Late holocene occupation of the Central Murrumbidgee Riverine Plain

Abstract

The archaeological record of southeastern Australia, from the Pleistocene to the mid-tolate Holocene, is seen to reflect a transition from dispersed Aboriginal land use patterns to those of increasing) y populous, sedentary and socioeconomically complex hunter gatherers. This unilinear development model is nevertheless based on broad trends in rates of site formation and intensity of use, limited dating and functional analysis of spatially patterned evidence, and scarce data for the comparative complexities of the Pleistocene cultural environment. The present study reviews assumptions and evidence underlying this model, and contributes the results of a new large scale sample survey, and excavation program, in the Central Murrumbidgee Riverine Plain. The regional study enables a reformulation of the Holocene land use model, especially for riverine plains environments, and identifies avenues for further investigation. A major weakness underlying the population-sedentism model is the inadequate understanding of the definition, formation processes, functions and dating of the 'mound' sites which are common in some southeastern Australian environments. These were therefore a special focus of the research. The vast majority of such sites in the study region were formed as a result of the operation of earth ovens. Multiple dates from individual oven mounds demonstrated the very long periods over which they were revisited and used. Such use highlights the caution required in interpreting their surficial groupings, and relationship to proximate artefact scatters and other sites, as contemporaneous settlement patterns. Their formation, even in large groupings, is argued to be well within the capability of a population of modest densities within a regime of seasonal or semi-sedentary usage. The unilinear development model is also found to inadequately appreciate the degree to which Aboriginal peoples reorganised their regional land use pattern at different times within the Holocene. The major Pleistocene-Holocene environmental transition has been a moment of expected cultural change, whilst intra-Holocene change has been more readily interpreted as a result of a socioeconomic transition. Nevertheless, Holocene environments underwent punctuated localised change. These are important parameters in explaining the archaeological record. Such change was managed through complex and flexible subsistence patterns, and elaborate technology and socioeconomic organisation, which characterised the hunter gatherer societies of Aboriginal Australia from the mid Holocene to the 19th century. It is argued, for the Central Murrumbidgee Riverine Plain, that this process did not necessarily involve dramatic population increases, demographic pressures, or a substantial adoption of the strictures of sedentism.