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Richard L K Fullagar
The University of Western Australia, School of Social Sciences, Department Member
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Bones to Pick2001 Adventures in the Bone Trade: The Race to Discover Human Ancestors in Ethiopia’s Afar Depression. By Jon Kalb. New York: Copernicus Books, 2001. 416 pp. $29.00.Repatriation Reader: Who Owns American Indian Remains? Edited by Devon A. Mihesuah. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Pre...more
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Analyses of shell beads and stone drillpoints from Motupore Island, near Port Moresby, PNG contribute to the debate about the specialised role of the site in a prehistoric exchange network as well as to theoretical discussions concerning... more
Analyses of shell beads and stone drillpoints from Motupore Island, near Port Moresby, PNG contribute to the debate about the specialised role of the site in a prehistoric exchange network as well as to theoretical discussions concerning the relationship between craft ...
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... the work of Atholl Chase. Chase (1989) maintains that there is something distinctive about hunter-gatherer lifeways, and that it lies in the ways in which resource use is socially authorized. This is particularly interesting since ...
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It is a startling experience to look down a microscope at a stone tool — a real Palaeolithic artefact, not a modern thing or a replicated copy — and see on its flint surface grubby brown-red stains that look the colour of old blood. Is a... more
It is a startling experience to look down a microscope at a stone tool — a real Palaeolithic artefact, not a modern thing or a replicated copy — and see on its flint surface grubby brown-red stains that look the colour of old blood. Is a consensus emerging from the archaeological scientists as to just what traces of, especially, biological materials do survive on ancient stone surfaces, where they can be reliably characterized and identified?
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We have reviewed the submissions regarding revisions to the Association's Code of Ethics and report the following. 1. The response rate was abysmal; only 25 responses only out of over 500 members, 2. All members need to be... more
We have reviewed the submissions regarding revisions to the Association's Code of Ethics and report the following. 1. The response rate was abysmal; only 25 responses only out of over 500 members, 2. All members need to be reminded about the Association's Constitution and ...
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On 19 August 2006, some 65 people from Australia and overseas attended a special symposium 'Archaeological Science under a Microscope' at the University of Queensland (UQ), to honour Dr Tom Loy, who was found dead at his... more
On 19 August 2006, some 65 people from Australia and overseas attended a special symposium 'Archaeological Science under a Microscope' at the University of Queensland (UQ), to honour Dr Tom Loy, who was found dead at his home in Fig Tree Pocket, Brisbane, on ...
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In this chapter, we consider two main functional traces: residues and usewear. Residues refer to materials that are transferred and adhere to an artifact (Briuer 1976; Evershed et al. 1992; Loy 1994; Pollard & Heron 1996). Of... more
In this chapter, we consider two main functional traces: residues and usewear. Residues refer to materials that are transferred and adhere to an artifact (Briuer 1976; Evershed et al. 1992; Loy 1994; Pollard & Heron 1996). Of particular interest is the transfer of residues during use, but some residues are unrelated to use and reflect incidental contact, burial processes, or even modern contaminants (Fankhauser 1993a). Certain residues can survive on artifacts for millions of years, and the techniques of residue analysis are broadly applicable to all archeological objects, although methods of extraction may differ. Usewear (or use-wear ) refers to the wear on the edges and surfaces of an implement (Hayden 1979a). Microwear sometimes refers to an approach that employs metallographic microscopes usually at high magnification, and especially (but not exclusively) to observe and interpret polishes on stone tools (see the following discussion). Traceology is a term that may refer to study of any traces (whether residues or surface alterations) but usually in the context of tool use, and can be synonymous with microwear (see Plisson et al. 1988; Vaughan & Hopert 1982-3). All of these terms refer to surface modifications during use, hafting, handling, and storage (see Hayden 1979a). Some forms of usewear may incorporate or absorb residues within surface layers, providing a mixture of additive residue and usewear traces. The general principles of usewear analysis are applicable to all material classes (including artifacts made of wood, bone, stone, and metal), but specific methods and interpretive rules have been developed for particular raw materials
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facts, assemblages, distributions and technology? There have been many surface collections and excavations in the last twenty years and consequently a vast increase in the range and number of stone artefacts, waiting to slip into... more
facts, assemblages, distributions and technology? There have been many surface collections and excavations in the last twenty years and consequently a vast increase in the range and number of stone artefacts, waiting to slip into someone's prehistory, or already ...
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Join My Mailing List. Lesley Head. University of Wollongong. Professor, Australian Laureate Fellow, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences (SEES); Contact Information. Links. ... Search the Selected Works of Lesley Head. Search All... more
Join My Mailing List. Lesley Head. University of Wollongong. Professor, Australian Laureate Fellow, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences (SEES); Contact Information. Links. ... Search the Selected Works of Lesley Head. Search All Sites. RSS Feed. Print this page. Bookmark ...
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At least two general hypotheses have been proposed to explain microlith function in Australia. Recent residue studies of Australian microliths, commonly called backed microliths, suggest that these small stone tools were hafted and used... more
At least two general hypotheses have been proposed to explain microlith function in Australia. Recent residue studies of Australian microliths, commonly called backed microliths, suggest that these small stone tools were hafted and used in a variety of tasks but lack compelling evidence of use as spear tips or barbs (Hiscock et al. 2011). In contrast, earlier studies have supported Johan Kamminga’s conclusion that, on the balance of evidence, Australian microliths were “primarily the penetrating or lacerating elements of composite spears” (Kamminga 1980: 11). I argue that it is premature to reject either of these hypotheses, and argue that current evidence for microlith function is consistent with a limited range of composite tool forms including elements in spears and multi-purpose knives.
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In English literature, the sea is often seen as a testing ground for the human spirit, and islands, like ships, provide a ready literary device for isolating people from society and their familiar activities. However, islands need not... more
In English literature, the sea is often seen as a testing ground for the human spirit, and islands, like ships, provide a ready literary device for isolating people from society and their familiar activities. However, islands need not isolate people, but can be part of a broader ...
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Aboriginal people in Australia have used stone tools since first arrival about 65,000 years ago. After permanent European colonisation over 200 years ago people continued to use stone, but also incorporated new, introduced tool materials... more
Aboriginal people in Australia have used stone tools since first arrival about 65,000 years ago. After permanent European colonisation over 200 years ago people continued to use stone, but also incorporated new, introduced tool materials in novel ways. To understand how these introduced materials supplemented or replaced stone, we need new functional analyses and reference databases that compare experimental use-wear patterns on introduced materials with archaeological use-wear patterns. In the Riverland region of South Australia, silcrete and chert are common tool stones recovered from archaeological sites, but there is also evidence of introduced materials including glazed porcelain and bottle glass. Here, we report experimental use-wear patterns on silcrete, bottle glass and glazed porcelain plate tools. Tasks included processing wood, bone, skin or hide, meat and cattail reeds with a variety of tool motions. Results show that striations are more common on glass and glazed porcelain than on silcrete. The glazed porcelain, glass and silcrete experimental tools register distinctive use-wear patterns for some but not all tasks, and supplement previous functional studies of these materials.
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Today in archaeology we focus much on meaning, both how, in the past, symbolic worlds were devised and engaged; and how, in the present, we try to make sense of that past. In this chapter, we explore the intersection of these two... more
Today in archaeology we focus much on meaning, both how, in the past, symbolic worlds were devised and engaged; and how, in the present, we try to make sense of that past. In this chapter, we explore the intersection of these two dimensions of archaeological meaning-making. We do so not through “rock art” as conventionally defined, but through the symbolism of stone as cultural expressions at Cloggs Cave, a GunaiKurnai Aboriginal site excavated twice over a period of nearly 50 years, and that thus affords a double interpretative vision set some 50 years apart and incorporating multiple cultural perspectives. The recent re-excavation and redating of Cloggs Cave, one of the first true caves to have been archaeologically excavated in Australia, enables us not just to better understand the site’s antiquity and chronostratigraphic sequence in light of recent technological developments—a common theme when revisiting previously excavated sites—but more poignantly through new perspectives to undertake a fundamental revisioning of how that site and its cultural landscape can be understood today
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Over the last ten years lithic research in the Netherlands has developed a more integrated approach toward technological, spatial and functional studies. This article will summarize the developments of this period, concentrating on the... more
Over the last ten years lithic research in the Netherlands has developed a more integrated approach toward technological, spatial and functional studies. This article will summarize the developments of this period, concentrating on the larger projects. Several post-doctoral and PhD-level researchers working on Palaeolithic data from the Netherlands have joined together to promote a broader European view in a project known as PIONIER. This project has combined archaeological, geological, philosophical and biological approaches, resulting in a diverse array of publications (Vandenberghe, Roebroeks and van Kolfschoten 1993; Roebroeks and van Kolfschoten 1995; Roebroeks and Gamble 1999). Part of the project deals with a detailed technological study, including extensive refitting, of thousands of flint artifacts from the 25o,ooo-year old river deposits at Maastricht-Belvedere. Results stress the high variability in reduction strategies among contemporaneous assemblages and the importance of excavating large surfaces for documenting such variability (Kolen, De Loecker, Groenendijk, and De Warrimont 1999; De Loeck.er n.d.).
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The processes that led to the transition from small mobile groups of hunter-gatherers in the Late Pleistocene to sedentary communities of the Early Holocene in north China are poorly understood. The Donghulin site in Beijing was occupied... more
The processes that led to the transition from small mobile groups of hunter-gatherers in the Late Pleistocene to sedentary communities of the Early Holocene in north China are poorly understood. The Donghulin site in Beijing was occupied at the onset of the Holocene, and excavations have revealed a rich archaeological record for investigating the changing subsistence strategies during this transitional
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... The radiocarbon dates on paired shell and charcoal samples from unit A (OZH 613 and OZH 612 respectively) overlap at two standard ... Elizabeth Bradshaw Principal Advisor Cultural Heritage, Community Relations, Rio Tinto Ltd, 55... more
... The radiocarbon dates on paired shell and charcoal samples from unit A (OZH 613 and OZH 612 respectively) overlap at two standard ... Elizabeth Bradshaw Principal Advisor Cultural Heritage, Community Relations, Rio Tinto Ltd, 55 Collins Street, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia ...
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Australian prehistory has been preoccupied with questions about the origin and diversity of Aboriginal populations; dating the initial colonisation; megafaunal extinctions; the antiquity of the ethnographic present; and interpreting... more
Australian prehistory has been preoccupied with questions about the origin and diversity of Aboriginal populations; dating the initial colonisation; megafaunal extinctions; the antiquity of the ethnographic present; and interpreting apparent Holocene change and Pleistocene stability. Discerning both natural (eg, climatic) impacts on behaviour, and human impacts on the Australian environment has been a theme that links these and related issues. This paper describes recent evidence of new dating methods, improved climatic data and more detailed archaeological evidence that complicate the issues rather than provide definitive answers to the old questions. The challenge remains to develop theories that accommodate archaeological indicators of behaviour with more detailed environmental records.
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Grinding stones and ground stone implements are important technological innovations in later human evolution, allowing the exploitation and use of new plant foods, novel tools (e.g., bone points and edge ground axes) and ground pigments.... more
Grinding stones and ground stone implements are important technological innovations in later human evolution, allowing the exploitation and use of new plant foods, novel tools (e.g., bone points and edge ground axes) and ground pigments. Excavations at the site of Madjedbebe recovered Australia’s (if not one of the world’s) largest and longest records of Pleistocene grinding stones, which span the past 65 thousand years (ka). Microscopic and chemical analyses show that the Madjedbebe grinding stone assemblage displays the earliest known evidence for seed grinding and intensive plant use, the earliest known production and use of edge-ground stone hatchets (aka axes), and the earliest intensive use of ground ochre pigments in Sahul (the Pleistocene landmass of Australia and New Guinea). The Madjedbebe grinding stone assemblage reveals economic, technological and symbolic innovations exemplary of the phenotypic plasticity of Homo sapiens dispersing out of Africa and into Sahul.
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Research Interests: Geography, Resilience, Australia, Culture, Dendrochronology, and 15 moreRaman Spectroscopy, Lithic Technology, Lithics, Lithic Technology (Archaeology), Radiocarbon Dating (Archaeology), Aboriginal, Tree, Stone, Australian Aboriginal Archaeology, Aboriginal Archaeology, Culturally Modified Trees, Residue and Usewear Analysis, Shows, Gum, and The Conversation
Abstract Cobbles from the Cerutti Mastodon (CM) site have impact marks and usewear suggesting that mastodon bones were placed on stone anvils and struck with stone hammers to produce two concentrations of broken bones and stones. Critics... more
Abstract Cobbles from the Cerutti Mastodon (CM) site have impact marks and usewear suggesting that mastodon bones were placed on stone anvils and struck with stone hammers to produce two concentrations of broken bones and stones. Critics have suggested that the stones may have broken by rolling down slopes rather than in situ at the two concentrations. Our analysis of two cobbles (pegmatite CM-254 and andesite CM-281) identifies bone micro-residues that are not evenly distributed over the cobbles, and are unlikely to have been transferred from sediment or from passive contact with adjacent macro-bones. Bone micro-residues on cobble CM-254 were recovered from surfaces associated with usewear, but were absent from the naturally broken surface found in direct contact with a mastodon rib. In addition, bone micro-residues on cobble CM-281 were recovered from upward facing locations with impact marks and other usewear; but were absent on the downward facing surface. Bone micro-residues are absent in sediment away from the bone concentrations. These new data support the argument that the associated concentration of broken stones and mastodon bones is in situ, and that bones in this concentration were likely broken by the pegmatite cobble (comprising CM-254 and other fragments), when it struck mastodon bones placed on the andesite cobble CM-281. These findings add to the totality of evidence that supports human agency rather than geological processes as the driver responsible for the CM taphonomic pattern.
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Ground stone implements are found across most Australian landscapes and are often regarded as Aboriginal tools that were used for processing or modifying other items such as plant foods, plant fibres, resins, bone points, pigments and... more
Ground stone implements are found across most Australian landscapes and are often regarded as Aboriginal tools that were used for processing or modifying other items such as plant foods, plant fibres, resins, bone points, pigments and ground-stone axes and knives. Less common are ground stones modified for non-utilitarian, symbolic purposes; for example, polished and carved stone ornaments; ritual implements such as cylcons and tjuringa sacred stones; and unused, well-crafted ground-stone axes. In this paper, we report on the function and potential significance of an unusual ground stone artefact from a site near Bannockburn, southwestern Australia. A set of regularly spaced, shallow grooves has been cut into the surface of each side of the stone. Use-wear, residues and experimental replica tools indicate that the grooves were probably made with a stone flake and then used to shape or sharpen wooden implements such as spear points or the edges of boomerangs or other weapons. The mic...
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In archaeology, we are accustomed to investing great effort into collecting data from fieldwork, museum collections, and other sources, followed by detailed description, rigorous analysis, and in many cases ending with publication of our... more
In archaeology, we are accustomed to investing great effort into collecting data from fieldwork, museum collections, and other sources, followed by detailed description, rigorous analysis, and in many cases ending with publication of our findings in short, highly concentrated reports or journal articles. Very often, these publications are all that is visible of this lengthy process, and even then, most of our journal articles are only accessible to scholars at institutions paying subscription fees to the journal publishers. While this traditional model of the archaeological research process has long been effective at generating new knowledge about our past, it is increasingly at odds with current norms of practice in other sciences. Often described as ‘open science’, these new norms include data stewardship instead of data ownership, transparency in the analysis process instead of secrecy, and public involvement instead of exclusion. While the concept of open science is not new in a...