Before Farming: the archaeology and anthropology of hunter-gatherers

ref: 2003/3 (1)

The health of sedentism, sharing and diet and the illnesses of aggregation

Susan Kent
Anthropology Program, Old Dominion University, Norfolk VA23529, USA

Keywords: Hunter-gatherers, diet, health, sharing, sedentism, past societies

Abstract
Health is a multifaceted and complex condition, as is its absence - illness. The role of morbidity and mortality from pathogens varied through time in fascinating ways. What kind of models are appropriate for past societies? Sharing and health, for example, are interestingly linked in ways usually not recognised by anthropologists. In order to understand the changing patterns of health through time, it is necessary, I suggest, to understand the changing patterns of sharing, aggregation, and sedentism. Diet, and particularly farming, I propose, had a much smaller role in the spread and perpetuation of disease than is usually attributed to it. Instead, aggregation had a much larger role in promoting higher morbidity among hunter-gatherers past and present than is usually attributed, especially when coupled with sedentism.

ref: 2003/3 (2)

Aboriginal economy and society at the threshold of colonisation: a comparative study

Ian Keen
School of Archaeology and Anthropology, The Faculties
Australian National University, Canberra 0200, Australia
Ian.Keen@anu.edu.au

Keywords: Aborigines, economy and society, comparative analysis, precolonial, Australia

Abstract

Drawing on early ethnography as well as more recent studies, this paper summarises the results of a comparative study of Aboriginal economy and society in seven contrasting regions of Australia as they were at the threshold of colonisation. The comparison proceeds along several dimensions: environment and population, resources and technology, settlement and mobility, key institutional forms (modes of identity, kinship, cosmology and governance), and economy (control of production, organisation of production, distribution and consumption, exchange and trade). The study indicates that in spite of widely contrasting environments, very varied population densities, and degrees of mobility, the organisation of production and basic patterns of distribution were very similar in all regions. Institutional forms varied considerably, however. The paper traces some of the conditions and consequences of this variation.

ref: 2003/3 (3)

Dreaming the country and burning the land: rock-art and ecological knowledge

Paul Faulstich
Environmental Studies, Pitzer College
1050 N Mills Avenue, Claremont, CA 91711, USA
paul_faulstich@pitzer.edu

Keywords: Ecological knowledge, nature, sense of place, symbolism, worldview

Abstract

Human relationships with the world are deeply affected by the images used to understand and express our place in nature. Ecologically, art and symbolic modelling demonstrate an ordering of information about the world. They are bio-cultural artefacts necessary to ordering human socio-cultural life, and while our regard for art may be predicated on aesthetics, our need for art is biological. The biological imperative of symbolic modeling has not, however, been adequately analysed. Rock-art documents vast environmental knowledge of indigenous and local peoples. A people's ecological knowledge affects its subsistence and adaptation, is relevant to interpreting rock-art, and relates to broader issues of contemporary environmental predicaments. Recent work in this area suggests the value of traditional ecological knowledge in addressing socio-ecological problems, and sheds light on diverse ontologies of knowledge. Ethnoecology has importance in an increasingly interconnected world, and illuminates human encounters with nature. This paper provides theoretical insight into traditional ecological knowledge as elucidated through rock-art.

re: 2003/3 (4)

Changing ecological concerns in rock-art subject matter of north Australia's Keep River region

Paul Taçon, Ken Mulvaney, Sven Ouzman
Richard Fullagar, Lesley Head and Paddy Carlton

Keywords: Australia, 'Bradshaw' rock-paintings, Keep River, rock-art

Abstract

The Keep River region has a complex body of engraved and painted rock-art, distinct from but with links to regions to the east, west and south. At least four major periods of figurative rock-art have been identified with differing subject matters and ages. Significant changes in depictions of human figures and animals are evident, reflecting shifts in emphasis associated with ecological concerns and environmental change. We flesh out the relative rock-art chronology by highlighting these changes, from worlds dominated by humans to those dominated by mammals and birds, and finally to a recent world of reptiles and humans. Symbolic aspects of the imagery are also considered within a larger ecological approach.

ref: 2003/3 (5)

Marks of contemplation: cup-and-ring rock-art from Ireland

Carol Martin
5 Garville Road, Rathgal, Dublin 6, Ireland
carolnimhairtin@eircom.net

Keywords: Rock-art, Ireland, Australia, landscape, function

Abstract

Much of the power and appeal of rock-art sites comes from their location. Landscape becomes a very important issue when dealing with rock-art, as the outlook from and to a rock-art site, and position in the landscape may give some clues as to function, which could in turn give us some ideas as to how it may have been interpreted. This article looks at the similarities in landscape locations chosen by the Irish Bronze Age artists, and the Australian Aboriginal 'Panaramitee' artists. Both have chosen sites that hold a commanding view that are within 50 m of a water source, and on rock outcrops rather than in caves or shelters. The similarities are not just confined to landscape. Many of the rock-art motifs used are visually similar. Could these similarities in landscape emplacement and appearance suggest a similar use, and perhaps meaning to those who created it? Surely we are only getting a fraction of the aesthetic value of rock-art when we ignore its meaning and use.