Memories of Seascapes?

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Seacountries of Northern Australia and Island Neighbours", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Most of the curated seascapes noted from ethnohistoric records come from the tropical north of Sahul and Wallacea. Whether these marine estates are vestiges of maritime expansions or autochthonous remains an intriguing question given recently described marine interaction zones from the southern islands of Wallacea, the Coral Sea and the archipelagos of the Bonaparte coast and North West Shelf. Collectively these zones track inter-island dynamics from 50,000 years ago, across the LGM and into the Holocene. Where continental islands survive transgression and record early marine material culture from the Pleistocene, such as on Barrow Island, unique insights can be gained into early endemic behaviours. For example, Melo knives occur in the earliest occupation levels of Boodie Cave which are dated to between 51 and 46 ka. Can seascapes have the same inherited values of ‘Country’ as potently expressed by Indigenous groups who today reside on the mainland?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Seacountries of Northern Australia and Island Neighbours   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow