The moth-hunters : investigations towards a prehistory of the south-eastern highlands of Australia
Abstract
This thesis examines the prehistory of the Southern
Uplands of Australia, a region of tablelands and highlands
in the extreme south-east of the continent. From ethnographic
and archaeological evidence the unique exploitation
of the Bogong moth is reconstructed, and the pattern of
seasonal transhumance which it engendered. The importance
of moths is assessed in the subsistence economy of the
region, and an analysis made of prehistoric food resources.
Ethnographic evidence on prehistoric population, material
culture, trade, inter-tribal relations, customs and
language is also examined, and a series of hypotheses set
up to be tested by archaeological fieldwork.
Settlement patterns are investigated by a locational
analysis of camp-sites, and artifactual variation is
explained in terms of the function, location, culture and
chronology of sites. Then the question of time-depth is
examined, and a prehistoric cultural sequence set up for
the Canberra-Monaro region from the evidence of excavations
in nine small rock-shelters . This sequence spans the
last four millenia, but a lower dimension is added to it
from Cloggs Cave, a limestone cave at Buchan on the periphery
of the mountains. There, human occupation was
found extending back into the Glacial Period, and the
deposit also contained a rich faunal assemblage, with
important environmental implications.
Finally, the ethnographic, archaeological and environmental
evidence is integrated in an attempt to reconstruct
the prehistory and life-style of hunter-gatherers in the
Uplands from the Pleistocene to Protohistoric Period.