Hunter-Gatherers and the Archaeology of Discard Behavior: An Analysis of Surface Stone Artifacts from Sturt National Park, Western New South Wales, Australia

Abstract

An analysis of surface scatters of stone artifacts from late Holocene contexts at Stud Creek, Sturt National Park in the northwest of New South Wales, Australia, is reported. A sedimentological and archaeological chronology for Stud Creek shows archaeological remains are no older than 2000 years and Stud Creek saw repeated occupation during the last two millennia. Methods are proposed whereby conflated stone artifact assemblages from different locations within the Stud Creek catchment can be analyzed to understand how use of the catchment differed from place to place. We propose "place use history," as a more useful concept than "settlement system" for understanding surface artifact assemblages.

A geomorphic framework for understanding the surface archaeological record in arid environments

“…For the past ten years, the Western New South Wales Archaeology Program (WNSWAP) has been developing not only new ways of recording and analysing this extensive surface (i.e., open site) record ( [5], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16]), but also a chronology of occupation based on radiocarbon dating of charcoal from the hearths and Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating of the surfaces on which the archaeological record now rests ( [17], [18], [19]). As indicated in Figure 1, we have studied these surface artefact assemblages from a number of locations across a large area of western NSW.…”

“…Attributes included those recorded during previous surveys in western NSW ( [15], [16]) following definitions in Holdaway and Stern ([21]). These included identification of raw materials, attributes related to the way flakes were removed from the core, tool forms, clast size and technologically orientated sizes.…”

The surface archaeological record in arid Australia: Geomorphic controls on preservation, exposure, and visibility

“…Where the contemporary creek lines are cut into alluvial sedimentary sequences, unconformities are observed that represent either substantial hiatuses in valley floor aggradation or, more likely, periods dominated by valley floor erosion. For example, the sequence recorded at Stud Creek contained gaps of several thousand years in the depositional record of the Holocene (Fanning & Holdaway, 2001b;Holdaway, Shiner, & Fanning, 2004). The absence of buried paleosols in this sequence suggests that the unconformities represent more than just the product of stable periods in the evolution of the landscape, when aggradation temporarily ceased.…”

“…Surface exposure means that substantial numbers of artifacts can be analyzed very economically, leading to new insights on the nature of assemblage composition (e.g., Holdaway, Shiner, & Fanning, 2004;Douglass et al, 2008). However, failure to understand the nature of erosion and aggradation, and the episodic nature of events that shape surface sediments including the archaeological record, can lead to quite erroneous conclusions .…”

“…Third, site formation studies are poorly developed, largely because deflated surface deposits are thought to have lost spatial and temporal integrity . Finally, many sites lack obvious features such as the remains of permanent structures that would suggest a means for intrasite analysis and the behavioral interpretation of artifact forms (particularly stone artifacts that occur in very large numbers) is frequently ambiguous (Holdaway, Shiner, & Fanning, 2004). Faced with these problems, and the lack of a geoarchaeological model of arid zone archaeological record formation, archaeologists have tended to take the record at face value: The ubiquity and age of the record indicates past population numbers, and the presence of an archaeological record can be interpreted using a conventional settlement pattern approach (Holdaway & Wandsnider, 2006).…”