Sandra Bowdler
Centre for Archaeology
University of Western Australia
Aboriginal people have lived in Australia since at least 50,000 years ago. Until the invasion and settlement of people from mostly European countries something over 200 years ago, the Aborigines pursued a hunter-gatherer way of life. There is no evidence on the Australian mainland or in Tasmania for the domestication of plants nor of animals, with the rather equivocal exception of the dog, until the arrival of Europeans. The amount of contact with the rest of the world remains a matter for debate; certainly, fishermen from what we now call Indonesia were visiting the northern shores of Australia from at least the 17th century AD, and there was contact with Melanesians across the Torres Strait (Bowdler 1993, 2000). Generally speaking however Australian Aborigines have come to be regarded as the most “pure” of hunter-gatherers in recent times, who may provide useful models for hunter-gatherers of the past. I am sure I do not need to recount the manifold pitfalls inherent in this view, apart from observing that Australia is a vast area within which many different successful economic adaptations were made.
With respect to the ethnohistorically and anthropologically observed settlement patterns of Aboriginal people, it is clear that Binford’s (1980) model opposing “logistical” to “residential” settlement patterns was somewhat simplistic, or at least interpreted rather simplistically. Binford himself stated that “logistical and residential variability are not to be viewed as opposing principles ... but as organisational alternatives which my be employed in varying mixes in different settings” (Binford 1980: 19). One of the more interesting commentaries on the model sought to introduce social variables (Wiessner 1982), which can be seen as germane to any interpretation of the Australian evidence.
Harry Lourandos has canvassed the issue of Aboriginal settlement patterns in his magisterial survey, Continent of hunter-gatherers (Lourandos 1997). He proposes a reformulation of Binford’s model which hypothesises that the two strategies may have operated in “comparable natural environments but in different ways in the past. ... ‘residential’ and ‘logistical’ strategies can be hypothesised as ends of a spectrum of possible economic-settlement patterns operating within any environment at any time” (Lourandos 1997:20, emphasis in original). His model allows the linking of degrees of difference in mobility and sedentism to economic practices such as “immediate return” and “delayed return” economies. He argues that hunter-gatherer societies in the past may have moved back and forth along this spectrum, with no unilinear trajectory suggested (Lourandos 1997:21).
This model is deployed throughout Continent of hunter-gatherers to analyse Australian archaeological data on a continent wide basis, from the earliest to the most recent evidence. Lourandos concludes that, bearing in mind his disclaimer of a unilinear trajectory, and allowing for data to be examined within different scales of magnitude, there is over time a trend towards increasing “logistical” organisation, resulting in the level of complexity seen in the ethnographic present.
This is indicated by changes in settlement patterns towards an increasing use and establishment of sites and locales, and larger, more complex sites. The wider implications of these trends in settlement suggest increasingly more complex socio-economic relations which can be equated, in some ways, with ‘delayed-return’ systems (Lourandos 1997:306).
This conclusion applies to the mainland of Australia, and Tasmania is seen as representing a different case, with less evidence for logistical settlement patters and greater mobility and emphasis on immediate-return economic strategies.
I would like to look closely at some data from different parts of Australia, one of them being Tasmania, to see how well this conclusion stands up to analysis. It is evident that one of the requirements for a meaningful analysis of long-term trends is a range of sites which can be chronologically attributed to different periods. In fact, it is very rare in Australian archaeology for such a range of sites to exist within a defined area. While Australia has a multiplicity of sites dated to periods of quite considerable antiquity, older than 20,000 bp say, these are generally widely dispersed. A typical pattern of dated sites within a given region will show a ratio of something like >20 to 1 of sites dated to within the Holocene to those which are older. There is in many cases debate as to the meaning of this, whether it indicates greater intensity of site use due to new patterns of resource exploitation in more recent times, a reflection of increased population or simply a matter of differential survival of sites over time. Whatever the reason(s), it does make a comparison of site usage patterns through time difficult.
Tasmania
Tasmania provides an interesting case study. On the one hand, there is no evidence to refute the proposition that Tasmania and its inhabitants have been quite isolated from contact with the Australian mainland, and anywhere else, since at least 12,000 years ago. On the other hand, the preservation of Pleistocene sites from certain parts of Tasmania is unparalleled. There has been some debate about what these sites tell us about settlement patterns; what follows is a particular interpretation.
Lourandos argued in 1968 that archaeological site distribution and contents found on the east coast of Tasmania and dating to the Holocene differed from those in the west, and indicated different settlement patterns. These were to a large extent dictated by different environmental parameters. The east coast is characterised by a wider hinterland of easily negotiable sclerophyll forest, and sites here indicate a dispersal of different activities from coast to inland lagoon. The west coast on the other hand represents a narrow coastal strip of open sedge and heathland backed by resource poor rainforest which is not easily negotiable; large base camps are found on the coast which represent a wide range of activities (Lourandos 1968, 1977). Latterly, Lourandos has cast this interpretation in the mode of the Binford model, with the east coast pattern indicating a “residential” (“mapping-on”) strategy and that of the west coast showing a more “logistical” pattern (Lourandos 1997:270).
In interpreting the evidence from Cave Bay Cave, which was the first site to convincingly demonstrate a Pleistocene date for the human occupation of Tasmania (Bowdler 1974), I used Lourandos’s model of dispersed activities. This site, located on what is now Hunter Island off the northwest tip of Tasmania, had a record of intermittent occupation, with a Pleistocene human presence between c.23,000 and 18,000 years ago. People who camped in the cave at that time, when it was part of the Tasmanian and indeed greater Australian mainland, hunted wallabies (small animals of the kangaroo family) and used a rather “amorphous” stone industry. The environment then consisted of a grassy open plain (Hope 1978), comparable in its general structure to that of eastern Tasmania during the Holocene (Bowdler 1984).
More recent evidence of dense archaeological deposits in many caves in river valleys in southern Tasmania extends the picture of Pleistocene Tasmanians (Jones 1995; Cosgrove, Allen 1996). These areas were little occupied by Aboriginal people during the Holocene due to the dense unproductive rainforest which enclosed them, but during the Pleistocene the vegetation was more open and provided habitat for wallabies. The reason for the unique number of sites dating between from over 30,000 years ago to terminal Pleistocene times is unclear. This was a period of some climatic severity with glaciers not far away, and it may be that evidence which in other parts of Australia was distributed across the landscape in a variety of open camping and butchering sites is here concentrated in natural shelters, some very small in area, although it should be noted that open sites are known (Pocock 1993).
Whatever the reason, the nature of the evidence in these cave sites does not indicate a wide range of activities. Jones has noted a change in artefact types present in at least one site (Jones1988:36-37, 1990:280-281), and Cosgrove (1995) draws attention to differences between sites in the southwest and one in the southeast, albeit less than 50 km from an example of the former. In all cases however the deposits are characterised by a concentration on the hunting of wallabies and a rather amorphous stone artefact assemblage, just as we have seen at Cave Bay Cave. My original interpretation of that site was as a hunting bivouac, with the possibility that it marked part of the economic range of people who might have included the then coast in their activities. While that was (and remains) speculative, Jones (1995:437-8) has suggested a similar interpretation for Pleistocene occupied caves in the southwest. As he points out, the coast was only some 50 km away from those sites. In my view, while there are obvious differences, the kind of settlement pattern represented by these sites seems to fit within the interpretive framework of Lourandos’s dispersed activities model for eastern Tasmania during the Holocene.
It is the Holocene archaeological record for the west coast of Tasmania that would seem to represent a departure from a basic pattern of residential mobility. It would now seem to be generally agreed, as I argued in 1984 (Bowdler 1984:141), that the west coast which was established as such about 7000 years ago, was not much occupied until about 3000 years ago. While Lourandos (1997:325) suggests that in general Tasmania was occupied by more mobile hunter-gatherer societies of lower population densities than those of the Australian mainland, we do see “logistical” settlement and subsistence practices along the west coast within that recent time frame. In this, he sees a similar overall trajectory of change to that obtaining on the Australian mainland. This pattern is not however identifiable in all parts of Australia.
Shark Bay
I have been carrying our research in the Shark Bay region of Western Australia since 1985 (e.g. Bowdler 1990a, 1990b). This is a coastal but semi-arid region, which has not undergone a great degree of post-European impact, with economic activities having been limited to pearling, fishing, pastoralism and a little gypsum mining. The local Aboriginal population was considerably disrupted during the nineteenth century and almost disappeared from view, but a number of Mulgana descendants living in the town of Denham now identify themselves as such.
I have been carrying out surveys to locate sites, site recording, surface collections and excavations of selected sites. One of the latter is the Silver Dollar site, an open site directly on the present-day coast which was first occupied by humans about 30,000 years ago. That early occupation appears to have ceased not long after 18,000 bp, and the site was re-occupied about 7000 years ago (Bowdler 1990c, 1999). During the earlier phase of occupation, the sea would have been some 100 km away, and the region would have been quite arid. Water resources must have existed within at least a 20 km radius however as emu eggshell occurs in the deposit. The latter also indicates an early winter occupation. These deposits also contained stone artefacts and macropod (animals of the kangaroo family) teeth, with other bone remains presumed to have not survived. Interestingly, fragments of baler (marine) shell were found, indicating some connection with the distant coast. Some of these provided the actual dates. Given the lack of other sites, little can be said about regional settlement patterns, except to observe that the presence of marine shell but otherwise specialised resource exploitation may indicate a pattern of widely dispersed settlement.
No other site in the Shark Bay region has been dated to this antiquity, nor does any other site bear any indications of being so old. The lack of evidence of occupation at this site between c.18,000 and 7000 bp is echoed in many other sites (if not quite all) on the western Australian coast (e.g. Morse 1999; O’Connor 1999).
On the other hand, numerous sites have been dated to the period c.7000 - 3500 bp, as well as the upper layers of the Silver Dollar site. Most of these sites are characterised by the presence of the mollusc Terebralia sp., whose habitat is coastal mangroves. Many sites at which excavation and/or collection has been carried out also contain other marine shell species, macropod teeth and fish otoliths, as well as stone artefacts. It is obvious that as soon as the post-glacial rising sea reached its present position, people came with it, exploiting coastal mangrove resources.
Radiocarbon dates have been obtained from Terebralia shells, from both excavated and collected samples. All such dates fall within the period 7000-4000 bp. Very few mangrove stands are now found in Shark Bay, and nearly all the sites containing the mangrove-dwelling Terebralia are located far from them. It appears therefore that there has been a substantial environmental change; whether it is purely a local occurrence or due to a wider, perhaps climatic, change is still subject to debate, but it can be noted that this phenomenon is seen elsewhere in north west Australia (Stevens 1994).
The most substantial excavations in Shark Bay have been carried out at the Silver Dollar site and another open site at a locale known as Eagle Bluff. It may be observed in passing that although some rock shelters do exist in the Shark Bay region, and some of these have been excavated, they contain very sparse occupational material. In this sense the area is the converse of southern Tasmania, perhaps also for climatic reasons.
These sites have several points of difference, but it can be noted that both contain substantial quantities of Terebralia shells. The upper layers of the Silver Dollar site have produced six radiocarbon dates, all obtained from Terebralia shell, and falling between 6000 and 7000 bp. This would indicate people arriving with the coast line, and exploiting quickly established fringing mangroves. One date from another species of marine shell (Turbo) collected from the surface of the site indicates slightly later occupation, or perhaps ephemeral visitation, at c.5000 bp.
Archaeological material at the Eagle Bluff site is less dense than at the Silver Dollar site, and distributed more widely and sparsely across the surface. Excavation showed that material in situ was also less dense, and the deposit less deep, although erosion may be a factor here. Four radiocarbon dates obtained both from excavation and surface collection cluster quite tightly around 4900-4700 bp. Three of these dates were obtained from Terebralia shell, and one from Turbo.
One of the most striking differences between the two sites is the presence at the younger site of elements of the Australian Small Tool Tradition (ASTT), namely backed blades and adze slugs, and the complete absence of these from the Silver Dollar. The ASTT marks the main artefactual change in the mainland Australian archaeological record. Its elements appear across Australia during the mid-Holocene. There is some controversy about its timing and synchronicity, not to mention its cultural and/or economic significance (Bowdler and O’Connor 1991; Hiscock and Attenbrow 1998), but a consensus would probably be that it appears around 6000-5000 years ago. At Shark Bay, it would seem we can pinpoint this change quite precisely, between 5000 and 4900 radiocarbon years.
The other major difference between the archaeology of the upper layers of the Silver Dollar site and the Eagle Bluff site is in the faunal remains. At both sites, apart from mollusc remains, the main category of organic material was fish otoliths. These have been studied in detail by McGann (McGann 1991; Bowdler and McGann 1996). The results of that study suggest that on the basis of the species of fish caught, differences in site function could be inferred. The occupation of the Silver Dollar site between 7000 and 6000 years ago is thought to have consisted of short-term, seasonal communal gatherings of large numbers of people at a time, whereas the Eagle Bluff evidence represents a palimpsest of frequent visits by small groups spread over a wider portion of the year, but over an archaeologically brief period of time, 4900-4700 bp. It is suggested that some change in social organisation occurred between 6000 and 4900 bp, which led to a more dispersed mode of occupation, with less need for large seasonally scheduled aggregations of people (Bowdler and McGann 1996:110). What relationship there is between this change, the introduction of the new small tools and environmental changes it is not at this time possible to say.
After the period represented by the gathering of Terebralia shells, which is to say the last 4000 years, occupation of the Shark Bay area seems to have become considerably less intensive. Very little archaeological material has been dated within this recent period, except the sparsely occupied rockshelters near Monkey Mia, occupied only within the last 1000 years, and demonstrating quite a different kind of economy. I have suggested elsewhere that it may represent a time when Shark Bay lacked a permanent year round occupation, but was being visited by people from north of the Bay using watercraft (Bowdler 1995; cf. Ames, this volume).
On the face of it, it would appear that occupation at Shark Bay by Aboriginal people has fluctuated between “logistical” and “residential” settlement strategies over time. During the Pleistocene, a dispersed or residential settlement strategy seems likely. Between 7000 and 6000 years ago however at least one site seems to have served as a site for intensive communal gatherings, of the kind which Lourandos sees as typifying more logistically organised societies who regularly gather together (Lourandos 1997:325). Just after 5000 years ago, with the appearance of new tool elements, one site at least shows evidence of short visits by small numbers of people, and after 4000 years ago it would seem that people are only fleetingly visiting the Shark Bay area.
Conclusion
Lourandos sees a general Australia-wide pattern of more complex economic arrangements over time in the archaeological record, with a trend from more mobile, residential patterns of land exploitation towards more sedentary, logistically organised strategies. On the one hand, this argument seems supported not only by a mass of evidence from the Australian mainland, but also by a significant change in one part of Tasmania. On the other hand, a detailed examination of the semi-arid Shark Bay area of Western Australia suggests a trend in the other direction, from a complex socio-economic strategy in early Holocene times towards an ever more dispersed pattern of exploitation. This does not I think invalidate Lourandos’s broad scale view of Aboriginal economic history, but does alert us to the fine grained differences which do exist among hunter-gatherers occupying an a widely varying set of environments over very long periods of archaeological time.
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