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Footprints in the sand: appraising the archaeology of the Willandra Lakes, western New South Wales, Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Harry Allen ,
Simon Holdaway ,
Patricia Fanning  and
Judith Littleton
Harry Allen
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand (Email for correspondence: [email protected])
Simon Holdaway
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand (Email for correspondence: [email protected])
Patricia Fanning
Affiliation:
Graduate School of the Environment, Division of Environmental and Life Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
Judith Littleton
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand (Email for correspondence: [email protected])
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Extract

Here is a paper of pivotal importance to all prehistorians attempting to reconstruct societies from assemblages of shells or stone artefacts in dispersed sites deposited over tens of thousands of years. The authors demonstrate the perilous connections between the distribution and content of sites, their geomorphic formation process and the models used to analyse them. In particular they warn against extrapolating the enticing evidence from Pleistocene Willandra into behavioural patterns by drawing on the models presented by nineteenth-century anthropologists. They propose new strategies at once more revealing and more ethical.

Keywords

PleistoceneHolocenestone ageWillandraNew South WalesDarlingspatial theoryfield methodsurvey
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 82 , Issue 315 , March 2008 , pp. 11 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2008

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