Lithics in the land of the lightning brothers : The Archaeology of Wardaman Country, Northern Territory

Abstract

C book is based on his 2004 doctoral research on stone tool assemblages from Wardaman Country, located 120km southwest of Katherine, Northern Territory. The goal of the study centers on the characterization of diachronic changes in stone tool technology from the late Pleistocene until around 1500 BP to infer regional patterns in subsistence and mobility strategies with respect to shifting climatic conditions in the past. The book is structured in eight chapters. The first chapter reviews the history of archaeology in northern Australia and the role stone tool played in interpreting past cultural change. Traditionally, stone tools have been seen as static markers of cultural presence. Research has mainly focus on explaining the abrupt change in late Holocene technology (the appearance of formal artifact types including backed artifacts, adzes, and retouched points) with reference to diffusion and cultural affinities. This study attempts to move beyond this traditional framework to: 1) consider stone tools as part of the dynamic process of technological behavior that mediates the interaction between humans and the environment; and, 2) characterize the regional sequence of technological change in Wardaman Country with respect to changes in adaptive strategies in response to the varying conditions of resource distribution from 15,000 BP to the late Holocene. In Chapter Two, the author does an excellent job at integrating various bodies of theory concerning humanenvironment interaction—commonly labeled under the framework of “behavioral ecology.” These include optimal foraging theory, risk management and reduction, tool design, and the organization of technology. Each theoretical framework is summarized and predictions are made in terms of behavioral or technological changes that are expected under shifts in the abundance and distribution of resources in the physical environment. These hypotheses are further operationalized into quantifiable artifact attributes in Chapter Three based on the frameworks of core and flake reduction, blank selection, artifact recycling and discard. The full list of attributes recorded for each artifact is included in the appendix. Chapter Four reviews the physiographic setting of Wardaman Country with regard to the nature and distribution of climate and resources in the region. In particular, the location of permanent waterholes and the distribution and quality of lithic raw materials are thought to have significant implications for foraging and land-use strategies of past hunter-gatherers. The disjunction and co-occurrence of these two resources are carefully examined. Variation in the distribution of resources across the landscape through time is linked to climatic changes, and the effect of climatic events on the regional environment since the Last Glacial Maximum is considered. Special attention is paid to the long-term El Nino/Southern Oscillation climatic cycle, as it would have had significant impact on the availability and predictability of resources in the region, especially with the onset of ENSO in the later part of Holocene. Chapter Five provides information on the location, strategraphy, and chronology of the four rock shelter sites that are examined in this study. These are Nimji (a.k.a. Ingaladdi), Garnawala 2, Gordolya, and Jagoliya. Three sites contain a continuous sequence of lithic materials from the terminal Pleistocene up to late Holocene, while one site (Jagoliya) contains lithic materials up to an estimated maximum age of 6,500 BP. Chapter Six presents the reconstructed reduction models of cores and flakes as well as various retouched types including scrapers, adzes, points, and burins. These are supplemented by excellent figures that make the reduction sequences easily understandable. The reconstructed sequence of core reduction (graphically illustrated by the ‘event tree,’ p.87) is accompanied by relative frequencies of cores representing various stages within the reduction sequence. This is refreshing to see because many present day studies offering reconstructions of past reduction sequences, often employing the analytical framework of chaine operatoire, are largely qualitative descriptions, with little or no quantitative characterization of the reduction process. These reduction models are further related to aspects of tool design such as maintainability, reliability, standardization, transportability, cost of production and repair, and use-life. Chapter Seven integrates various technological changes observed in the four stone tool assemblages—including artifact discard rate, reduction intensity, technological diversity, raw material use, standardization, and artifact recycling. By tracking these trends with respect to the predictions outlined in Chapter Two, the author successfully translates technological change into behaviorally meaningful patterns that indicate the shifting responses of technology and land-use strategies to changing environmental conditions through time. A regional sequence of humanenvironment interaction from Last Glacial Maximum up to late Holocene is proposed for the Wardaman region. Chap-