Lithics in the Land of the Lightning Brothers: The Archaeology of Wardaman Country, Northern Territory Chris Clarkson Canberra: Australian National University E Press, 2007, 238 pp. (paperback), $49.50. ISBN-13: 9781921313288. Reviewed by SAM C. LIN Department of Anthropology, Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA; [email protected] larkson’s book is based on his 2004 doctoral research past hunter-gatherers. The disjunction and co-occurrence Con stone tool assemblages from Wardaman Country, of these two resources are carefully examined. Variation in located 120km southwest of Katherine, Northern Territo- the distribution of resources across the landscape through ry. The goal of the study centers on the characterization of time is linked to climatic changes, and the effect of climatic diachronic changes in stone tool technology from the late events on the regional environment since the Last Glacial Pleistocene until around 1500 BP to infer regional patterns Maximum is considered. Special attention is paid to the in subsistence and mobility strategies with respect to shift- long-term El Niño/Southern Oscillation climatic cycle, as it ing climatic conditions in the past. would have had significant impact on the availability and The book is structured in eight chapters. The first chap- predictability of resources in the region, especially with the ter reviews the history of archaeology in northern Australia onset of ENSO in the later part of Holocene. Chapter Five and the role stone tool played in interpreting past cultural provides information on the location, strategraphy, and change. Traditionally, stone tools have been seen as static chronology of the four rock shelter sites that are examined markers of cultural presence. Research has mainly focus on in this study. These are Nimji (a.k.a. Ingaladdi), Garnawala explaining the abrupt change in late Holocene technology 2, Gordolya, and Jagoliya. Three sites contain a continuous (the appearance of formal artifact types including backed sequence of lithic materials from the terminal Pleistocene artifacts, adzes, and retouched points) with reference to dif- up to late Holocene, while one site (Jagoliya) contains lithic fusion and cultural affinities. This study attempts to move materials up to an estimated maximum age of 6,500 BP. beyond this traditional framework to: 1) consider stone Chapter Six presents the reconstructed reduction mod- tools as part of the dynamic process of technological behav- els of cores and flakes as well as various retouched types ior that mediates the interaction between humans and the including scrapers, adzes, points, and burins. These are environment; and, 2) characterize the regional sequence of supplemented by excellent figures that make the reduc- technological change in Wardaman Country with respect tion sequences easily understandable. The reconstructed to changes in adaptive strategies in response to the varying sequence of core reduction (graphically illustrated by the conditions of resource distribution from 15,000 BP to the ‘event tree,’ p.87) is accompanied by relative frequencies of late Holocene. cores representing various stages within the reduction se- In Chapter Two, the author does an excellent job at quence. This is refreshing to see because many present day integrating various bodies of theory concerning human- studies offering reconstructions of past reduction sequenc- environment interaction—commonly labeled under the es, often employing the analytical framework of chaîne framework of “behavioral ecology.” These include optimal opératoire, are largely qualitative descriptions, with little or foraging theory, risk management and reduction, tool de- no quantitative characterization of the reduction process. sign, and the organization of technology. Each theoretical These reduction models are further related to aspects of framework is summarized and predictions are made in tool design such as maintainability, reliability, standard- terms of behavioral or technological changes that are ex- ization, transportability, cost of production and repair, and pected under shifts in the abundance and distribution of use-life. resources in the physical environment. These hypotheses Chapter Seven integrates various technological chang- are further operationalized into quantifiable artifact attri- es observed in the four stone tool assemblages—includ- butes in Chapter Three based on the frameworks of core ing artifact discard rate, reduction intensity, technological and flake reduction, blank selection, artifact recycling and diversity, raw material use, standardization, and artifact discard. The full list of attributes recorded for each artifact recycling. By tracking these trends with respect to the pre- is included in the appendix. dictions outlined in Chapter Two, the author successfully Chapter Four reviews the physiographic setting of translates technological change into behaviorally meaning- Wardaman Country with regard to the nature and distri- ful patterns that indicate the shifting responses of technol- bution of climate and resources in the region. In particular, ogy and land-use strategies to changing environmental the location of permanent waterholes and the distribution conditions through time. A regional sequence of human- and quality of lithic raw materials are thought to have sig- environment interaction from Last Glacial Maximum up to nificant implications for foraging and land-use strategies of late Holocene is proposed for the Wardaman region. Chap- PaleoAnthropology 2012: 67−69. © 2012 PaleoAnthropology Society. All rights reserved. ISSN 1545-0031 doi:10.4207/PA.2012.REV119 68 • PaleoAnthropology 2012 ter Eight then concludes the study by placing the findings in current day stone tool studies. It is thus welcoming to within the wider discussion of changes in Aboriginal soci- see the author’s recent work (Clarkson and Hiscock 2011) ety, particularly in terms of the interrelationship between on forwarding the study of basic flake variability in lithic stone tools, linguistic boundaries, sociality, and climate. assemblages. The author also discusses briefly the issue of The merit of Clarkson’s study has to be viewed within on-site vs. off-site flake production and transport of lithic the broader context of Australian lithic analysis. Stone tool materials. This aspect is worth further investigation partic- technology in Australia has always been perceived as in- ularly in regarding the import and export of materials, and formal and unchanging. Prior to the appearance of backed patterns in flake and tool selection in relation to mobility artifacts and retouched points in late Holocene, the Austra- and subsistence strategies. These observations show that lian stone tool industry is characterized by the dominance the current study has established a solid basis for more de- of flake and core technology, with a limited range of recur- tailed studies that would enrich our understanding of how ring artifact forms and signs of technological standardiza- Wardaman hunter-gatherers interacted with the environ- tion. The perceived lack of formal types among retouched ment through time. tools and their overall infrequent occurrence in lithic as- Another aspect that is worth further discussion is the semblages have led to the limited role of typology in Aus- use of formal versus informal models in the study of hu- tralian lithic analysis. Since the 1960s, early typological man-environment interaction. Clarkson’s work, which is frameworks developed by Tindale (e.g., 1941) and McCar- characterized by a more informal use of ecological models, thy (1976) gave way to metrical approaches that focus on contrasts to the recent study by Surovell (2009) where he continuous variation in both retouched and non-retouched applied formal models derived from behavioral ecology to artifacts. This shift also was accompanied by increasing Paleoindian lithic assemblage variability. Formal models ethnographic evidence showing the lack of direct correla- explicitly abstract from reality. The assumptions allowing tion between artifact form and function (White 1969). for such abstraction and their interrelationship are clearly Influenced by the advent of the Cambridge school of stated in mathematical forms. The advantage of formal economic archaeology in the 1960s, this rejection of typol- models, thus, is the ability to clearly deduce predictions ogy led to a change in research agenda from establishing from the assumptions made. This, however, causes formal regional cultural sequence to explaining variability in stone models to be less flexible, and the explicitly stated assump- tool attributes in relation to the environment (Holdaway tions can be easily criticized as unrealistic. On the other and Stern 2004: 295). By viewing technology as an adap- hand, informal models’ abstraction from reality is more tive response towards the external environment, Austra- implicit. Informal models can be conceptualized more eas- lian stone tools were seen to be characterized primarily as ily and applied to various contexts, yet the danger is that maintenance rather than extractive tools (see Binford and the implicit connection between various assumptions can Binford 1966). The two-phase pan-continent division of lead to contradictory predictions. It also becomes more dif- stone tool traditions—the Australian core tool and scraper ficult to integrate various models and still have predictions tradition that characterizes all