Pre-contact Settlement Patterns in a Clay Pan and Wetland Environment in Australia’s Sandy Deserts

Summary

Much of the archaeological research done in the interior deserts of Australia has focused on rockshelter sites, primarily because of intact stratigraphy and better preservation than in open air contexts. However, ethnographic studies of local Martu populations have demonstrated that people rarely lived in rockshelters or caves, particularly during the wet season when populations focused around reliable soaks and clay pans. Therefore, it is necessary to study the distribution of archaeological sites and cultural materials in open air contexts to fully understand settlement patterns. During the 2017 field season, we conducted a systematic survey of the Wuukurta Clay Pan region in Karlamilyi National Park, less than a day’s walk west of the present-day Parnngurr aboriginal community. The cultural landscape surrounding the main soak contains extensive groundstone and lithics, with the highest densities of cultural materials at the edge of the soak and two clay pans. Seasonally available water and subsistence resources attracted people to the region and provided the potential to support wet season population aggregation. This poster shows the distribution of cultural materials in Wuukurta and demonstrates the archaeological research potential of open air contexts in understudied desert environments.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21941