A post-contact Aboriginal mortuary tree from southwestern Victoria, Australia

Here we document the investigation of the first Australian Aboriginal mortuary tree found since the early 20th century and the first studied by archaeologists and Aboriginal traditional owners. In 2001, a landowner discovered Aboriginal skeletal remains inside a fallen, dead tree while evaluating the tree’s potential as firewood, leading to the investigation of the site. The tree was located near Moyston, in southwestern Victoria, in traditional Djab Wurrung country and held the partial skeletons of three Aboriginal individuals—two adults and a child. Clay pipe-stem wear on several teeth belonging to the two adults indicates that these remains were broadly contemporaneous secondary placements from the early post-contact period (ca. A.D. 1835–1845). Along with five additional mortuary trees within 30 km of the Moyston tree, this practice constitutes a previously unknown traditional mortuary pattern and contributes to our understanding of the complex mortuary behavior of the Aboriginal people of southwestern Victoria

Fish Capture Strategies in Atlantic Littoral of Monte Hermoso District (Pampean Region Argentina) During Middle Holocene

Pampean hunter-gatherers marine fish capture strategies during the Middle Holocene are analyzed based on fish remains, lithic technology, paleoenviron-mental reconstructions and fish ethology. Barrio Las Dunas site and El Americano II site archaeofaunistic record evidence of the exploitation of estuarine-dependent fish species: Pogonias cromis and Micropogonias furnieri. Lithic assemblages comprise scarce lithic weights corresponding to net weights and line weights that evidence the use of two fishing gears. It is concluded that the study sector was a hunter-gatherers preferential place for marine resource acquisition due to its palaeoenvironmental conditions.Fil: Frontini, Romina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Sur; ArgentinaFil: Bayón, María Cristina. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Humanidades. Area de Historia; ArgentinaFil: Vecchi, Rodrigo Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Humanidades. Area de Historia; Argentin