Sally Brockwell

Australian National University | ANU · Department of Archaeology & natural history

During the Holocene, Wallacea saw dramatic sociocultural changes during the Pre-ceramic, Neolithic, Metal-age, and Colonial periods, as well as climatic and associated environmental changes that affected the landscapes and ecologies of islands. These environmental and cultural processes appear to have influenced human socioeconomic adaptations thro...

This paper describes the faunal record from a late Holocene archaeological site located on the freshwater wetlands of the South Alligator River and compares it with that from the Adelaide River, in the Northern Territory. The information characterizes freshwater wetland resources and their use by Aboriginal people, providing a snapshot of life on t...

The chapters in this volume offer some insight into how widespread the phenomenon of fortification was throughout the Wallacean archipelago. Chapter 10, in particular, presents historical information and photographic records for a number of fortified settlements in Maluku, providing details on the number of houses they contained and the way in whic...

Cultural sites are particularly important to Indigenous peoples, their identity, cosmology and sociopolitical traditions. The benefits of local control, and a lack of professional resources, necessitate the development of planning tools that support independent Indigenous cultural site adaptation. We devised and tested a methodology for non-heritag...

In 1985, Annie Clarke analysed botanical materials from Anbangbang 1 and Djuwarr 1, Kakadu National Park, western Arnhem Land. The 49 wooden artefacts from Anbangbang 1 and 20 wooden artefacts from the Djuwarr 1 site in Deaf Adder Gorge are now in the collections of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT). This research involve...

Little is known about cultural change on the inlets of the northern subcoastal plains of the Alligator Rivers region during the transition period between sea-level highstand c.8,000 BP and the establishment of freshwater wetlands (c.2,000 BP to present). The research presented here begins to fill this gap by illustrating differences in Indigenous l...

Hundreds of thousands of significant archaeological and cultural heritage sites (cultural sites) along the coasts of every continent are threatened by sea level rise, and many will be destroyed. This wealth of artefacts and monuments testifies to human history, cosmology and identity. While cultural sites are especially important to local and Indig...

Engraving sites are rare in mainland and Island Southeast Asia and few examples have been identified in the Indonesian islands. Here we report three new engraving locales in Alor Island, Indonesia. The engravings are executed on boulders and in shelters and include figurative and geometric motifs, some combining cupules. Motifs incorporating cupule...

The Wallacea Archipelago provides an extraordinary laboratory for the study of human colonisation and adaptation, yet few detailed archaeological studies have been conducted in the region that span the earliest phase of human settlement. Laili Cave, in northern Timor-Leste, preserves the oldest human occupation in this insular region with a cultura...

This paper reports on a glass artefact found on an earth mound at Diingwulung in Wathayn Country, near Weipa, far north Queensland. Despite intense research efforts and cultural heritage management surveys over many years, and the fact that they have been reported commonly within the ethnographic literature, such artefacts have been found rarely ou...

en This paper reports new radiocarbon determinations for late Holocene occupation in the Weipa region of Far North Queensland, Australia. Earth mounds along the margins of small wetlands and freshwater creeks developed mainly after 2200 years ago, but are concentrated within the past 500 years. Their establishment appears to be associated with chan...

In the central region of East Timor (the proper name for this country being Timor-Leste) little is known of prehistoric economies beyond 2000 years ago, most previous archaeological studies older than this being concentrated around the Baucau plateau and eastern end of the island. The village of Laleia on the Laleia River is located 20 km east of t...

The environmental history of Big Willum (Waandriipayn) Swamp and the surrounding landscape is reconstructed for the last 8000 years through the analysis of pollen, charcoal and mineral magnetics. The data provide a Holocene record of vegetation and fire in an area where few records exist. Swamp initiation at Big Willum began prior to 8000 cal. BP,...

Previously it has been argued that midden analysis from three geographically distinct coastal regions of tropical northern Australia (Hope Inlet, Blyth River, Blue Mud Bay) demonstrates that changes through time in Aboriginal mollusc exploitation reflect broader coastal environmental transformations associated with late Holocene climatic variabilit...

The Oxford History of Wetland Archaeology is a comprehensive survey of global wetland archaeology. Well known for the spectacular quality of its surviving evidence, from both an archaeological and environmental perspective, wetland archaeology enables scholars to investigate and reconstruct past people's dwellings, landscapes, material culture, and...

During research on the archaeology and ethnohistory of fortified settlements in East Timor, a series of old graves was recorded with masonry features that local Timorese referred to as ‘Makassar stone’ (M: Batu Makassar, or Makassar mataru in the Fataluku vernacular). Oral histories of Fataluku-speaking communities associate the grave styles with t...

The remains of fortified archaeological sites abound in hilltop locations on the island of East Timor (Timor-Leste). Archaeologists have linked the emergence of these fortified settlements with environmental change. Some point to a period of reduced rainfall and increased environmental fluctuations beginning about AD 1000, while others cite relativ...

The issue of cultural sovereignty continues to be a prominent one in Timor Leste, which is now liberated from Indonesian rule. Out of the ashes of recent history, various ethnic groups are increasingly demanding their own cultural space and authority within the fledgling nation-state, as the conflicts following independence amply demonstrated. It i...

The northern Australian coastal plains are relatively recent landforms that have undergone dynamic evolution over the last 10,000 years. Over 300 radiocarbon dates have enabled archaeologists and geomorphologists to provide a more detailed interpretation of human settlement and resource use. This paper provides a synthesis of the archaeological evi...

We report new evidence from East Timor for the long-term prehistoric use of a single high-silicate obsidian source. Ten artefacts from Jerimalai shelter in East Timor analysed with SEM/EDXA and LA-ICPMS demonstrate the exploitation of this source began in the Pleistocene by 42,000 cal. BP, and continued to be used periodically into the mid to late...

The coastal plains of northern Australia are relatively recent formations that have undergone dynamic evolution through the mid to late Holocene. The development and use of these landscapes across the Northern Territory have been widely investigated by both archaeologists and geomorphologists. Over the past 15 years, a number of research and consul...

A number of archaeologists have suggested that significant climatic change with environmental and social consequences occurred between 1000 and 400 years ago in the Indo‐Pacific region. We investigate this premise by examining the archaeological record of changes in hunter‐gatherer economies in three geographically distinct coastal regions of tropi...

Large earth mounds located next to the vast floodplains of the lower Adelaide River, one of the major tropical rivers draining the flat coastal plains of northern Australia, contain cultural material, including bone points. The floodplains of the north underwent dynamic environmental change from extensive mangrove swamps in the mid-Holocene; throug...

Although earth mounds are a common archaeological feature of the northern Australian coastal plains, there has been little systematic investigation of them. This paper aims to redress the balance by reviewing and synthesising investigations into earth mounds in northern Australia. I examine several themes raised in the literature that are relevant...

This paper reports new dates for mid to late Holocene occupation of the lower Adelaide River in northern Australia. Earth mounds located on the margins of the floodplains provide a series of radiocarbon determinations that suggest continuous settlement from at least 4000 years BP until recently. During that time the floodplains have undergone a dra...

Western Arnhem Land is a small area (by Australian standards) on the north coast where remarkable sequences of sediment illuminate its complex landscape history. Matching the enviromental succession is an archaeological sequence with lithic sites running back into the Pleistocene. The famous richness of the region's rock-art also documents the huma...

Having reached the northern edge of the plain we had been traversing, we now entered the bed of sand hills and scrub which lay before us. We came in five miles to a spot where … there existed a shallow native well in the sandy ground of a shallow hollow between the red sand hills, and this spot the blacks said was Youldeh (Giles 1889:78-79).