Late Holocene Indigenous Economies of the Tropical Australian Coast

An archaeological study of the Darwin region

£55.00
Author:
Patricia Mary Bourke
Publication Year:
2012
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781407309231
Paperback:
219pp. Illustrated throughout
ISBN 10:
1407309234
BAR number:
S2340
+

Description

BOOK DESCRIPTION
This monograph presents a study of Indigenous economies in traditional Larrakia country, the Darwin coastal region of northern Australia, during the Late Holocene period. Subsistence and settlement patterns of this period are revealed through archaeological investigation of shell mounds, which dominate the study area and have long been a topic of scholarly interest both internationally and in Australia. Addressed are cultural, environmental and taphonomic aspects of mound formation and the implications of inter and intra-midden variability for interpretations of chronological change in hunter-gatherer economic systems, particularly with regard to theories of Holocene intensification in the Australian literature. In this work, therefore, the author explores the question of why people built mounds of shell and why they then stopped this practice that had continued for millennia.