A number of archaeologists have suggested that significant climatic change with environmental and social consequences occurred between 1000 and 400 years ago in the Indo‐Pacific region. We investigate this premise by examining the archaeological record of changes in hunter‐gatherer economies in three geographically distinct coastal regions of tropical northern Australia. These case studies support the argument that Aboriginal mollusc exploitation reflects the altered local ecological habitats that accompanied broader coastal environmental change over the last few thousand years. Overlap between the phases and timing of climatic and behavioural changes within each region suggests that, given regional variation in the nature and of these changes, there was an associated human response to late Holocene climatic variability.
These case studies establish that archaeological and environmental evidence mutually support the argument for climate change influencing cultural change in northern Australia. We suggest that, while a direct physical link between environmental change and the interpretations of significant cultural change in the archaeological record have yet to be demonstrated unambiguously in this region, the analysis of mollusc exploitation has the potential to provide the direct link that is currently missing between changes in climate, environment and human responses over the last millennium.
Previously it has been argued that midden analysis from three geographically distinct coastal regions of tropical northern Australia (Hope Inlet, Blyth River, Blue Mud Bay) demonstrates that changes through time in Aboriginal mollusc exploitation reflect broader coastal environmental transformations associated with late Holocene climatic variability (Bourke et al. 2007). It was suggested that, while a direct link between environmental change and significant cultural change in the archaeological record has yet to be demonstrated unambiguously, midden analysis has the potential to provide the as-yet missing link between changes in climate, environment and human responses over past millennia. We test this hypothesis with a preliminary sclerochronological analysis (i.e. of sequential stable isotopes of oxygen) of archaeological shell samples from all three regions. Our findings suggest the existence of variations in temperature and rainfall indicative of an increasing trend to aridity from 2000 to 500 cal. BP, consistent with previous palaeoenvironmental work across northern Australia.
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