in 1876, ten metres from the 1990s excavation and trenches dug by the Australian Museum in 1933. These events likely caused disturbance of the stratigraphy. Gillespie and Brook add that cattle visiting the well may have pushed stone artefacts through the pavement into the Pleistocene layers during waterlogged conditions. Tracing the origins of the pavement is crucial to understanding the integrity of the Pleistocene layers. Several authors have suggested that the Pleistocene stone artefacts and megafauna bones may have