Wesley, DarylLitster, MiraniMoffat, IanO'Connor, Sue2021-04-230312-2417http://hdl.handle.net/1885/230979Malarrak 1 is currently the northernmost excavated rockshelter on the Australian mainland, located in the Wellington Range in north western Arnhem Land. The site contains a rich late Holocene deposit, with extensive contact rock art, stone artefacts, shell, bone, contact materials, ancestral human remains, and other cultural material. Excavation of the Malarrak 1 rockshelter and analysis of its sediments revealed many impacts on site formation processes within the deposit. We attribute the disturbance to possible erosion or sediment deposition during periods of intense rainfall and also to the construction of timber structures within the site. This is supported by modern and historical observations and is the focus of this paper. The extent of the disturbance to Malarrak 1 provides a cautionary tale for other excavations in the region that may be affected by similar Indigenous site occupation, as these anthropogenic activities enhance the risk of further impacts arising from biological and geomorphological processes that can impinge on the stratigraphic integrity of the cultural deposits.This work was funded by the Australian Research Council Linkage Project program [LP0882985] with contributions from the Linkage Partners Bushfires Council NT and the Department of Sustainability, Environment Heritage and Water. Daryl Wesley was also supported by Australian Research Council fellowship DE170101447 ‘People, Animals and Ochre’. Ian Moffat was supported by Australian Research Council fellowship DP160100703 ‘The Drumbeat of Human Evolution: Climate Proxies from Rockshelter Sediments’.application/pdfen-AU© 2018 Australian Archaeological AssociationPost-holesNorthern AustraliarockshelterWellington RangeArnhem Landtaphonomy2018-03-0710.1080/03122417.2018.14362382020-11-23