Reassessing Marine Fishery Intensification in Southeast Queensland

A review of the archaeological evidence underlying a model by Walters of late Holocene Aboriginal marine fishery intensification in southeast Queensland is undertaken. The results of a regional review of the available fish bone neither support an argument for a general pattern of increase in fish discard at coastal sites nor the claim for an exponential increase through time in the number of sites exhibiting fish remains. Major taphonomic issues and research biases are considered to have played a role in structuring the archaeological database of the region

Calibrating Marine Radiocarbon Dates: A Guide to Australian DR Values

In this paper, I briefly discuss the principles of marine reservoir correction before presenting a guide to regional and subregional Australian DR values extracted from the Reimer and Reimer (2000, 2001) database and recent work presented in Ulm (2002)

Australian marine reservoir effects: a guide to ∆R values

[Extract] Radiocarbon ages obtained on contemporaneous terrestrial and marine samples are not directly comparable. Samples grown in marine environments exhibit older apparent radiocarbon ages caused by the uptake of carbon which has already undergone radioactive decay through long residence times in the deep ocean. Variation in 14C activity in marine environments, although related to changes in atmospheric activity, depends greatly on local and regional factors, such as hinterland geology, tidal flushing and terrestrial water input. Such factors are highly variable and can introduce uncertainties of up to several hundred years into dates obtained on marine samples in some parts of the world. These issues have received much attention in Pacific archaeology where determinations on marine samples are routinely scrutinised (e.g. Anderson 1991; Spriggs and Anderson 1993) and major resources have been devoted to resolving regional marine reservoir correction factors (e.g. Dye 1994; Petchey et al. 2004; Phelan 1999). In Australia, however, only very limited investigations have been conducted despite routine dating of marine and estuarine shell (e.g. Bowman 1985; Bowman and Harvey 1983). For nearby areas regional offsets of up to 400 years have been documented (Petchey et al. 2004), highlighting a key problem in a country where marine shell from open coastal sites is routinely dated. As a first approximation it is common practice in Australia to correct marine dates for marine reservoir effect by simply subtracting a generalised factor of 450±35 years to make them comparable to coeval terrestrial (e.g. charcoal) samples. This correction value was calculated by Gillespie in the 1970s (see Gillespie 1975; Gillespie and Polach 1979; Gillespie and Temple 1977). Since that time several studies have suggested the possibility of significant deviations in regional marine reservoir signature from this generalised value (e.g. Hughes and Djohadze 1980; Murray-Wallace 1996; Ulm et al. 1999; Woodroffe et al. 1986:75, 77; Woodroffe and Mulrennan 1993). In the last two decades researchers have gained a much more sophisticated appreciation of the complexity of global marine carbon reservoirs. One of the most significant innovations was the development of a global model of surface marine 14C activity that enabled the calibration of radiocarbon dates obtained on marine samples, including the ability to account for regional differences from the global model with the input of a regional offset value, expressed as a ΔR value (Stuiver et al. 1986). Reimer and Reimer (2001, 2006) subsequently summarised all of the available global ΔR values in a world wide web database. In this paper, I briefly discuss the principles of marine reservoir correction before presenting a guide to regional and subregional Australian ΔR values extracted from the Reimer and Reimer (2006) database and Ulm (2002)

Review of "The Sea People: Late Holocene Maritime Specialisation in the Whitsunday Islands, Central Queensland" by Bryce Barker, Pandanus Books, Canberra, ACT, Australia

Terra Australis 20 publishes Barker's 1995 doctoral thesis of a similar title. It is an important contribution to the growing corpus of regional studies conducted over the last two decades which provide near-complete coverage of the Queensland coast from Townsville south. The cover teases the reader with azure waters bounding deserted tropical islands and promises the 'details of the two oldest sites of Aboriginal occupation on the tropical east coast of Australia, as well as formulating a model of late Holocene change for the wider region'. The Sea People essentially consists of three parts: introductory chapters which review models of coastal use; the Whitsunday Islands case study covering ethnohistory, palaeoenvironments, methods and the excavations themselves; and final chapters synthesising results and presenting a model for Holocene culture change in the region. Excavation reports are presented for four sites excavated between 1988 and 1992: Nara Inlet 1 and Nara Inlet Art Site on Hook Island; Border Island 1 on Border Island; and Hill Inlet Rock Shelter 1 on Whitsunday Island. The South Molle Island Quarry is also described and preliminary results of petrographic analyses presented

The antiquity of marine fishing in Southeast Queensland: New evidence for pre-2000 BP fishing from three sites on the southern Curtis coast

The antiquity of marine fishing in southeast Queensland has been debated since the mid-1980s. Walters has argued that systematic marine fishing was only adopted in the last 2000 years as a response to the marginality of terrestrial landscapes fringing the coast, while Hall, McNiven, Ross, and Ulm, among others, have maintained that fishing was always an integral component of coastal settlement, but that a variety of taphonomic processes and recovery problems under-represent fish remains dating to before the late Holocene. Zooarchaeological data from shell midden deposits on the southern Curtis Coast at the northern end of the southeast Queensland bioregion shed new light on this debate, with fish remains recovered from three deposits dating prior to 2000 BP and up to 4000 BP. Implications for understanding the antiquity of marine fishing in the wider region are considered and directions for future research identified

Excavating Jiigurru: Archaeological discoveries on Lizard Island

The archaeological exploration of the Jiigurru (Lizard Island) Group, which has been supported by funding from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH) since 2017, has a rich origin story that builds on the work of many researchers over the past 15 years, in partnership with Dingaal and Ngurrumungu Traditional Owners

Working in archaeology in a changing world: Australian archaeology at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic is transforming the global labour market, including the Australian archaeological profession. This, the fourth in a series of comprehensive surveys of Australian professional archaeologists undertaken in early 2020, provides longitudinal data on trends in the state of the archaeological profession in Australia. Findings include the early impacts of COVID-19. Headline results show a young (average age 42 years), well-qualified (92% holding an Honours degree or higher), well-renumerated (average salary AUD102,430) workforce focused on Indigenous archaeology (65%), working in the private sector (60%), and predominantly based on the eastern seaboard (78%). Longitudinal data show an expanding archaeological industry in Victoria and a softening of demand in all other states and territories, particularly Western Australia. Sex and age data show a profession dominated by females (58%) with increasing numbers of young females in the career pipeline (average age of males 46 years and females 40 years). Indigenous participation rates in professional archaeology remain low (1.9%). The impact of COVID-19 had a considerable effect on confidence in stability or growth in the coming year, with a slump of 15% across the profession after the declaration of the pandemic. But confidence remained positive at 58% overall. Data show slowing wages growth (6.5% over 5 years compared to the national average of 11.4%) and a continuing profound gender pay gap of 18.8%, or on average males taking home $17,800 more than females

The Gooreng Gooreng Cultural Heritage Project: some proposed directions and preliminary results of the archaeological program

The paper outlines the working hypotheses guiding exploratory archaeological surveys on the coast between Bundaberg and Gladstone in south-central Queensland. It reports some early results and their possible implications. The surveys reported are part of a multi-stage project on the sandstone caves and rock shelters

Index of dates from archaeological sites in Queensland

This volume presents an indexed compilation of chronometric determinations obtained from archaeological sites in the state of Queensland (including Torres Strait), Australia, to the end of 2000. The list includes conventional radiocarbon (14C), accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), thermoluminescence (TL) and optically-stimulated luminescence (OSL) determinations. In total, 849 dates are listed from 258 sites. This listing is intended as a reference work only and no analysis of the dataset is undertaken in this volume

An Annotated Bibliography of Theses in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies at the University of Queensland, 1948-2000

This bibliography presents annotated entries for 352 theses completed at the University of Queensland between 1948 and 2000 of interest to researchers in the field of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. The theses included in the Bibliography embody a considerable amount of original research which is not available elsewhere