| Physical description |
xvii, 390 pages : illustrations, maps ; 26 cm |
| Notes |
Includes index. |
| Bibliography |
Bibliography. |
| Contents |
Introduction: Changing perspectives 1 -- 1 Hunter-Gatherer Variation In Time And Space 8 -- Question of complexity 8 -- Long- and short-term trends 9 -- Theoretical approaches 10 -- Investigating socio-cultural variation 11 -- 2 Australian Aboriginal Hunter-Gatherers 32 -- Changing perspectives 32 -- Population size and density 35 -- Territory 38 -- Exchange and trade 40 -- Australian and Tasmanian ethnographic case studies 43 -- 3 Out Of Asia: Earliest Evidence And People 80 -- Earliest sites 84 -- Earliest claims 87 -- People 88 -- Environmental impact 95 -- 4 Tropical North 112 -- Pleistocene settlement 112 -- Holocene settlement 125 -- 5 Arid And Semi-Arid Australia 170 -- Pleistocene settlement 170 -- Holocene settlement 184 -- 6 Temperate Southern Australia 195 -- Pleistocene settlement 195 -- Holocene settlement 204 -- 7 Tasmania 244 -- Pleistocene settlement 244 -- Holocene: Isolation and transformation 255 -- 8 Artefacts And Assemblages Continent-Wide 282 -- Australian Core Tool and Scraper tradition 282 -- Australian Small Tool tradition 287 -- Introduction of the dingo 295 -- 9 Interpretations 296 -- Pleistocene patterns 296 -- Holocene patterns 300 -- An evaluation of results 304 -- Chronological trends and patterns 305 -- Models 307 -- Two new alternative models 318 -- Change or stability? 321 -- 10 Concluding Perspectives 324 -- Ethnography and ethnohistory 324 -- Archaeology 326 -- Three models 327 -- Greater Australia and world prehistory 330. |
| Summary |
This book challenges traditional perceptions of Australian Aboriginal prehistory. The natural environment has been seen as the major determinant of hunter-gatherers and Australian Aborigines have been understood to have been egalitarian and culturally homogeneous. Such an interpretation suggests that their prehistory shows few significant economic and demographic changes. Harry Lourandos argues however that hunter-gatherer societies and their socio-economic processes were more complex than previously thought. |
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In his presentation of a range of prehistoric data, the author reviews archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence together with environmental, demographic and socially-oriented perspectives. Lourandos synthesises previous findings before presenting an original hypothesis. |
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The study also considers the significance of Australian prehistory to the study of prehistoric hunter-gatherers elsewhere in the world. In this context the author argues that significant overlap existed between Australian hunter-gatherer societies in the Eurasian Mesolithic and North American Archaic periods. |
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This exciting new archaeology of Australia, with its evidence that Australian prehistory was a dynamic evolutionary period, will become a key text in archaeology, ethnohistory and anthropology. |
| Subject |
Hunting and gathering societies -- Australia.
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Aboriginal Australians -- Social life and customs.
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Aboriginal Australians -- Antiquities.
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Prehistoric peoples -- Australia.
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Indigenous knowledge.
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Social organisation.
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Hunting, gathering and fishing.
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Ceremonies.
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Trade and exchange.
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Gender relations - Polygamy.
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Archaeology.
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Habitation.
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Material culture.
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Australia -- Antiquities.
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Australia.
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| ISBN |
0521359465 (paperback) |
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0521351065 |
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