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Middens and cheniers: implications of Australian research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Marjorie Sullivan  and
Sue O'Connor
Marjorie Sullivan
Affiliation:
North Australia Research Unit, ANU, PO Box 41321, Casuarina NT 0811, Australia
Sue O'Connor
Affiliation:
Centre for Archaeology, University of Western Australia, Nedlands WA 6009, Australia
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Extract

In watery places people prefer to live where they can keep their feet dry, and an elevation of a metre or two can make a difference. The simple distinction between humanly created middens and naturally built features does not easily apply in the Australian tropics, where the natural causes include cyclones, shellfish die-off and the building of mounds by scrub turkeys, and where foragers are not directed in where they choose to camp by concern for the classification by which tidy-minded archaeologists may want to order mounds in the wetlands.

Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 67 , Issue 257 , December 1993 , pp. 776 - 788
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1993

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