Discussion 294 295

293 PARTD DISCUSSION 294 295 Chapter 20: MODELLING CHANGE IN NORTH QUEENSLAND PREHISTORY Throughout this thesis, emphasis has been given to data that are relevent to an investigation of change and stability in north Queensland prehistory. In some classes of information, such as deposition rates of cultural materials, the temporal trends obtained are relatively secure, in that for most sites, sub-regions and regions, systematic increases can be shown to have taken place during the mid to late Holocene. For other evidence, the temporal trends observed relied principally on circumstantial evidence, as was the case for the dating of north Queensland's rock art. Nevertheless, a consistent pattem has emerged, despite differences in the reliability of the chronological frameworks constmcted for the separate sets of data (e.g. artefact deposition rates, beginnings of new site types, antiquity of cave paintings and so forth). The pattem indicates that significant changes in socio-cultural practices have taken place during the mid to late Holocene. It is now time to draw together these findings in order to investigate the dynamics of socio- cultural practices in north Queensland prehistory. SOUTHEAST CAPE YORK PENINSULA: THE TRENDS In Part B of this thesis, considerable detail was presented to investigate whether or not temporal pattems could be identified at sites excavated in southeast Cape York Peninsula. The observed trends were rather coarse-grained, in that the exact chronological relationship of the various changes noted within and between sites suffered from poor temporal resolution. Nevertheless, significant increases in rates of site establishment and deposition, as well as the first appearance of 'burren adzes', were evident during the mid to late Holocene in all areas studied. Of importance is that these changes were not necessarily synchronous in the various sites and sub-regions. Furthermore, at Princess Charlotte Bay there is also evidence to suggest the commencement of new subsistence-settlement systems (systematic mound counstmction) during this time, with a specialised focus on mangrove resources. In aU areas, during the mid to late Holocene, there is also a significant increase in the number of cave paintings undertaken, with prior, 'earlier' art consisting predominantly of peckings. Generally similar changes have also been documented throughout eastern Australia. These include the beginnings of technologies involving the speciaUsed or intensified use of seeds, the systematic leaching of toxic plants, a broad range of new stone artefact forms and technologies, new site forms (e.g. earth mounds) and possibly large-scale water management and fishing installations in some areas (see Chapter 10; Appendix B). In some cases, these innovations or embeUishments may have enabled productive yields to increase, or to have been more effectively managed. Examples of this are what appear to be the increased numbers of 'complex' fishing installations in various parts of the Queensland coast, NSW and Victoria, and use of grass seeds in arid and semi-arid 296 areas. The modeUing of change in die prehistory of southeast Cape York Peninsula must account for these fundamental characteristics of the archaeological record. While it is recognised that the complexity of the observed diachronic trends has been obscured by the coarse-grained nature of some archaeological methods, it should also be appreciated that we are investigating the behaviour of human actors set within complex social and ecological fields. Because any given context of human behaviour will only involve a small part of the total behavioural range of a group of people, we should expect new strategies to display a broad range of archaeological expressions (see Chapter 1). Given the relatively coarse-grained temporalities of the archaeological record, contemporaneous social changes, therefore, need not be synchronous archaeologically. Therefore, it is not possible to say, at this stage, how the timing of changes (in the various sites) relates to that of social change. Nevertheless, I would argue that spatial behaviour is linked to territorial (that is, land owning and land using) networks. Spatially pattemed behaviour relates to the activities of people on the ground, and thus it is assumed that spatially pattemed traces of human activity are related to contexts of social praxis. For instance, the movement of people from one place to another (for example, from one country to another) implies that there is an openness that allows that movement to occur, whether that openness is a result of structured norm (e.g. via 'belonging' to a place or via the use of 'visas') or not (e.g. illegal immigrants). In either case, the degree of openness is contextual, in the sense that degrees of closure can emerge if the context changes. An example of the relationship between spatial behaviour, rock art and territoriality can be seen from Wardaman country, Northem Territory. I use this example not as evidence that the situation was the same in north Queensland in the past, but as an example of the way such a relationship can be operationalised. In this sense, I would argue that rock art, by virtue of its representation in spatial behaviour, articulates aspects of territorial space. Wardaman country is located to the southwest of Katherine. Wardaman people generally recognise matri-totems (the ngurlu), assign sub-section partly, though not exclusively, through the mother, and practice a matri-focal system of parent-child relationship. There exists a matrifdiative complementary relationship to land, witii patrifiUation being primary. During the recent past, Wardaman country was divided into various estates, each of which reckoned a cosmological identity with specific Dreaming beings. Some of these were traveUing beings (such as Gorondolnni, the Rainbow Serpent), whUe others concemed specific parts of the landscape only (e.g. Gandawaq, the moon, at Jalijbang). While the entire landscape thereby gained its identity and was made discontinuous by its affiUations with specific Dreaming beings and events, it was united into a cosmological whole by its common participation in a unified system of land and law expressed in the Dreaming. In this sense, the land is a humanised landscape (Rigsby, 1981), and the way in which the various estates are broken up and inter- Unked at various levels reflects die pattem of Wardaman land tenure and land use. The land's Dreaming identities are cential to the local belief system. It is in tiie Dreaming diat 297 Wardaman ontology is centred. Dreaming realities are expressed everywhere - in the mountains, rivers, trees and rock outcrops. As Merlan notes. The Wardaman use the word lag Ian 'country, place, site' (and also camp) to refer to uacts of country and places within them to which they claim attachment, as in the phrase nganinggin laglan 'my country'. Each such counuy is composed of many different sites, at least some principal ones of which are associated with estate-linked buwarraja, that is, creator figures or 'dreamings' which are saliently or exclusively identified with that particular country. An example is the association of girribug 'pheasant coucal' with a particular country ... of which the Willeroo homestead and some neighbouring places are focal sites. In addition to these particular estate- linked and bounded dreamings, through each country there pass at least some mythological paths of other, long-range dreamings, many of which ... happen to come from the west and northwest, as far away as Port Keats and Westem Australia. Thus each country, or 'estate' (see Maddock 1982) is defined by a particular constellation of far-travelled and more local dreamings and sites. (1989b: 4- 9). In short, the landscape consists of a complex patchwork of landed Dreamings crisscrossed by non-local, travelling ones, both of which give identity to the land and link Wardaman country with neighbouring lands. Individual places identified as of specific significance to Wardaman people take many forms, from features such as waterholes or hills, to smaller objects such as rocks or prominant trees, including individual or complexes of rockshelters. It is in the latter that rock art is most commonly found. Much of the 'art' located in Wardaman country is buwarrraja and was never created by people, but are (rather than represent) the Dreaming beings themselves which sit in the rock (cf Merlan 1989a; Frost et al. 1992). Such sites are imbued with the essence of Dreaming beings, whose identities often reflect the identities of the land in which the site (and hence paintings) occurs. In this way, the rockshelters at Nimji and Muming, near the Yingalarri waterhole, have important associations with gulirrida (peewees), and as such many painted figures at these sites are gulirrida to local Wardaman people. But there is an even more important way in which the rock art expresses contexts of openness and closedness in Wardaman country. Artistic conventions are widespread across areas where interaction is relatively unrestricted, such as throughout Wardaman country and in regions to the southwest, where important social and cultural links exist. To the north, however, major discontinuities in social interaction existed during recent times, and this is also where major changes begin to appear in the rock art. For example. X-ray paintings were common during the late Holocene in Amhem Land (to the immediate north of Wardaman country), but these are extremely rare in Wardaman country (Ta9on 1993). As Ta9on (1993) notes, regionalism in social behaviour tends to be expressed in the material attachments of social practice, including rock art. As noted in Chapter 1, however, any single aspect of the material record will rarely, if ever, be capable of expressing the full range of spatial (social) behaviour. This is because of the large number of social contexts operating. 298 A number of major archaeological changes have been documented from southeast Cape York Peninsula in this thesis. These changes include alterations to the spatial patteming of the rock art, and I would therefore argue that a major re-organisation of territorial networks may be involved.

Load more