Premium
Long‐term Aboriginal use of western Victoria: reconsidering the significance of recent Pleistocene dates for the Grampians‐Gariwerd region
Author(s) -
McNiven Ian J.,
David Bruno,
Lourandos Harry
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
archaeology in oceania
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1834-4453
pISSN - 0728-4896
DOI - 10.1002/j.1834-4453.1999.tb00431.x
Subject(s) - prehistory , archaeology , geography , archaeological record , pleistocene , holocene , period (music) , physics , acoustics
Long‐term archaeological trends for western Victoria have been a cornerstone in the modelling of changes in Aboriginal site and regional land use in Australian prehistory since the early 1980s. Both the archaeological trends and the explanatory socio‐demographic models, however, have been contested in the archaeological literature. Bird et al .'s (1998:35) recent paper offers new data which are claimed to ‘call for a re‐evaluation of current thinking on south‐west Victoria’. We point out that contrary to their interpretations, sedimentation rates do increase significantly at the rockshelter sites of Drual and Billimina in the late Holocene. As such, the new dates for the Grampians‐Gariwerd region strongly support both existing chronological trends in the archaeological record of western Victoria and Lourandos' (1983, 1997) socio‐***demographic model of long‐term change for the region.