Environmental and cultural change in the Gippsland Lakes Region, Victoria, Australia

Abstract

The subject matter of this thesis spans the disciplines of Geography, Prehistory and Anthropology in attempting to examine the interaction of environmental and socio-cultural systems. The thesis is not meant to be primarily be an in-depth study of the evolution of the Gippsland Lakes system but is concerned with the question of the nature of the interaction of a small-scale society with its environment and how this is reflected in the cultural forms of the society. That is, rather than being the focus of the study, reconstruction of changes in the environmental parameters of the field area over time is undertaken to support the primary inquiry into the nature of environmental-cultural interaction. The goal of the study is therefore to examine cultural process rather than sedimentary processes. This empirical approach tests the correlation between the evolving landscape and the archaeological and ethnographic cultures of the Quaternary barrier systems of the Gippsland Lakes-Ninety Mile Beach region. This involves environmental reconstruction largely using published geomorphological and palynological information, and extensive archaeological site survey and analysis to develop an outline of the prehistory of the study area. Ethnographic and ethnohistoric reconstruction of aspects of the historical sociocultural organisation of the area are undertaken in order to provide a comparative base for archaeologically reconstructed culture. The study identifies a number of problems with the use of the rich ethnography of the area. Use of information hinges upon its validity and reliability. For these reasons sources of bias, particularly natural factors working upon the archaeological record, are investigated. These have considerable implications for the design and execution of survey, and for interpretation and analysis of results. It appeared that in the study area at least statistical description of site location data could not be carried out validly. It was also concluded that ethnographic accounts of the study area must be used with caution. Shifts in the natural environment and cultural change in the area seemed to show a poor correlation. This gave rise to the conclusion that much of what is seen in the reconstructed culture history is attributable to wider scale movements of cultural information in prehistory rather than to the details of the evolution of the local environment. Upon closer examination it can be seen that this picture alters according to the scale at which it is viewed. There have been major spreads of information, including technological information, which lead to economic and therefore ecological changes through the Holocene. This expansion of ideas involved the proliferation of microlithic technologies in the mid- Holocene, and in the later Holocene a wide-spread expansion of such technologies as fishing hooks and tied-end canoes. As these phenonema also occurred beyond the study area it is invalid to attribute them to local adaptive processes. It is argued that the later Holocene developments, facilitated by technological innovation, could have been induced by landscape evolution including estuary and wetland sedimentation and evolution of other, rocky, coasts. At a closer scale, it can be seen that within these trends local aspects of Holocene Aboriginal culture were closely adjusted to local environmental conditions. Thus while gross configurations of local culture owe much to broad scale historic processes, allowed or induced by large scale environmental evolution, details of local culture may be explicable in terms of local conditions. At either scale conscious perception and culturally informed response are indicated, and changes must be seen as significantly induced rather than as the outcomes of random evolutionary processes. The concept of adaptation to environment is also examined from a theoretical perspective, and the use of models of adaptation derived from neo-Darwinian theory in examination of culture process is scrutinised. It is concluded that the application of an evolutionary model based on natural selection to cultural process cannot be supported. A process of cultural selection is suggested as a more valid model in the evolution and reproduction of sociocultural systems.