Ancient Australia not written in stone


Photo at cite.

Ancient Australia not written in stone

Has the life of Australia's Aborigines remained unchanged for 45,000
years? A new approach to archaeology challenges us to rethink
prehistory.


By Fran Molloy
Ancient Australia not written on stone

Some archaeologists argue that physical remnants such as this chert
knife found in Djadjiling in WA give a more accurate view of life in
ancient Australia than re-interpreting post-European contact history.
(Source: Ho New/Reuters)


Aboriginal people are thought to have inhabited the Australian
continent for around 45,000 years before European contact, and are
frequently cited as the oldest continuous living culture on Earth.

However, written records of their lives exist only since European
contact. Many historians and archaeologists assumed that the culture
and traditions of Aboriginal people had altered little over time, and
that these written records were an accurate window into the lives of
the ancestors of today's Aborigines.

But some archaeologists argue that this is not necessarily the case.


A history of change

Archaeology and palaeoanthropology Professor Iain Davidson of the
University of New England says popular perception of Australia's
ancient history moved slowly from the 1920s view of an unchanging
people in an unchanging environment, to one of an unchanging people in
a changing environment.

But he argues the perception that Aboriginal culture has remained
static for thousands of years is incorrect.

"The first people probably arrived in small groups and at best spoke a
few languages. But 50,000 years later ... there were more than 1000
languages, so over that period there was enormous social change," he
says, adding, "I think we have demonstrated a changing people in a
changing environment."

ANU archaeologist Dr Peter His*** and author of the recently released
Archaeology of Ancient Australia, agrees. His*** argues that the
social and economic lives of Aboriginals were not only elaborate, but
also regionally diverse, adapting to local conditions and changing as
those conditions changed.

These transformations did not evolve in one direction, from simple to
complex, nor did they slowly evolve into the Aboriginal cultures found
at the time of European contact — rather, there has been constant and
dynamic change, essential for adapting to life in an often-harsh
continent.


Predicting the past

Many historians and archaeologists observed Aboriginal life after
European contact to try to understand the nature of their lives before
contact.

But relying on these post-contact traditions is a flawed method of
discovery, says His*** who tackles many prominent archaeologists,
including Dr Josephine Flood, author of The Original Australians.

Flood argues that the way of life was developed in the Ice Age and
"ideally suited to the continent's unpredictable climate and often
harsh environment. It survived little changed until disrupted by the
impact of colonisation."

While other populations became food producers by necessity, Aboriginal
people retained an opportunistic hunter-gathering way of life for over
50,000 years, she says.

"Peter His*** and I are poles apart in our view of the past," says
Flood. "I use the ethnographic approach and enlist Aboriginal people
and historical records to help illuminate archaeological evidence.
Like them, I see continuity from past to present, whereas His***
focuses on change, which in politically-correct Western eyes equates
with progress."

She believes there have only been minor changes in the "stone-age,
foraging, semi-nomadic way of life" of Aboriginal people throughout
history.

His*** says Flood erred in using post-contact traditions to interpret
the 30,000 year old burned bones of a woman found at Lake Mungo as
resulting from a cremation, assuming there had been no change in
rituals over that period.

"Her method did not investigate the nature of ancient life but instead
developed interpretations of the past that merely recreated the format
of Aboriginal life in the historic period," he says.

"All archaeologists who contributed to the authoritative 2006 book
Mungo over Millennia agree that it was a cremation," Flood fires back,
adding that it is almost impossible to 'prove' anything in
archaeology.

Devastating upheaval

One problem that has long existed for Australian archaeologists,
His*** argues, is that post-contact societies of Aboriginal people
went through devastating upheaval when an estimated 80 per cent of
most groups were killed in a smallpox outbreak in 1789 that spread
across the continent very rapidly, preceding the arrival of European
observers in areas beyond Sydney.

Subsequent observers assumed the traditions they observed had been in
place for millennia; but many diseases such as these had an uneven
impact on groups, with more women dying than men and most older people
wiped out.

"Imagine four out of every five people you have ever known dying
within a few weeks," he says.

Deaths of more women than men, which caused a sex imbalance, may have
led to the rules requiring lending of wives and new, more complex
kinship systems that Europeans observed at the end of the nineteenth
century.

But ANU anthropologist Dr Ian Keen disputes this theory. He believes
that, although smallpox probably had profound effects on patterns of
social life, it didn't significantly alter 'the rules and ideals about
land ownership or formal kinship systems,' which he believes have been
in place long-term.

"In my view, Peter His*** ... counts as profound social change what I
would see as change in details but not fundamentals," says Keen. "This
allows him to downplay the relevance of the ethnography of the last
century and a half for archaeological reconstruction."


Man vs megafauna

Theories around remnants of extinct "megafauna" species captured the
public imagination when Professor Tim Flannery's 1994 book, The Future
Eaters, controversially suggested that Aboriginal people were
primarily responsible for the extinction of many species of megafauna
through firestick farming, which had radically changed Australia's
ecology.

But His*** argues that extinctions of megafauna occurred primarily
because their habitat disappeared due to climactic change, and not
because of large-scale human hunting or fires.

"Attempts to explain Pleistocene extinctions as a result of the use of
fire by early foragers assumed they acted in the same way as historic
Aborigines," Dr His*** says. He argues that archaeological evidence
doesn't support these assumptions.

While Flannery declined to comment on His***'s criticism,
archaeologist Judith Field agrees that "the history is not really all
that simple."

Field has been involved in extensive excavations at Cuddie Springs, an
ancient lake bed in the north-west of New South Wales, where many
fossils have been found in a claypan in the centre of the lake floor.
Field says that this is so far the only site that has a demonstrated
overlap between humans and megafauna.

"We couldn't place most of the megafauna fossils within 100,000 years
of human arrival," she says.

"The megafauna debate has been problematic because it has homogenised
Australia's history, in a way. Most people pushing the human overkill
theory are not archaeologists, because there is little archaeological
evidence," Field says.

His*** agrees. "In many ways the megafauna debate has had the effect
of trivialising and obscuring 50,000 years of cultural life in
Australia, and making natural sciences the focus of stories about the
Australian past, when the history of Aboriginal people here is so
dramatic and noteworthy," he says.

^ to top
Future Finders

Archaeologists investigating the history of human activity in
Australia have had little reliable written history to depend upon.

Some, like His*** and Field, argue we should rely on physical records
— unearthing remnants of the buildings, artefacts, food debris,
quarries, art works and skeletal remains of these ancient people to
reconstruct images of their economy, social interactions and
perceptions of the world — rather than re-interpreting post-European
contact history.

"We've got to be careful that we don't overlay what we know about
modern day Aborigines over what was happening 30,000 years ago," warns
Field.

But archaeological records in this weathered old land are scant, which
makes the task a huge challenge.

"There has been massive change, and we often don't see it is because
in this very dry continent, wood and bone may not survive," Field
admits.

"The most durable thing in the archaeological records are stone tools,
which are often all we've got to draw a picture of what people were
like or what they were doing all that time ago."

Aboriginal people are thought to have inhabited the Australian
continent for around 45,000 years before European contact, and are
frequently cited as the oldest continuous living culture on Earth.

However, written records of their lives exist only since European
contact. Many historians and archaeologists assumed that the culture
and traditions of Aboriginal people had altered little over time, and
that th

Box

The original inhabitants

The earliest evidence of Australia's first human inhabitants may well
be lost in the murky depths of the waters of the northern continental
shelf, as sea-levels rose following the end of the last Ice Age.

Unlike North American archaeology — where dates are quite firm — there
is much debate over the dates of the earliest archaeological sites,
with some arguing that the oldest sites in the Northern Territory are
around 54,000 years old, says archaeologist Judith Field, from the
University of Sydney.

Dating anomalies plague these assertions, says Field, with many
preferring the estimates of "Mungo 3" at Lake Mungo which is believed
to be around 42,000 years old.

The arrival of humans in Australia is popularly placed at around
60,000 years ago, but with few sites in nearby South-East Asia and New
Guinea older than around 40,000 to 50,000 years, Field says that most
archaeologists now estimate around 45,000 years as likely.


Published 19 June 2008


http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/06/19/2279784.htm?site=science&topic=ancient
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