Mortuary behaviour on the Hay Plain: do cemeteries exist?

Aboriginal burial practices on the Hay Plain are highly variable yet recurrent characteristics of density, exclusivity, boundedness and formalism of burials suggest specific preferences for, and maintenance of, locations for burials. However, these groupings of burials do not fit the criteria developed by Pardoe (1988) for cemeteries. This is demonstrated in the analysis of burials at two locations: Jeraly (76 burials) and Toogimbie (114 burials) where scattered and grouped burials are found in the same area as a single site described as a cemetery. Comparison of these finds to other burials on the Hay Plain indicates this is a recurrent pattern. It is argued that burials represent isolated single events (n=76) or multiple events (n=89), a small number (17) of which reflect deliberate maintenance of an area for burials. While cemeteries do exist on the Hay Plain they form a restricted category and making the term more inclusive would simply mask important differences between burial places, all of which form a patterned part of the entire burial repertoire on the Hay Plain.