29. Late Quaternary pollen records and seasonal palaeoclimates of Lake Frome, South Australia

A colonization model is proposed to explain the timing of human occupation in different regions of the arid zone and the reasons for inferred demographic changes through time. A biogeographic approach views changes in human economy and technology against the backdrop of climatic oscillations of the last 40,000 years. This model stands in strong contrast to that of the ‘conservative desert culture’ proposed by Gould, which has become untenable as data from arid zone excavations are increasingly argued to reflect significant changes in human economy, technology and demography through time. The results of regional survey and excavation from the Pilbara and sandy deserts of north‐west Australia, from central Australia, the Flinders Ranges and adjacent dunefields and from semi‐arid Queensland suggest that the occupation of the arid zone from the late Pleistocene on is likely to have been a highly dynamic process. The notion of a stable human adaptation to the diverse landforms and environments of the arid zone finds little support in the archaeological record.

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Radiocarbon dates from midden sites in the lower Darling River area of western New South Wales

Balme¹,

Hope

1990

Archaeology in Oceania

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Seventy two of the 88 radiocarbon determinations available for archaeological sites and the sediments associated with the Darling River, its anabranches and associated lakes between Wilcannia and the Murray River in western NSW, are on shell samples collected from middens. The geographic distribution of the dated sites reflects the past hydrology of the region and distribution of preservational sediments in the area as well as past human use of the region.The earliest evidence for human use of the lakes is from a series of middens at Lake Tandou which are dated to about 27,000 years BP but the lack of older sites may simply reflect the lack of exposure normally provided by active dune formation. All of the Pleistocene shell middens are associated with an ancestral Darling River course which was activated some time before 36,000 years ago and is now represented by anabranches of the present river channel. Holocene shell middens between Wilcannia and the Murray River are all associated with the present Darling River channel which formed sometime between 9,000 and 7,000 years ago. These dates when taken in conjunction with the radiocarbon dates on shell middens from the Willandra area show that there has been an almost continuous use of aquatic resources in the Murray‐Darling Basin since about 36,000 years BP. When radiocarbon dates on charcoal from other archaeological sites in the area are added to this sequence the discontinuities in the shell date sequence are filled. This indicates that there has been a continuous human presence in the Murray‐Darling Basin since this time.

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29. Late Quaternary pollen records and seasonal palaeoclimates of Lake Frome, South Australia

Cited by 64 publications

References 12 publications

The antiquity of seedgrinding in arid Australia

The antiquity of seedgrinding in arid Australia

Islands in the interior: a model for the colonization of Australia's arid zone

Radiocarbon dates from midden sites in the lower Darling River area of western New South Wales

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