Shellfishing Transitions with Sea Level Rise across the Dampier Archipelago

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Art of Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper takes a zooarchaeological approach to the investigation of social and demographic changes that may have influenced Holocene rock art production in the Dampier Archipelago, northwestern Australia. Rising sea levels transformed the former Dampier Ranges into peninsulas by 8 ka, and then mega-islands by 6 ka. In the peninsular phase, Aboriginal people exploited the intertidal gastropod Terebralia, leaving compact, dense shell middens on landmasses that are now the outermost islands of the Dampier Archipelago. From 6-4 ka, with continuing sea level rise, Enderby and Rosemary Islands became smaller and the sea crossings between them and the mainland more challenging. Late Holocene Aboriginal use of these outer islands appears to have changed to logistical camps supporting seasonal, targeted hunting of large marine vertebrates. At this time, on the more accessible inner islands and Murujuga (the present-day Burrup Peninsula), Aboriginal people exploited the intertidal bivalve Anadara, creating large middens. The early Holocene peninsula and mega-island phases appear to represent dense residential populations – but were they comparable to the Late Holocene populations on Murujuga? Taking into account taphonomic and environmental variables, shellfish species abundances and age profiles in dated midden deposits suggest that zooarchaeological transitions reflect structural changes in regional populations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• The Art of Archaeology

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25434