D. Frankel, J.M. Webb and S. Lawrence (eds), Archaeology in Environment and Technology: Intersections and Transformation. Routledge, New York and London. pp. 1–10., 2013
The juxtaposition of different landforms and the shifts over time in their relative productivity ... more The juxtaposition of different landforms and the shifts over time in their relative productivity and reliability of resources set up stresses and attractions which structured demographic movements and social relationships across Indigenous Australia. This can be seen in the interplay between adjacent ecological systems: coast and inland; river and hinterland; hills and surrounding plains. Ethnographic observations expose the complexities of the intimate interconnections between land use and physical and conceptual landscapes which developed in more recent times. These are, however, harder to perceive archaeologically, although patterned relationships between site use and stone artefacts, environmental systems and art, reflecting specific local changes in central Australia indicative of conceptual and ideographic associations as well as more mundane economic adaptations have been identified by several researchers. This paper presents another analysis of this kind, integrating a diverse array of evidence into a model of long-term and short-term changes in Indigenous patterns of mobility, site function and land-use in western Victoria set against a background of long-term changes to the environment. The starting point is a series of excavations at several rockshelter sites in Gariwerd – a series of rugged sandstone ranges which rise up to 700m above the surrounding plains.
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Papers by Caroline Bird
on excavated assemblages from inland Pilbara rockshelters comparing the results of wet and dry sieving in terms of time expended. The results suggest that the additional time spent in wet sieving can be largely offset by greater efficiency in recording and analysis. This, together with the undoubted
benefit of improved recovery of archaeological material, confirms the value of wet sieving for reliably assessing sites.
on excavated assemblages from inland Pilbara rockshelters comparing the results of wet and dry sieving in terms of time expended. The results suggest that the additional time spent in wet sieving can be largely offset by greater efficiency in recording and analysis. This, together with the undoubted
benefit of improved recovery of archaeological material, confirms the value of wet sieving for reliably assessing sites.
Crafting Country shows that the Nyiyaparli ‘crafted’ their country, building structures and supplying key sites with grindstones, raw material and flaked stone cores. In so doing, they created a taskscape of interwoven activities linked by paths of movement.
Nyiyaparli country tells the story of Nyiyaparli people in
the eastern Chichester Range and around the Fortescue
Marsh, in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
The book brings together Nyiyaparli traditional
knowledge with information from archaeology and
history. Stories about some of the special places in
Nyiyaparli country explain how Nyiyaparli people have
lived and looked after their country for thousands of
years. In 2010, Nyiyaparli people working with archaeologists
found Kakutungutanta in the eastern Chichester Range.
They were excited to discover that people first camped in
this small rockshelter more than 40,000 years ago.
Kakutungutanta is one of thousands of archaeological
sites which have been recorded in the area. These help tell
the story of Nyiyaparli country and people. Places like
Warrie Outcamp, where Nyiyaparli families working in
the pastoral industry lived, bring the story to the present.
Today, Nyiyaparli people work with mining companies,
and with anthropologists and archaeologists, to look
after special places like these.
The alternative accounts raise issues about how archaeological sites are assessed as part of the registration of sites under the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972/1980 and how they are interpreted for clients and the wider public. Archaeological investigation in the Pilbara region over the last thirty years has overwhelmingly occurred in the context of development associated with resource extraction and has mainly focussed on site documentation rather than analysis. There have been few attempts at regional archaeological synthesis and assessment of archaeological significance has been narrowly focussed towards questions of antiquity, and particularly towards overarching archaeological narratives relating to the colonisation of the continent, the impact of environmental change on human groups, particularly the Last Glacial Maximum, and mid Holocene changes in technology and social organisation. However, most sites in the region cannot be connected to these overarching narratives. The Aboriginal Heritage Act, as currently interpreted, requires sites to meet a relatively high threshold of significance and importance to the State of Western Australia to be placed on the Register—criteria which expose the conventional archaeological narrative as wanting. The alternative narrative focus on the integrity, information content and connection with recent history suggests how archaeologists might more effectively engage with clients and the wider community to address questions of significance assessment.
Rockshelters are traditionally a focus of archaeological investigation, largely because of their capacity to provide datable contexts and therefore contribute to building chronological sequences. However, in the Pilbara, they can also be viewed as atypical in a regional archaeological record dominated by surface assemblages, while ethnographic data suggests that their role in Aboriginal land use would have been peripheral. Both rockshelters and surface assemblages represent palimpsests which vary in the scale and resolution at which they can be interpreted. In this paper we explore a rich archaeological database derived from consultancy studies in the Chichester Range, East Pilbara. Specifically, we examine how a landscape perspective might facilitate an intergrated interpretation of the material remains from both rockshelters and surface assemblages.