The Great ‘Intensification Debate’: Its History And Place In Australian Archaeology

Abstract

The 'Intensification Debate' of the 1980s was a critical period in the investigation of Australian prehistory. It focused attention and research upon questions of change and dynamics within hunter-gatherer societies of the past, especially regarding demographic, socioeconomic and sociocultural factors. In this way it was a reaction to previous static and functionalist approaches which emphasised the passive nature of hunter-gatherer societies and their submission to changing environmental and ecological conditions. 'Intensification' also questioned the traditional anthropological paradigm which contrasted hunter-gatherers with other societies, including horticulturalists and agriculturalists. This new debate demonstrated the similarities between these societies, with respect to social organisation, economy, demography and change, in both the long- and short-term. The debate in Australia drew upon world debates in anthropology and archaeology, and through its own impetus, data, and discourse, added somewhat considerably to these. The Australian debate focused on the mid-late Holocene where plentiful archaeological data were available, and many predictions obtained from early stages in the debate have been supported by more recent evidence. More recently, new data from earlier periods, including the Pleistocene, have added to and expanded the original debate, so that broadly similar archaeological 'trends' and features are now being recognised and discussed throughout Australian prehistory. The debate has moved, therefore, to discussing broader issues, models and perspectives concerning long- and short-term hunter-gatherer cultural dynamics. In this paper we review the 'Intensification Debate' historically, placing it within its world and Australian theoretical setting. We discuss its origins and development, and evaluate how successful it has been as a general explanatory device and as a research tool for archaeological data collection and interpretation. We also consider some of its controversies and critics, and finally its influence upon present and future directions in Australian prehistoric archaeology and hunter-gatherer studies in general.