Session 2.3: Networks and narratives in Australian indigenous archaeology

1.Exchange networks and fluting on the Diamantina: an examination of exchange items and the role of inland waterways in exchange networks

Carl Porter and Anthony Simmons (Environmental Protection Agency, Rockhampton, Queensland)

This paper examines how aspects of the archaeological record may be interpreted as either a direct residue, or indicative of behaviour connected to exchange items identified in early ethnographic accounts. For the purposes of this paper, the focus is on the Diamantina Channel Country and archaeological observations on Diamantina national park linked with ethnographic observations of WE Roth.

Specifically this paper looks at a cached ‘digging stick’ and how this item is connected to the exchange of lunga lunga (fluted boomerangs) in the Diamantina link of a broader arid zone exchange network identified by Roth, (1897), McCarthy (1939) and McBryde (1987). It is argued that the fluting evidenced on the digging stick is indicative of the woodworking prowess of the Diamantina people. Further, the high number of tula slugs found at most camp sites and the location of one surface cache of tula blanks suggest that not only was wood working an important subsistence skill but also one recognised via trade or exchange with their neighbours.

2. Brewarrina Presentation

Tracey Macdonald (Conservation Manager, NSW Fisheries, Port Stephens Fishery Centre, Nelson Bay) and Cynthia Moore (Aboriginal Community member, Brewarrina)

The Brewarrina Fish Traps, Ngunnhu [noon-oo], is located on the Barwon River in northwestern NSW. The Ngunnhu is a well-preserved example of Aboriginal fisheries, providing evidence of early Aboriginal occupation and trading networks, which relied on a highly skilled fishing technique that survived and has been maintained over many hundreds of years. The Fishtraps are a series of stone wall enclosures spreading across the Barwon River and which extend for over 200m in length. It is the largest and most complex set of fresh water Aboriginal fish traps not associated with aquaculture in Australia. The Ngemba people, custodians of the Ngunnhu, continue to use and have responsibilities for the Ngunnhu, which are shared by the Traditional Owner Groups who still live in the region today (the Ngemba, Kamilaroi, Murowari, Wiadjuri and Paakantji Peoples). The Ngunnhu itself comprises of a number of weirs and holding ponds uniquely designed to trap fish. The Ngunnhu may be operated in an upstream or downstream direction. While the individual elements of the Ngunnhu are simple, the design of the whole is complex when compared with other Aboriginal fish traps.

'Biaime', an ancestral and creation being for the region, is said to have been responsible for the design of the Ngunnhu. The story recounts that Biaime showed the Aboriginal people how to build the Ngunnhu by casting his net over the river and telling them to follow it’s design. The role of an ancestral being (Biaime) in creating the Ngunnhu (a built structure) is in itself very unusual in Aboriginal society and makes both the structure and the story nationally important

The Ngunnhu has been considerably damaged since European settlers first moved into the region. Many actions have impacted adversely on the cultural integrity of the Ngunnhu, including the removal of stones form the structure to create navigable waterways and town buildings and the construction of the Brewarrina weir, completed in 1972. Such actions have also negatively impacted on the flow and ecology of the Barwon River. However, despite these adverse impacts, much of the Ngunnhu remains and there is great potential to rehabilitate the individual traps (which are currently in disrepair) to their original condition. The rehabilitation and restoration works for the Ngunnhu are currently being incorporated into a Management Plan. The Aboriginal community, in conjunction with the Commonwealth Department of the Environment and Heritage and other agencies, are currently progressing a nomination of the Ngunnhu for National Heritage Listing.

3. Medium & messenger: Double agents in the production and dispersal of stone hatchets and archaeological knowledge.

Tessa Corkill (Australian Museum Associate, Sydney)

A study of more than 300 stone hatchet heads from all parts of the Sydney region, held in The Australian Museum, indicates that a widely accepted view of their raw material type is substantially incorrect.This finding has implications that go beyond the material itself and bear upon the narratives that ethnohistorians and archaeologists have produced since colonisation. Different types of raw material may have different and perhaps widely separated sources, and it follows that access to these may involve different resource strategies in terms of time-budgeting and access negotiation. Early ethnohistorians recorded few accounts of hatchet production and use in the Sydney region and their narratives were produced before the 3 Age theory attempted to fit stone artefacts into an inflexible evolutionary framework. Today's Sydney archaeologists carry out research and write reports and papers in a milieu dominated by Indigenous land rights issues and development constraints. Where the raw materials for artefacts found during these projects originated may not seem to matter at the time but it can influence narratives that reinforce themselves through time and have unforeseen consequences in the future.

4. Preliminary evidence from two newly discovered specialised axe reduction sites and how the evidence from them can be interpreted in relation to networks connected with the Moore Creek ceremonial ground

Pat Gaynor and Ivan Johnson

The Daruka Aboriginal axe quarry at Moore Creek has been well documented by Binns and McBryde (1972) as being the source of many andesitic greywacke axes that were widely distributed to areas north, south, and south-west, and to areas down the Namoi and Darling Rivers as far as away as Wilcannia (960 Km). Wilson (1994:121) in researching the Daruka axes and their durability, concluded there was some restriction of access to the quarry. She suggested that there was a mixed strategy for getting axes. One was hand to hand exchange connected with ceremonies at the Bora ground at Moore Creek for those with some affiliations with the quarry owners, while others without this affiliation, initially relied on hand to hand exchange with those that did have affiliations, to extend the exchange network.

The authors have recently located two axe reduction hill top sites 1.5 km along the range from the Daruka quarry. The material observed in these sites, seem to support another of Wilson’s suppositions (1994:121) that specialised knappers were reducing the most durable material, as most of the reduction flakes and broken blanks observed, appear to be of the best Daruka material. This paper presents the preliminary findings from those two sites and how they could be associated with the Bora ground and other sites in the area.

5. Land of the Boodjamulla - landscapes, stories and the archaeology of Waanyi country, northwest Queensland.

M. Slack (University of Sydney) and J. Diamond (KASH, Mount Isa)

In Waanyi country in northwest Queensland the physical landscape is dominated by a series of rivers that have carved deep gorges covering an area of over 100km. Along these gorges and escarpments hundreds of archaeological sites occur. Layered onto this physical landscape is the symbolic landscape of Waanyi Wangalla stories, often passing down these same gorges. To the archaeologist this is a landscape of deep antiquity, evidence of occupation during the Last Glacial Maximum, and testable theories of foraging behaviour. To the Waanyi this is the landscape of the rainbow serpent, or Boodjamulla, who created the rivers and whose image has been left by ancestors as a reminder.

This paper discusses recent research at these places and specifically the relationship between archaeological interpretations of the physical history, with the social and symbolic interpretations from the Waanyi. It discusses where our two views of this landscape meet and where they do not; how we define what is important; and ultimately how we accommodate each other’s worldviews in explaining this past.

6. Pleistocene occupation and resource use in semi-arid northwest Queensland

Michael Slack, Richard Fullagar and Judith Field (University of Sydney) and Andrew Border (Environmental Protection Agency, Townsville, Queensland)

Recent archaeological excavations in Boodjamulla National Park, northwest Queensland, have revealed a record of human occupation extending to 37,000 years. This supports conservative estimates on the timing of the arrival of people into Australia, and consequently that these colonists were fully modern people. The record of human occupation for this region shows that the area provided a refuge, not only at the Last Glacial Maximum (18,000-21,000 years ago) but also from 30,000 years ago; soon after initial arrivals and when extreme climatic conditions may have first began in the area. This paper presents new results from recent fieldwork in Boodjamulla National Park. Patterns of subsistence and associated lithic technology found here are indicative of modern human behaviour reflecting ready adaptive strategies in response to changing climatic and environmental conditions.