Late Pleistocene Environments And Aboriginal Settlement Patierns In Tasmania

Datos Bibliográficos

ID11955700
AutoresIan Thomas (0000-0001-9808-0202, The University of Melbourne, autor de correspondencia)
Año1993
Volumen36
Número1
Páginas1-11
Fecha de publicación1993-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAustralian Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0312-2417 • E-ISSN: 2470-0363
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03122417.1993.11681476
OpenAlexW2338648813
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas10
Referencias citadas26

A recent trend in Tasmanian Aboriginal studies has been the development of ecologically based archaeological models. Many of these have addressed the role played by forest distributions in regard to Aboriginal settlement patterns. The majority's opinion is that forests of all kinds acted as barriers to settlement and communication. However, a close reading of the available ethnohistoric literature and an analysis of inland site distributions reveals that most Aboriginal campsites and paths were located in forested areas (Thomas 1991). Thus, a situation has developed in which forests have been regarded on the one hand as barriers and on the other as corridors. A basic proposition examined by this paper is that if Tasmanian Aborigines avoided forests, especially rainforests, as places to occupy, then this aversion might reasonably be expected to have developed during the Holocene when a statewide expansion of forests occurred (Colhoun 1978; Macphail 1979). However, if people did not shun forests during the Holocene, there is no real basis for the hypothesis that an expansion of forests forced people out of southwestern Tasmania at about 12,000 BP (Bowdler 1983; Corbett 1980; Cosgrove et al. 1990; Jones 1966, 1971, 1974, 1977, 1984; Kiernan et al. 1983)

Archaeology · Geography · Holocene · Midden · Pleistocene · Rainforest · Settlement (finance · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology · Wildlife Ecology and Conservation · Ecology