Reduction continuums and tool use.

This paper focuses on a contradiction between two central principles frequently embedded in lithic studies: the notion that implement form often reflects intended function because prehistoric artisans designed specimens to be functionally specific and proficient, and the notion that there is often a progressive alteration of implement form during its use-life. Tension between these two seemingly incompatible propositions creates an interpretative paradox that we have expressed with the question: “how can implements be designed for, and be efficient in, a specific use if their morphology is continuously changing?” We illustrate the interpretive difficulties arising from this question through an analysis of a classic Australian site, Capertee 3, at which we document a pattern of change in edge characteristics of retouched flakes (often called ‘scrapers’) during the reduction of each specimen. Drawing on this case study we explore the implications of this contradiction for interpretations of Palaeolithic assemblages. Our conclusion is that further studies and theorising are required to help archaeologists move beyond the naïve presumption that conventionally recognized implement types have a simple association with particular uses and that by implication those types must be designed to be efficient in the particular use to which it was constructed

The Aboriginal Prehistory and Archaeology of Royal National Park and Environs: A Review

Royal National Park and its environs has a rich suite of Aboriginal sites that provide much information about the life and activities of the Aboriginal people who lived in coastal Sydney prior to British colonisation. These archaeological sites include rock engravings, shell middens in rockshelters and open locations, rockshelters with drawings and stencils, as well as grinding grooves. Archaeological excavations in Royal National Park in the 1960s were amongst the earliest in southeastern Australia to provide evidence that the tools and equipment used by Aboriginal people and their way of life had changed over time. The excavations in Royal National Park and southern Sydney, which continue today, provide evidence of the tools and equipment people used in their daily lives, the raw materials they used in manufacturing these items, as well as the animals they hunted, fished and gathered. This article presents a brief review of the contribution that past and recent archaeological excavations have made to our knowledge about the life and activities of Aboriginal people who lived in what is now Royal National Park and southern Sydney prior to British colonisation

Evidence of Aboriginal Networking: non-destructive pXRF characterisation of ground-edge hatchets from south-east South Australia

Differing patterns of distribution from source of local and exotic artefacts have been used to set up and modify theories and models of hunter-gatherer social/political networks. Stone hatchets are useful for testing these theories because they do not decay in time. In this research pXRF technology was used to compare 242 hatchets found in south-east South Australia with known local basalt sources, and with distant sources from Central Victoria and Mount Isa. Chemical analysis determined that the great majority of hatchets came from unknown sources of similar, distinctive, stone which, unlike the local basalts, were very low in most elements from Rb to Nb in the periodic table. This majority was similar, but not a match, to stone from Mt William in central Victoria. From their distribution and frequency, this majority of hatchets was probably used as tools, but because they were found across three language areas, I conclude that they were also desirable exchange items. There was no apparent separation of useful and exchange hatchets, a difference from hunter-gatherer models which may have been a result of limited local stone sources. My research also determined that three hatchets found in SESA originated in Mount Isa, extending the distance that Mount Isa hatchets are known to have moved from Lake Eyre/Flinders Ranges to south-east South Australia. One of these was distinctively shaped, matching a type of hatchet known to have originated in Mount Isa. Another three hatchets were determined to have originated near Mt Macedon in central Victoria. These six exotic hatchets were distributed evenly across the three language areas, showing no area with a concentration of power of acquisition. I concluded that the distribution of SESA hatchets from source indicates a strong network between the three language groups, Ngarrindjeri, Bindjali and Buandig prior to European settlement, a network which was highly interactive, evenly spread across Buandig land and the southern areas of their neighbours, and with no evidence of dominance by one group in any language area

A database of radiocarbon dates for palaeoenvironmental research in eastern Africa

Radiocarbon dating is one of the most widely available and applied techniques to develop Late Quaternary chronologies of many ecosystems and is, thus, utilized in Quaternary studies, archaeology, hydrology, geomorphology, palaeoanthropology, palaeoclimatology, palaeoecology, palaeontology, and isotope analyses. A manual literature review search of published radiocarbon dates from eastern Africa was undertaken to store these data in the open-access format and included in the Canadian Archaeological Radiocarbon Database. Dates ranged from 57,804 to 0 14C years Before Present. The format of the database permits expansion of the dataset in the future and permits local, regional and global scale analyses of radiocarbon dates. This paper expands on some of these potential research areas and promote archiving of African data

Adaptation and conservation insights from the koala genome

The koala, the only extant species of the marsupial family Phascolarctidae, is classified as ‘vulnerable’ due to habitat loss and widespread disease. We sequenced the koala genome, producing a complete and contiguous marsupial reference genome, including centromeres. We reveal that the koala’s ability to detoxify eucalypt foliage may be due to expansions within a cytochrome P450 gene family, and its ability to smell, taste and moderate ingestion of plant secondary metabolites may be due to expansions in the vomeronasal and taste receptors. We characterized novel lactation proteins that protect young in the pouch and annotated immune genes important for response to chlamydial disease. Historical demography showed a substantial population crash coincident with the decline of Australian megafauna, while contemporary populations had biogeographic boundaries and increased inbreeding in populations affected by historic translocations. We identified genetically diverse populations that require habitat corridors and instituting of translocation programs to aid the koala’s survival in the wild

A glacial cryptic refuge in south-east Australia: human occupation and mobility from 36 000 years ago in the Sydney Basin, New South Wales

Excavations across a source-bordering dune overlooking the Hawkesbury River in north-west Sydney, Australia, suggest initial occupation of the region by at least 36 ka, with variable but uninterrupted use until the early Holocene; following abandonment, the site was then re-occupied by ∼3 ka. Along with a handful of other sites, the results provide the earliest reliable evidence of permanent regional populations within south-eastern Australia, and support a model in which early colonizers followed the coastal fringe with forays along the main river systems. The evidence is consistent with the demographic model of Williams, 2013 (Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B 280: 20130486), which suggested low, but established regional populations before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), a population nadir following the LGM and increasing use of the region from ∼12 to 8 ka. The site exhibits increased use at the onset and peak of the LGM, and provides an example of a cryptic refuge as defined by Smith, 2013 (The Archaeology of Australia's Deserts. Cambridge University Press: New York). Specifically, changing artefact densities and attributes show the site was used repeatedly, but for shorter periods through this time, and suggest it formed one of a series of key localities in a point-to-point (rather than home-base) subsistence strategy. This strategy was maintained until the site's abandonment in the early Holocene, despite changing population and climatic conditions through the Terminal Pleistocene

A drowned Mesolithic shell midden complex at Hjarnø Vesterhoved,Denmark and its wider significance

Anthropogenic shell accumulations (shell middens), often of great size, occur in their tens of thousands around the world’s coastlines. They mostly date from the Mid-Holocene onwards and are frequently taken as symptomatic of a Postglacial ‘revolution’ involving world-wide population growth and intensification in exploitation of marine resources. However, the comparative rarity of earlier deposits may have as much to do with Postglacial sea-level rise and the loss of evidence from earlier palaeoshorelines as with genuine socio-economic trends. Here we investigate the underwater Mesolithic (Ertebølle) shellmidden of Hjarnø Vesterhoved in Denmark, one of the first underwater shell middens to be systematically verified as an anthropogenic shell deposit in a region world-famous for its many hundreds of Ertebølle shell mounds on the present shoreline. We show how a combination of geophysical survey, coring, excavation, stratigraphic interpretation and macroscopic analysis of midden contents can be used to identify underwater deposits, to unravel their taphonomic and post-depositional history in relation to surrounding sediments, and to distinguish between cultural and natural agencies of shell accumulation and deformation. We demonstrate the presence of an intact underwater shell-midden deposit dated at 5400–5100 cal BC, one of the earliest in Denmark. We demonstrate the usefulness of such material in giving new information about early coastal subsistence economies and greater precision to the measurement of palaeosea levels. We discuss the implications of our results for an improved understanding of the Mesolithic record in Denmark and of biases in the archaeological record of Late Pleistocene and Early-to-Mid-Holocene coastal contexts. We emphasise the importance of researching more fully the geomorphological and taphonomic processes that affect the accumulation, destruction, burial, preservation and visibility of underwater archaeological deposits, the need to extend underwater investigations more widely and to more deeply submerged palaeoshorelines, and the combination of methods required to advance such investigations