Gail Robertson

Multiple uses for Australian backed artefacts

Abstract Backed artefacts, otherwise microliths or backed bladelets, are key indicators of cultural practice in early Australia – but what were they used for? The authors review a number of favourite ideas – hunting, scarification, wood working – and then apply use-wear analysis and residue studies to three prehistoric assemblages. These showed contact with a wide range of materials: wood, plants, bone, blood, skin and feathers. These results are unequivocal – the backed artefacts were hafted and employed as versatile tools with many functions.

Skin-working at Emu tracks 2, New South Wales, Australia: an integrated residue and use-wear analysis of backed artefacts

Abstract Despite the fact that there is ample ethnographic evidence for the Aboriginal use of animal skins, archaeological evidence far skin-working in Australia is rare. An integrated residue and use-wear analysis of the backed artefact component of stone assemblages from several sites in eastern Australia tested current hypotheses on Australian backed artefact use, and identified skin-working as one of a number of craft and subsistence activities carried out during the mid-to-late Holocene at Emu Tracks 2, an Aboriginal occupation site in central coastal NSW. At this site, backed artefacts functioned as awls, knives, scrapers and incisors for skin-working, and many exhibited evidence for hafting with resin. In this paper we present the evidence far skin-working and for the several functions which backed artefacts performed during this task association. This research makes an important contribution to our knowledge not only of backed artefact use, but also of site activities during a period of dramatic cultural change in the mid-to-late Holocene.

Archaeobotany in Australia and New Guinea: practice, potential and prospects

Abstract Archaeobotany is the study of plant remains from archaeological contexts. Despite Australasian research being at the forefront of several methodological innovations over the last three decades, archaeobotany is now a relatively peripheral concern to most archaeological projects in Australia and New Guinea. In this paper, many practicing archaeobotanists working in these regions argue for a more central role for archaeobotany in standard archaeological practice. An overview of archaeobotanical techniques and applications is presented, the potential for archaeobotany to address key historical research questions is indicated, and initiatives designed to promote archaeobotany and improve current practices are outlined.