Archaeobotanical futures in the Indo‐Pacific

Denham, Tim; Crowther, Alison; Barron, Aleese

doi:10.1002/arco.5278

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 43 publications

(45 reference statements)

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“…The Dark Emu debate has captured public and academic imaginations. Rather than resolving questions of whether Aboriginal communities on mainland Australia practiced agriculture in the past, the greatest legacies of this debate will be the enormous impetus it has given to the investigation of Aboriginal plant exploitation, which has been woefully understudied especially through archaeobotany (Denham, Atchison, et al., 2009; Denham et al., 2022), as well as the national conversation it has fostered on the politics of representation for Aboriginal societies, both past and the present (as signalled by Pascoe, 2014: 129). Ultimately, answers to questions of whether some Aboriginal communities on the Australian mainland practiced agriculture, or whether none did at any point in their history, will not be found through the selective mining of ethnographic and historical records.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting the Dark Emu debate into context

Denham,

Donohue

2023

Archaeology in Oceania

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In this review of the Dark Emu debate we start out by summarising Bruce Pascoe's original work and Peter Sutton and Keryn Walshe's critique. However, the majority of this contribution is to place this Australian‐focussed debate into broader conceptual, methodological and evidential contexts generally associated with the investigation of early agriculture in other parts of the world. If we are to apply the term “agriculture” to Aboriginal plant management practices, then this requires a global, rather than a continental‐centric comparative perspective. We argue debates regarding the character of plant exploitation practices on the Australian mainland, including whether they included forms of agriculture or experimental horticulture, have been hindered by a lack of terminological clarity, the absence of a methodological framework to assess empirically verifiable evidence, and – even more problematically – a lack of relevant data on the putative plants and practices involved. Here, terminology is clarified and a bottom‐up, practice‐based method is advocated for the assessment of recent (using oral, visual and written histories) and ancient (using archaeological, archaeobotanical and palaeoecological evidence) forms of food plant exploitation in Australia. The terminology and methodological framework are heuristically applied to three scenarios: (1) ethnographic and historical records for the exploitation of underground storage organs (USOs) on the Australian mainland; (2) historical documentation regarding the botany, potential human roles in dispersal, and Aboriginal exploitation of banana (Musa spp.), taro (Colocasia esculenta) and greater yam (Dioscorea alata) in northern Australia and (3) archaeobotanical evidence for the exploitation of USOs and other plants from The Top End.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting the Dark Emu debate into context

Denham,

Donohue

2023

Archaeology in Oceania

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The history of phytolith research in Australasian archaeology and palaeoecology

Turnbull

Parker

Jankowski

2023

Veget Hist Archaeobot

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Although phytolith research has come of age in archaeology and palaeoecology internationally, it has remained relatively marginalised from mainstream practice in Australasia. The region’s initial isolation from international scientific communities and uniqueness of its vegetation communities, has led to an exclusive set of challenges and interruptions in phytolith research. Examining a history of Australasian phytolith research presents the opportunity to recognise developments that have made phytoliths a powerful tool in reconstructing past environments and human uses of plants. Phytolith research arrived early in Australia (1903), after a convoluted journey from Germany (1835–1895) and Europe (1895–1943), but phytoliths were initially misidentified as sponge spicules (1931–1959). Formal understanding of phytoliths and their applications began in Australasia during the late 1950s, continuing throughout the 1960s and 1970s (1959–1980). After a brief hiatus, the modern period of phytolith analyses in Australasian archaeological and palaeoenvironmental research began in the 1980s (1984–1992), focusing on investigating the deep past. Advancements continued into the 1990s and early 2000s. Wallis and Hart declared in 2003 that Australian phytolith research had finally come of age, but more a fitting description would be that it had peaked. Since then phytolith research in Australasia slowed down considerably (2005-present). Local phytolith reference collections for Australasian flora, critical for identifying ancient phytoliths, are essentially no longer produced.

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Archaeobotanical futures in the Indo‐Pacific

Abstract: This paper introduces several archaeobotanical papers published in the same issue of Archaeology in Oceania and presents strongly argued reasons why archaeobotany should become an important subdiscipline within archaeological research in the Indo-Pacific.

Cited by 2 publications

References 43 publications

Putting the Dark Emu debate into context

Putting the Dark Emu debate into context

The history of phytolith research in Australasian archaeology and palaeoecology

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