Archaeological investigations of the Kakadu Wetlands, Northern Australia
Creators: name: Brockwell, C. J.
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 1989
Subjects: subject: Excavations (Archaeology) Australia Kakadu Region (N.T.)
subject: Land settlement patterns, Prehistoric Australia Kakadu Region (N.T.)
subject: Water-saturated sites (Archaeology) Australia Kakadu (N.T.)
subject: Kakadu Region (N.T.) Antiquities

description: Freshwater wetlands of tropical Australia are highly productive ecosystems. Along the floodplain margins of the Northern Territory’s South Alligator River, large open sites testify that in the past they were of significant economic importance to the prehistoric Aboriginal occupants. The sites are deflated and the only archaeological remains consist of stone artefacts. However, geomorphological investigations link the sites with the establishment of freshwater wetlands on the floodplains no more than 1500 years ago. Because the sites are flooded in the wet season, dry season occupation is implied. As wetland resources are available seasonally, sites may have been occupied at different times during the dry season according to the availability of resources. Historic evidence from comparable areas elsewhere in tropical Australia indicates that hunters in these areas maintained year-round residency on the floodplain margins, camping on higher ground and exploiting alternative resource bases during the wet season. The presence of mound sites in open woodland abutting the floodplains suggests that such settlement patterns also existed in the Kakadu region prehistorically. This thesis examines site use and settlement patterns on the South Alligator wetland margins through an analysis of the stone artefact assemblages. Stone raw materials and tool types were examined in terms of distributions both within and between sites. Differences in distribution of tool types between sites was linked to differences in site use and season of occupation. The assemblages of the South Alligator wetland sites were subsequently compared with those of nearby rockshelters located in the outliers and plateau valleys of the Arnhem Land escarpment. Differences between them were interpreted as reflecting different environmental locations and economic bases. These differences echoed the dichotomy found by other researchers between plateau valley and plain sites in northern Kakadu. Previously, it had been concluded that the emergence of estuarine conditions on the floodplains c.6000 years BP was the major environmental event to affect the economic strategies of the Kakadu inhabitants from mid Holocene times onwards. However, the development of large freshwater wetland systems in the Kakadu region c.1000 years BP implies a major restructuring of subsistence strategies and settlement patterns throughout the region at this time. A reassessment of the archaeological evidence from the rockshelter sites escarpment revealed that such was the case. Today, there are a number of Aboriginal people in Kakadu who recall living at the wetland sites while they were employed in the buffalo shooting industry during the 1930s and 40s. They were able to provide details about site use and seasonality, as well as information about seasonal movement throughout the region. In addition to the oral data, there is a large body of literature which includes details of wetland subsistence strategies both for Kakadu and other comparable areas of tropical Australia. Using these sources, historical models of site use and settlement on the wetland margins and regionally were constructed. The models were compared with those derived from the archaeological evidence, to determine whether pre-contact modes of behaviour have survived into the post-contact period, whether they have changed and why. It was demonstrated that considerable continuity exists. Differences relate mainly to methods of exploitation and change in resource availability due to environmental degradation of the wetlands as a result of buffalo damage.