TY - JOUR
T1 - Three Aboriginal shell mounds at Hope Inlet
T2 - evidence for coastal, not maritime Late Holocene economies on the Beagle Gulf mainlaind, northern Australia
AU - Bourke, Patricia
PY - 2004
Y1 - 2004
N2 - Many hundreds ofAboriginal shell mounds exist on the northern coasts of Australia. Though these archaeological features increasingly figure in broad constructions of past coastal hunter-gatherer economies, few have been analysed in any detail. This paper describes the excavation and analysis of three Anadara-dominated shell mounds situated in adjacent microenvironments at Hope Inlet, Shoal Bay near Darwin on the Northern Territory coast. These stratified deposits, formed over some 15 centuries between about 2000 and 500 years B.P., provide a relatively finegrained record of subsistence and settlement strategies of hunter-gatherer peoples during this Late Holocene period. This study finds that these North Australian coastal groups practiced not a specialised marine or maritime subsistence economy focused on offshore resources, but a generalised and tlexible coastal subsistence economy tied to the land.
AB - Many hundreds ofAboriginal shell mounds exist on the northern coasts of Australia. Though these archaeological features increasingly figure in broad constructions of past coastal hunter-gatherer economies, few have been analysed in any detail. This paper describes the excavation and analysis of three Anadara-dominated shell mounds situated in adjacent microenvironments at Hope Inlet, Shoal Bay near Darwin on the Northern Territory coast. These stratified deposits, formed over some 15 centuries between about 2000 and 500 years B.P., provide a relatively finegrained record of subsistence and settlement strategies of hunter-gatherer peoples during this Late Holocene period. This study finds that these North Australian coastal groups practiced not a specialised marine or maritime subsistence economy focused on offshore resources, but a generalised and tlexible coastal subsistence economy tied to the land.
M3 - Comment/debate
VL - 59
SP - 10
EP - 22
JO - Australian Archaeology
JF - Australian Archaeology
SN - 0312-2417
ER -