Val Attenbrow

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.

Implications of a 14 200 year contiguous fire record for understanding human—climate relationships at Goochs Swamp, New South Wales, Australia

This paper interprets macroscopic charcoal (>250 μm), humification and loss-on-ignition over the last ~14200 cal. BP from Goochs Swamp, located to the west of Sydney in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. This study aimed to investigate relationships between humans, climate and fire through time, primarily by comparison of these palaeoenvironmental indices with archaeological evidence from the region. Climatic forcing can explain all periods of change in the history of fire at Goochs Swamp: fire activity was variable during the Lateglacial—Holocene transition, low during the relatively stable climate of the early Holocene, and high but variable after the onset of modern El Niño from the mid Holocene. Although the dominant control on fire in this environment during the Holocene appears to be climate, fluctuations in the late Holocene may reflect anthropogenic fire or human responses to climate change. The archaeological record of the Blue Mountains and other parts of the Sydney Basin illustrates that Aboriginal people altered subsistence, resource and land-use patterns in the late Holocene. We propose that these cultural measures were adopted to overcome new risks as the frequency of ENSO events increased, and the natural fire regime and resource reliability changed. These strategies perhaps included a more systematic use of fire. The most parsimonious interpretation of the evidence for changes in fire activity at Goochs Swamp in the light of nearby archaeological evidence is that Aboriginal people used fire within a changing climatic framework.

Of Lightning Brothers and White Cockatoos: dating the antiquity of signifying systems in the Northern Territory, Australia

Northern Australia is one of the very few regions of the world where an established tradition of rock-art has continued and extends into present-day knowledge. Excavation of deposits under the painted surfaces allows the age of the paintings to be estimated, by linking across to these deposits and their dateable contexts. One can begin to assess the antiquity of those systems of knowledge and of ‘signifying’.

Habitation and land use patterns in the Upper Mangrove Creek catchment, New South Wales central coast, Australia

Abstract Explanations for dramatic late Holocene changes in numbers of habitation sites and artefacts in Australia include changes in demography, technology, subsistence strategies, risk minimisation strategies, levels of mobility and land use patterns. Archaeological fieldwork in the Upper Mangrove Creek catchment, New South Wales central coast hinterland, revealed evidence of increasing numbers of habitation sites over the past 11,000 years, with dramatic increases in the 2nd and 1st millennia BP. However, the timing and direction of changes in artefact accumulation rates in individual habitations and the catchment as a whole did not coincide with trends in the habitation sites. Dramatic increases occurred in the 3rd millennium BP and substantial decreases in the 1st millennium BP. This paper explores ways of interpreting the late Holocene trends in the habitation indices for the Upper Mangrove Creek catchment in terms of changing habitation, mobility and land use patterns.

Late-Holocene mega-tsunamis in the Tasman Sea: an assessment of the coastal archaeological record of New South Wales:

Bryant and others have interpreted geomorphological and archaeological evidence from south-central New South Wales (NSW) to infer repeated inundation of this coast by mega-tsunamis in late Holocene time. However, the stratigraphy of two well-dated archaeological sites (Pambula Lake, Bass Point) shows no evidence that these camps were abandoned, or that the marine component of the diet of local Aboriginal peoples changed at or about 500 or 1500 cal. BP, the time of the two most recent inferred mega-tsunamis. In addition, the mean probability distribution of the youngest calibrated radiocarbon ages from 52 archaeological sites on the south-central NSW coast (grouped in three tsunami-susceptibility classes on the basis of site elevation and distance from the shore) does not differ from random expectations, and shows no evidence that sites were permanently abandoned in the aftermath of these inferred events. The mean probability distributions of calibrated radiocarbon ages from 108 charcoal samples from these sites does not differ from random expectations, and offers little support for the inference that the sites were temporarily abandoned about 500 or 1500 cal. BP. Probability distributions based on 70 marine shell ages show strong century-scale cyclicity, but this is likely too regular to be a product of mega-tsunamis. Moreover, changes in shellfish exploitation patterns and adoption of new fishing technologies by Aboriginal people on this coast do not coincide with the times of inferred tsunamis. The archaeological evidence offers no support for the hypothesis that mega-tsunamis inundated this coastline in the late Holocene.

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.

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.The assembly of the genome of the koala provides insights into its adaptive biology and identifies gene expansions that contribute to its ability to detoxify eucalyptus-derived compounds and perceive plant secondary metabolites.

Emu Tracks 2, Kangaroo and Echidna, and Two Moths: Further Radiocarbon Ages for Aboriginal Sites in the Upper Mangrove Creek Catchment, New South Wales

Between 1979 and 1987 a number of Aboriginal sites were excavated in the Upper Mangrove Creek catchment on the New South Wales central coast as part the Mangrove Creek Dam Salvage Project (Attenbrow 1981, 1982a; Vinnicombe 1984) and PhD research (Attenbrow 1982b, 2004). For the research project, 20 radiocarbon ages were obtained for 15 of the 28 excavated sites (Attenbrow 2004:Table 6.1). As radiocarbon ages could not be obtained for all sites, the ages of initial habitation and of selected levels in some sites were estimated on the basis of diagnostic criteria: presence/ absence/abundance of bondi points; varying abundance of bipolar artefacts; varying abundance of quartz and unidentified fine-grained siliceous (FGS) materials (excluding silcrete and tuff); and in some cases the depth of deposit (Attenbrow 1981,2004:75, Table 6.2). The timing of changes in the diagnostic criteria were based on excavated sites in the New South Wales central and south coasts, in addition to those excavated during the Mangrove Creek Dam Salvage Project, particularly Loggers, Mussel and Deep Creek (Attenbrow 1981, 1982a, 1982b; Hiscock and Attenbrow 1998, 2005:72-76). Radiocarbon ages have been obtained to confirm the original age estimates for two previously undated sites: Emu Tracks 2 and Two Moths (Table 1). Further dates were obtained also for Kangaroo and Echidna where there was uncertainty about the age of initial habitation. The radiocarbon ages obtained are discussed before reviewing the effects of including these results and of using calibrated radiocarbon ages instead of the previously used conventional ages in the indices used to produce a model of habitation, subsistence and land-use for the catchment.

The Role of Marine Resources in the Diet of Pre-Colonial Aboriginal People and Land Use Patterns Around Port Jackson, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

At the time of British colonisation in January 1788, numerous related clans each associated with specific tracts of land and belonging to several language groups lived in the Sydney region. They were mobile fishers, hunters and gatherers and the foods they ate, raw materials used and how they obtained them differed according to the environment in which they lived – whether along the coast or in the coastal hinterland (Attenbrow 2010b). In this paper I discuss the use of marine resources by people living adjacent to the ocean and estuarine shorelines – particularly those living around the shores of Port Jackson. Marine products were also used as raw materials for tools and weapons, but my discussions are restricted to their use as items of food.