ABSTRACT:

It has long been recognized that the Australian archaeological record documents alterations in settlement and technological strategies in the middle of the Holocene. Discussion of the cause of those changes has largely been restricted to suggestions of the arrival of new technologies, presumably from southeast Asia, without exploring their advantages for humans occupying the continent. The model outlined here proposes that during the mid Holocene exploitation of the landscape involved significant risks, and at that time new forms of stoneworking were adopted as an aid in reducing risk. Risk was associated with environmental change, high mobility and colonisation of previously unoccupied landscapes. Archaeological evidence reveals these processes to be associated with the adoption of toolkits that minimize risk.

Key words: Technology, risk, Australia, colonization.

In the absence of pottery, the early chronological frameworks for Australian prehistory were based primarily on sequences of stone arteffacts (eg. Hale and Tindale, 1930). Following the pioneering work of Norman Tindale and Fred McCarthy, the present implement sequence for mainland Australia was established in the 1960’s by Mulvaney (1969; Mulvaney and Joyce, 1965). Central to this sequence was a mid-Holocene transition from a phase dominated by ‘flake-tools’ to a phase characterized by the frequent production of typologically regular and finely made flaked implements.

For two decades this mid-Holocene period, between c.7,000 B.P. and c.4,000 B.P., has been recognized as a period of unparalleled cultural change in Australian prehistory. Appearance of these typologically regular artefacts during the Holocene, has been seen as a major change in the archaeological sequence, revealing that the ‘tempo of technological innovation had quickened’ (Mulvaney, 1969, p.153). Explicating the emergence of these implement types has become a major concern for Australian archaeologists, and over the last thirty years these various implements have been depicted as components of a pancontinental entity, the ‘Small Tool Tradition’, that suddenly appeared 4,000-4,500 years ago. This depiction has both hindered a broad understanding of cultural process during the Holocene (cf. Lourandos, 1987, 1993) and encouraged generalized diffusionist models to account for perceived simultaneity of these artefactual changes with subsistence changes and the arrival of the dingo (Beaton, 1982; Bowdler, 1981). The existing focus on the ultimate origin of these phenomena, whether an independent Australian invention or an introduction from elsewhere, has discouraged consideration of the economic function of these toolkits. To avoid this impasse, this paper begins with the premise that the new stone implements that appeared in the mid-Holocene must be understood in the context of the settlement-subsistence systems that were in place at that time. It is argued that the new toolkits and stoneworking strategies are technological solutions to risks created by scheduling uncertainties.

New patterns of assemblage variability emerge in the mid-Holocene. For decades the archaeological characterisation of these patterns has focussed on the appearance of a variety of typologically regular forms of retouched flakes previously unknown in Australia. Today it is fashionable to recognize only major typological categories, and many discussions centre on only the three most widespread implement types: points, backed blades, and tulas (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Illustration of a) bifacial point (after Schrire, 1982), b) backed blade (after White and O’Connell, 1982), and c) tula (after Kamminga, 1985).

Points consist of both unifacial and bifacial forms. The base of points is either flat or rounded but never concave, and the lateral margins are often straight and converging. Fluting is unknown, and except in the extreme northwest of the continent points normally exhibits only parallel percussion flake scars. The exception to this pattern is the bifaces from the Kimberley and nearby regions of the northwest, where pressure flaking and serration produced distinctive forms (Akerman, 1978; Tindale, 1985). Fully bifacial points are restricted to northern Australia, where they often represent unifacial points that have been extensively reworked (Hiscock, 1994b). In southern and eastern portions of the continent only unifacial points are found, sometimes with basal thinning onto a second surface but never with bifacial working of the lateral margins. Consequently, northern and southern points, while superficially similar, represent quite different systems of manufacture, use and repair (see also Allen and Barton, nd, pp.119-120). Such a distinction is supported by the sharp southern boundary of northern bifaces (Smith and Cundy, 1985). The distinction is further enhanced by the disappearance of the southern unifacial points by 2-3,000 B.P., while the northern bifaces continued to be made until the twentieth century (White and O’Connell, 1982, p.125). Implications of this observation will be discussed again shortly.

Backed blades are flakes with steep retouching along one margin, the backing sometimes removing the platform and distal end. Their distinguishing feature is the near 90^o, bidirectional retouch that has often been accomplished with the use of bipolar techniques on an anvil (Flenniken and White, 1985, p.143; Hiscock, 1993b). Backed blade form varies, but typologically they have been described as falling into two classes: Bondi points, which are asymmetric backed blades, and geometric backed blades, representing a number of symmetrical forms including crescents, triangles and trapezoids. The usefulness of this broad division is gauged by the different geographical distribution of the two forms. Asymmetric backed blades are common along the eastern margin of Australia, while only geometric forms are found in central and western Australia.

Tulas are distinctively shaped flakes, with pronounced bulbs, that have been retouched at the distal end to form an object with semi-circular plan shape (Hiscock and Veth, 1991; Hiscock, 1988a). Dense wood adzing and scraping are the inferred functions of this implement, and re-sharpening of the retouched edge gradually reduces specimen length to produce a ‘slug’ that can no longer be hafted as an adze. Tulas are found in large numbers across much of the dry interior portion of the continent (Kamminga, 1985).

In addition to these widespread implement types there are localized occurrences of other distinctive forms of flaked stone, such as burins, pirri gravers, burrens, Juan knives, and bevelled pounders (Flenniken and White, 1985; Gillieson and Hall, 1982; Kamminga, 1985; Dodson et al., 1992). These geographically restricted types have played little part in continental interpretation, except in so much as they enhance the impression of typological diversification in the Holocene. More widespread are a variety of retouched flakes vaguely labelled as ‘scrapers’, although these have been seen as a continuity with the Pleistocene and have not been the focus of investigations into the mid-Holocene assemblages.

Accompanying the appearance of these new forms of flake retouching is the widespread use of edge-ground axes throughout much of southern mainland Australia. Although found in northern Australia for more than 20,000 years, axes become archaeologically visible in the temperate and arid parts of Australia only since the mid-Holocene (Morwood and Trezise, 1989).

Mulvaney (1969) developed a three phase sequence for mainland Australia, defined primarily in terms of the presence or absence of the typologically regular and finely made flaked implements such as points, backed blades, and tulas. Such implements were absent in assemblages of the earliest phase, and are said to be rare or absent in the third and youngest phase, but are abundant in the second phase. Debates about the labels of these phases, with implications for their explanation, have been common. Lampert (1971) preferred to name the phases I, II and III to avoid interpretive labels. Nevertheless, the sequence itself was universally accepted, and continues to be used as a valuable heuristic device.

These three phases are now described by reference to characteristics of typical assemblages. Covering the period from initial colonisation until approximately the mid-Holocene, the early industries are generally labelled as the ‘Core Tool and Scraper Tradition’ (Bowler et al., 1970), emphasising the perceived dominance of horse-hoof core-tools and steep edge scrapers within many Pleistocene and early Holocene assemblages (see Kamminga, 1982 for a dissenting opinion on early assemblages). The following phase, beginning about the mid-Holocene, is now commonly called the ‘Small Tool Tradition’ after the distinctive points, backed blades and tulas found in abundance at that time. A third phase, covering the last millennia or two, and containing assemblages with few points and backed blades, has been called the ‘Lesser Retouched Tradition’ (Campbell, 1982, p.62).

Richard Gould (1969) coined the term, the Small Tool Tradition, to extricate himself from a nomenclature debate. Employing the notion that points, backed blades and tulas were all elements in composite tools, he argued that they "...may belong to a common historical tradition" (Gould, 1969, p.235). By the late 1970’s it seemed that the appearance of these implements, particularly points and backed blades, could be dated with precision to shortly before 4,000 B.P. (Johnson, 1979; Morwood, 1981, 1984; Bowdler, 1981). Their apparent co-ocurrence in time reinforced the notion of membership in a common tradition. Several researchers also emphasized the near simultaneous occurrence of other new phenomenon in Australia at that time, such as the dingo and plant detoxifying technologies, again suggesting a common and external origin (Beaton, 1982).

Interpretation of the Small Tool Tradition has frequently centered upon the proposition that points, and particularly backed blades, are functionally unnecessary, and fulfilled primarily symbolic roles within society. This view posits that the standardisation of implement forms was best explained as stylistic phenomenon. Because effective spear barbs and points were often crafted from wood in the late Holocene and terminal Pleistocene, it was thought that stone points and barbs conferred no advantage on prehistoric hunter-gatherers (Peterson, 1971; White and O’Connell, 1982, p.124-125). Furthermore, the presence of those implement types in a range of landscapes was taken as evidence that they were not necessary for any particular function. As a consequence of these perspectives, the Small Tool Tradition has often been considered to reveal changes in the use of social symbols. Johnson (1979, p.144), for example, concluded,

Adaptive advantage for Small Tool Tradition users was proposed by Jones (1977), who argued that the new implement forms were more efficient in food procurement, thereby freeing leisure time that was used for elaborated ritual activities. This model gained few adherents, mainly because the claim for greatly improved efficiency was never adequately demonstrated (White, 1977; Hiscock, 1993b). Furthermore, the causal connection between new technologies and intensified rituals was attacked by Bowdler (1981, p.110) as follows,

Yet Bowdler (1981, p.108) recognized that implements of the Small Tool Tradition were associated with major economic shifts, involving the exploitation of new plant resources, amongst other changes. However, since she could see no direct functional relationship between plant processing and the new stone implement types, she inclined to the view that implements such as backed blades were not adaptively significant of themselves but were merely part of a new social/ideational system. Bowdler has implied that many of the new elements appearing in the mid-Holocene, such as dingos and plant detoxifying technologies as well as stone implements, were a package which presumably diffused from a common source

In themselves the arguments used in favour of a purely social function for the implements of the Small Tool Tradition are extremely weak. For example, citing the effectiveness of wood and bone spear points and barbs ignores the beneficial characteristics that stone points and barbs might possess, such as weight, sharpness, maintainability, and so on. And the existence of these implement forms in different landscapes may simply indicate their multifunctional nature. Furthermore, assertions that the finely made, standardized stone implements that first appeared in the Holocene are not functionally advantageous consistently avoid discussing the tula, a mechanically effective tool used ethnographically with minimal symbolic roles.

Underlying those traditional arguments about the purpose of the Small Tool Tradition implements is the proposition that their benefit can only be measured in terms of their greater mechanical effectiveness in particular functions, especially food procurement functions, compared to other implements. Because benefits of that kind have not been demonstrated, at least for points and backed blades, Australian archaeologists have asserted that such implements conferred no economic or adaptive advantages, of themselves. For example, in regard to the perceived decreased abundance of points and backed blades in recent millennia, one author recently expressed the view that stone artefacts were an economic irrelevance, writing,

With such views, Australian archaeologists have reached an impasse, in which they search for an explanation for the widespread adoption of finely made, standardized stone implements, while simultaneously rejecting the possibility that those implements could have conferred any economic/adaptive benefits. A way forward is to employ the perspective, developed by Binford, Torrence and others, that benefits of a toolkit may accrue, not merely because of the mechanical effectiveness of its implements for a particular use, but because of its organisational properties within the broader settlement-subsistence system. From this viewpoint, the central issue to be investigated is whether the stoneworking technology that was employed in the mid-Holocene can be seen to have enhanced the settlement and economic strategies that were in place at that time. It is my contention that stone implements such as points, backed blades, and tulas, reduced risks imposed by a range of circumstances in the mid-Holocene. Consequently those implements can be seen as a technological response to organisational difficulties imposed by particular systems of settlement and mobility.

However, the measurement of benefit from technology is only one difficulty with the traditional depiction of technological change during the early- to mid-Holocene. It is the perception that points, backed blades, dingos and plant processing technologies all occur at the same time which has led to conclusions that they are part of a single package of innovations, and therefore represent a common tradition. Since the supposed unity of the Small Tool Tradition has remained unquestioned, explanations for Australian prehistory have focussed on the origin of the tradition. In reality the evidence for these disparate events forming a single package is slight. The notion that these phenomena represent a package of introduced traits, arriving in a short space of time, must be re-assessed if we are to proceed to a broader understanding of the underlaying processes.

Johnson (1979) argued at length that the appearance of points and backed blades could be dated with precision to shortly before 4,000 B.P. (see also Morwood, 1981, 1984). While this model is still popular (eg. Bowdler and O’Connor, 1991), it is clear that we cannot reliably state that the implement types appear simultaneously, or that their appearance occurs at 4,000-4,500 B.P. (see Hughes and Djohadze, 1980). For example, there is new evidence for earlier specimens in Arnhem Land where a point was excavated at Nauwalabila 1 in a level associated with a radiocarbon date of 5,860+90 years B.P. (ANU-3180) (Jones and Johnson, 1985, p.206; Hiscock, 1993a). Backed blades have also been found in strata older than 6,000 years B.P. in several sites on the east coast (Hiscock and Attenbrow, 1994). More importantly, re-evaluation of existing sites from a taphonomic perspective suggests that vertical movement of material in the sandy deposits of many sites prevents precise dating of specimens (Richardson, 1992; Stern, 1980). At this point it is possible only to say that these artefact types are early- or mid-Holocene in age, and that they are widespread by 4,000 B.P. This conclusion eliminates any confidence that the implements necessarily belong to a common tradition because they all abruptly appeared 4,300 years ago (contra Morwood, 1984).

Figure 2. Distribution of implement types.

Geographically the elements of the Small Tool Tradition are disparate and can be divided into at least two different spatial groups (Figure 2). In a band across northern Australia, centered on the northern third of Western Australia and the Northern Territory, there are point industries in which bifaces are prominent. Throughout most of this northern zone backed blades and tulas are completely absent.

By contrast the southern two-thirds of the mainland contains unifacial points, backed blades, and tulas. This grouping should not be taken to imply that these elements in the south form a unified tradition as distributional differences between the types have already been noted above. However, over much of Australia the spatial distribution of tulas and backed blades coincide, and show little overlap with bifacial points, strengthening the contrast between north and south. My purpose here is not to identify broad culture-areas, but to emphasize the spatial disjunction between various archaeological phenomena that have hitherto been lumped under the umbrella of the Small Tool Tradition.

In this regard the geographic overlap of implement forms may be instructive. Lawn Hill, in the gulf of Carpentaria, is within the small zone of overlap, with backed blades and tulas made on the limestone plateau, and bifacial points being manufactured on the alluvial lowlands only 20-30km to the north of the plateau. In this region backed blades and tulas are made on chert and may be produced at different stages in the reduction of a single cobble, whereas bifacial points are manufactured on greywacke using different reduction strategies (Hiscock, 1988b). Technological segregation of these forms is consistent with their geographic separation and suggests that on the continental scale they may represent different technological and behavioural systems.

Described in this way the stone implements of the Small Tool Tradition have little in common other than their occurrence within the early-mid Holocene. If we admit that these implement types are poorly described as a single tradition, it is necessary to consider again possible reasons for a change in the tempo of technological innovation during the Holocene. I do not propose to debate the origin of the types, whether they are introduced ideas, or whether they developed within Australia. Indeed, by disassembling the Small Tool Tradition it is possible to accept that bifacial points may have been an introduction while backed blades may have developed locally, or vice versa. To concentrate on the ultimate origin of the types has, in the past, diverted our gaze away from the issue of their acceptance and functioning in prehistoric Australia. Instead, taking the view that these artefacts reflect technological solutions to economic stresses, it may be profitable to enquire into the likely process involving a trend towards complex retouched flakes of regular form.

Risk has often been discussed as a feature of hunter-gatherer or agriculturalist/herder economic systems (eg. Halstead and O’Shea, 1989; Jochim,1981; Torrence, 1983; Wiessner, 1982). Risk represents the probability of being unsuccessful in procuring resources, whatever they might be. This usage of the notion is consistent with, although broader than, that of Mithen (1990) and Torrence (1989). High risk, equating to a low probability of foraging success, may not only incur large energy costs on any group, in some instances it may endanger individuals or groups.

The existence of significant risk in an economic system may correspond with the existence of one or more strategies that function to reduce risk. A number of common risk minimising responses have been described, including mobility, political alliances, economic diversification, storage, exchange, and information systems describing famine foods (Colson, 1979; Halstead and O’Shea, 1989, p.3-4).

Gould (1991), the leading proponent of risk-oriented descriptions of hunter-gatherer economic strategies in Australia, has pointed out that Ngatatjara Aborigines may switch between strategies as the nature or severity of risk varied. Strategy switching, of the sort discussed by Gould, is an example of specific risk minimising activities being elicited by an increased risk brought on by changing circumstances. However it is also likely that some risk reduction strategies are permanently in place, even though the benefits of that strategy may be only occasionally realized. One of the risk minimising strategies of this kind appears to be the manufacture and use of specialized toolkits in order to enhance the likelihood of success in a range of tasks. As discussed by Torrence (1983, 1989) this is a technological response to long-term risks that may in some instances be a consequence of the organisational properties of hunter-gatherer settlement-subsistence systems. Intriguingly, it is plausible that some non-technologically based risk minimising strategies may in turn impose further risk of the kind that can be dealt with using particular technologies. For example, high mobility as a drought evasion strategy (Gould 1991) may require a specific, portable and multi-functional toolkit to reduce the risk of being ill-equipped. A strong relationship between mobility and such toolkits has been established (see Ebert, 1979; Shott, 1986)

In Australia, the recent risk minimising strategies Gould (1980, 1991) documents in the Western Desert, are built around high mobility and flexible group structure, and reveal that Aboriginal people in that area possessed a detailed familiarity with resource distributions. Detailed knowledge of specific resource structures/locations as the basis for exploitation patterns is an economic system described as place-oriented by Kelly and Todd (1988). Awareness of the details of resource distribution is a product of resource monitoring and has emerged over an extended period of occupation of that landscape (Gould, 1991, p.30).

Where environments are unfamiliar, perhaps as a result of rapid environmental change or following colonisation, risk reduction strategies based on a comprehensive knowledge of resource distribution may be less effective than a technological solution to risk reduction. This bears comparison to what Kelly and Todd (1988) call a technology-oriented system in which mobile hunter-gatherers utilise toolkits as a buffer against uncertainty in resources.

An associated factor encouraging a technological solution may be the emphasis given to hunting in unfamiliar environments. Ethnographic sources point to this as a likely situation. For example, Kaberry (1939, p.137-138) observed that when moving outside their clan estate men rapidly acquired a knowledge of animal resources, and based on their generalized knowledge of tracking, were able to regularly hunt successfully within a short time. However, women required much more time to obtain an intimate knowledge of soil and vegetation patterns necessary to efficiently forage for a wide range of plant foods. Consequently, in an unfamiliar environment it may be crucial to maximize hunting success, and hunting toolkits would be expected to be elaborated to enhance their reliability/maintainability.

I suggest that the highly retouched, finely shaped implements that appear in Australia during the mid-Holocene were components in a hafted technology that served to reduce risks. In the following pages I demonstrate that these mid-Holocene artefact assemblages are associated with settlement systems involving high mobility, colonisation of new landscapes, and rapid or constant environmental change. These prehistoric circumstances provide a context in which the landscape would be unfamiliar, and sometimes rapidly changing, and in which the hunter-gatherer settlement systems would have been subject to time-stress (see Torrence, 1983). In such a situation the emergence of a portable, standardized, multi-functional toolkit is explicable as a risk reduction response.

This is not to deny that points, backed blades, tulas or other implements that appeared at the time may have had additional social/symbolic meaning. Indeed such social significance, in combination with the mechanical functionality of the implements, may underlie their continued use in the late Holocene, when at least some of those risk inducing factors had disappeared (see below). Not withstanding this possibility, it is important to appreciate the role that these implements may have played in a technological strategy that functioned to reduce risk.

It is necessary to begin by considering the advantages of these new implements. Elsewhere in the world, bifaces similar to those in northern Australia have been seen to have three major properties (eg. Kelly, 1988; Kelly and Todd, 1988). Firstly, they represent small and easily transported objects that can serve as cores capable of producing large numbers of thin, sharp flakes. Secondly, the bifacial form facilitates extensive resharpening and reshaping, thereby extending their use-life as a tool. Thirdly, bifacial points lend themselves to multiple functions, providing stout, sharp margins as well as a pointed shape capable of penetration (Jeske, 1989, p.36). All three properties become valuable in circumstances where replacement raw material is rare, or where the access to replacement raw material is unpredictable.

These properties are also possessed by the other implement forms under discussion. As part of the composite desert adzes, tulas are widely renowned for their portability, multifunctionality, and extended use-life (Gould, 1980). Although their use is little known, it seems that backed blades were also hafted as a portable, multifunctional composite tool (Kamminga, 1980; McBryde, 1985, 1986). The large number of backed blades found archaeologically, together with resin staining along the backed margins of some specimens, supports reconstructions of multiple specimens being hafted as spear barbs or knife blades. At least in the eastern portion of Australia the entire technological system producing backed blades is geared to raw material conservation (Hiscock, 1993b).

In addition, these implement forms are all relatively standardized, although few studies have quantified the regularity of form. Since points, backed blades, and tulas are all presumed to have been hafted, uniformity of implement size and shape through extensive retouching and specific manufacture may well have increased both the maintainability and reliability of the tools (pace Bleed, 1986). Kelly (1988, p.721) argues that hafted bifacial points typically indicate a technological strategy aimed at reliability. Multiple backed blades used as barbs, as suggested for Australia, has been argued to a technologically redundant feature and to thereby signal strategies emphasising reliability (Myers, 1987, p.144, 1989, p.87). Reliability in particular is thought to be highly advantageous as a risk reduction strategy (Torrence, 1989, p.63; Myers, 1989). Taken together with the features mentioned above, these implements are best seen as components of portable, reliable composite tools that reduce uncertainty during the exploitation of the landscape.

Characterisation of these implements in this way suggests two related mechanisms favouring their adoption during the mid-Holocene. Firstly, at that time Australian hunter-gatherers may have been exploiting unfamiliar environments. Secondly, these low density populations foraging in an unfamiliar environment were probably more mobile than in the recent past. Both mechanisms imply that hunter-gatherers were engaged in foraging and settlement activities that made it difficult to predict when stone artefacts would be needed and/or when replacement stone would be accessible. Short-term risks incurred by exploiting a landscape in which such uncertainty prevailed may have been mitigated by a technology that provided functionally reliable and long-lived composite tools, and available and readily portable cores.

As Kelly and Todd (1988, p.239) have noted, one situation in which uncertainty might arise is when hunter-gatherer groups enter unknown land. Unlike contemporary Australian foragers, who are intimately familiar with the location and abundance of food resources, hunter-gatherers entering land for the first time may have generalized knowledge of the flora and fauna but will not be aware of the local resource distribution. Risk in this situation would be reduced by employing reliable and resource conserving technologies. Of course, as Kelly and Todd (1988, p.240) note, the earliest colonisers of Sahul entered unknown land, but recent archaeological data suggests mid-Holocene recurrence of the process, with the colonisation of uninhabited or little used regions.

Perhaps the most dramatic example of the mid-Holocene colonising is the movement of humans into the sandy deserts of Australia, landscapes apparently unoccupied prior to about 5,000 B.P. (Veth, 1987, 1989, 1993). Sites in these environments typically contain backed blades and tulas. While it is possible that humans are not absent from this environment in the early Holocene, merely present in such small numbers that they are archaeologically invisible, the available research supports a late colonisation of the vast sandy deserts (Veth, 1989, p.90, 1993). Beaton (1990) has even suggested that early occupation of sites, such as Puritjarra, in some non-sandy deserts was exploratory, with resident human populations only in the last 5-6,000 years (see Smith, 1989 for an alternative). Other dry environments, such as the semi-arid mallee of Victoria, also appear to be intensively occupied for the first time during the mid-Holocene by people using backed blades (Ross, 1981).

Other areas colonized in this mid-Holocene period include offshore islands, particularly on the northeast and northwest coasts of Australia. Many of these islands were occupied 5,000-2,000 B.P. by people using stone points or backed blades. For example, High Cliffy Island, off the northwest coast, contains points in a rockshelter deposit dated to 3,000 B.P. (O’Connor, 1992), while the Keppel Islands, off the northeast coast of Cape York, was visited over the last 4,000 years by people who discarded backed blades (Horsfall, 1982; Rowland, 1980). Clearly, a reliable and raw material efficient stone toolkit was not the only, or even the critical factor facilitating exploitation of these islands. Adequate water craft, and associated maritime skills, were essential, and there is abundant evidence of substitution of organic artefacts for stone ones (eg. Beaton, 1985, p.6). Nevertheless, the use of points and backed blades on these off-shore islands is indicative of the regular participation of these implements in the exploitation of these unfamiliar landscapes.

However, other landscapes had been visited during earlier times. Many regions across Australia have archaeological traces dating back to the Pleistocene, but a paucity of sites and cultural material from this period suggests human visitation was fleeting. Montane landscapes along the Great Dividing Range typify this pattern. Over the last decade, archaeologists have labelled these ‘marginal environments’ and have consistently noted that widespread intensification of occupation occurred during and after the mid-Holocene and was associated with the discard of backed blades (eg. Bowdler, 1981; Flood, 1980; Flood et al., 1987; Johnson, 1979, pp.24-38; Morwood, 1984, p.369). In the case of the high New England tablelands evidence for human occupation dates only to the last 5,000 years (Godwin, 1990, pp.378-9). These patterns are so definite that Bowdler (1981, p.108) was inspired to write,

Although montane landscapes are the best large-scale exemplar of residential populations appearing in little used environments, there are suggestions that the same pattern is repeated elsewhere on a smaller-scale. For example, in discussing the south-east Queensland region, Morwood (1986, p.117) infers a geographical expansion of human occupation into rainforest and coastal environments during the period 5,000-2,000 B.P. Furthermore, he characterises mid-Holocene food procurement as targeting large game, with a diversification of diet to include small marsupials and the establishment of an intensive fishery only in the last 2,000 years (Morwood, 1986, p.117-8; see also Walters, 1989; Morwood, 1987). Similar hunting trends are also observable in sites in northern New South Wales, such as Graman 4 (McBryde, 1977, p.237), where some mid-Holocene faunal assemblages are dominated by macropods and small game such as Phalangeridae and Peramelidae become abundant in the late Holocene. Trends such as these may be archaeological indicators of a growing familiarity with resource distribution, and the kind of resource monitoring O’Connor (1992, p.57) discusses. In the terms of Kelly and Todd (1988, p.239) these trends away from larger terrestrial fauna may indicate a switch from technologically-oriented to place-oriented hunter-gatherers. Intriguingly, these faunal switches appear to be accompanied by a decreased abundance of backed blades in archaeological deposits.

Figure 3. Regions with evidence for large-scale colonisation in the mid-Holocene.

Colonisation of unused or underused landscapes during the mid-Holocene may have been extensive. Figure 3 illustrates the regions that have been identified as displaying initial or dramatically increased occupation associated with the appearance of points, backed blades, or tulas. The scale of colonisation during this period is indicated by linguistic and ethnological patterns. Archaeological interpretations of large scale geographic expansion by humans in the mid-Holocene is paralleled by evidence for the expansion of Pama-Nyungan languages at about the same time (McConvell, 1990, p.7). This language group shows a distribution virtually identical with the distribution of backed blades, and both may reflect the mid-Holocene colonisation discussed above. McConvell (1990) points out that homogeneity of Pama-Nyungan over the southern parts of the continent implies the rapid movement of people speaking these languages across vast tracts of land during the mid-Holocene, bringing them into unfamiliar landscapes. Similar hints of large-scale movements are available in contemporary evidence on social and ritual organisation, and include a change from matrimoieties to patrimoieties (Testart, 1984), in what McConvell (1990, p.11) has suggested may be ‘the same process as Pama-Nyungan expansion, the Pama-Nyungan speakers being regarded as predominantly patrilineal’.

The coincidence between large-scale, permanent occupation of these regions, and the appearance of new implement forms has given rise to muted suggestions that the two phenomena are functionally related (Flood et al., 1987, p.23), but no convincing mechanism was apparent (Bowdler 1981). The proposal outlined here, of a technology-based risk reduction strategy used by hunter-gatherers entering new environments, accounts for the archaeological patterns.

Of course there are also areas of Australia in which people were not moving into unoccupied territory during the mid-Holocene. If the above risk-reduction model is to have widespread applicability, the advantages of new implements in these areas must also be considered. One mechanism that might have encouraged the use of complex composite tools in these areas is rapid environmental change. Even for groups who did not move into new territory, landscape change may have led to increased risk in resource use.

Evidence for rapid environmental change in the mid-Holocene is emerging. Perhaps the best known of these changes is the final stages of sea level rise. The marine transgression caused the loss of total of roughly two million km² of land from the Sahul continent, and along the northern coastline in particular coastal groups must have gradually relocated themselves into previously inland regions. In many coastal areas dramatic environmental alterations continued after sea level stabilization. For example, in the Alligator Rivers region of the north, a succession of mangrove communities occurred in flooded river valleys, until sedimentation created a hypersaline floodplain around 4,000 B.P. (Hiscock and Kershaw, 1992). While this process must have been associated with a range of social, political, and demographic readjustments, hunter-gatherers may well have had to equip themselves for an unfamiliar environment.

Away from the coast there are also indications of dramatic landscape change in the mid-Holocene. Rainfall decreased markedly between 6,000 B.P. and 4,000 B.P., dropping from levels higher than today in the early Holocene to a cool, dry climatic regime that in some regions may have incorporated frequent droughts, and is linked to a re-initiation of dune building (Hiscock and Kershaw, 1992; Dodson et al., 1992, p.118; Ross et al., 1992, p.93). There are also indications of catastrophic events at the time, including the suggestion that thick sediments may have been draped across large areas of eastern Australia by massive dust storms (Wright, 1986). Landscape alteration may also have accelerated as a consequence of anthropogenic modification of the environment, causing local increases in sedimentation (Hughes, 1977; Hughes and Sullivan, 1981). In addition to their impact on food supplies, many of these environmental changes would have hidden some sources of rock, while exposing others, creating new and patchy resource distributions. Relocation of visible raw material source areas within the landscape must have created uncertainties for foragers.

Another mechanism encouraging the widespread use of regular, highly retouched implements may be the organisation of foraging during the mid-Holocene, leading to time-stressed activity contexts (Torrence, 1983). Toolkits of this kind are often notionally linked to high mobility, either high residential mobility or logistical organisation involving long-distance trips to collect resources (eg. Lurie, 1989; Shott, 1986).

Measurements of prehistoric mobility have been rare in Australia, partly because of the strong influence of ethnographic observations upon archaeological interpretations. However, there are widespread claims for decreased residential mobility in the late Holocene, based on the construction of residential structures, large-scale earthworks for food production, high levels of health-related palaeopathologies, and growth of distinctive territory boundaries (Godwin, 1990; Lourandos, 1993; O’Connor, 1987; Pardoe, 1988, 1990; Williams, 1987, 1988). Such claims implicitly accept that residential mobility may have been greater in the mid-Holocene, although the magnitude of difference to the late Holocene is unclear.

While archaeological data does not suggest extremely high residential mobility in all landscapes it may indicate widespread use of search-and encounter tactics with some traits of logistical organisation. For example, Morwood (1986, p.117, 1987, p.347) has interpreted mid-Holocene economy in southeast Queensland as based on ‘individual pursuit strategies’. Further south in New South Wales, Hiscock (1993b) has documented the different phases of backed blade manufacture spread across the landscape in small, discrete concentrations of debris, as though the knappers were highly mobile. In the central Australian arid zone, Smith (1986, p.37) has argued that prior to the reliance on seed-gathering that emerged about 3,000 years ago, human settlement was probably by a small, mobile population. These hints of more mobile foragers than in the recent past are suggestive, but pursuit of this issue will require greater definition of the form and level of mobility.

Interpretations of mid-Holocene mobility are complicated by the strong possibility that increasing quantities of sites and artefacts within sites may reflect population increase (Beaton, 1990; Ross, 1985; Pardoe, 1990; although see Hiscock, 1986 for cautionary comments). Nevertheless, archaeological data supports Beaton’s (1990) population growth model of a long period of stasis followed by rapid growth in the late Holocene. Significantly, Attenbrow’s (1987) extensive study of indices of habitation and artefact abundance in Australian prehistory reveals that the explosion in site and artefact numbers, so often seen as a direct reflection of human numbers, generally occurs only 2-3,000 years ago. This indicates that when points, backed blades and tulas appeared in the mid-Holocene, they were being employed by comparatively mobile hunter-gatherers engaged in the exploration of landscapes.

Data used to build this risk-reduction model is primarily the co-existence in the mid-Holocene of risk, of the kind effectively dealt with by technological means, and a suite of regular, finely made retouched flakes. Two questions raised by the model illustrate its usefulness. The first question is why similar technologies and tool kits had not emerged in response to risk of this kind at earlier times in Australian prehistory? Nothing in the traditional depiction of the Core Tool and Scraper Tradition signalled such risk reduction responses. Early assemblages have been portrayed as unvarying, large and relatively irregular. However, the conservatism and uniformity said to be present in these early industries has been grossly overstated, and owes more to the generalized level of typological analyses than to any characteristic of the Pleistocene technologies (Hiscock, 1988b). It is therefore no surprise that recent analysis of Pleistocene assemblages in Tasmania has revealed small, regular, finely shaped implements in use during the glacial maximum. McNiven (1994) has argued that the increased use of regularly shaped thumbnail scrapers in southwest Tasmania was a technological solution to the ‘demands’ of increasing mobility during the glacial maximum. In other words, he infers a technological solution to risk imposed by higher mobility and environmental changes. Technology-based risk reduction strategies may therefore have a long history of use in Sahul. The occurrence of points, backed blades, and tulas in the mid-Holocene may simply be the most pronounced Australian example of such adaptive strategies.

A second question concerns the duration of these risk reduction strategies. It is not reasonable to expect that a single strategy will necessarily be employed continuously over a long period, as strategy switching may occur in response to changes in the nature or severity of risks (see Gould, 1991). Nor can technologies functioning as risk minimising strategies be expected to be completely replaced immediately risk is reduced. In many cases those technologies will continue to function effectively for many tasks, and may have even become incorporated in traditional patterns of behaviour. Nevertheless, at a large scale, the risk reduction strategies could be expected to covary with the risks themselves. Current interpretation of Australian prehistory suggest sedentism, permanent occupation of many landscapes, and great familiarity with resource distributions in the late Holocene. One way to test this risk reduction model is therefore to examine the most recent period of Australian prehistory, when the risk inducing circumstances of unfamiliar landscapes and high mobility no longer generally existed. A corollary of population increase and greater sedentism, often inferred for the late Holocene, is a reduction in the benefit of a toolkit of this kind. Consequently, a late Holocene decline in the proportion of these implement types within assemblages would be expected. Such a trend, while displaying regional diversity, is widely observed by archaeologists.

All the standardized, highly retouched implements, such as bifacial points, backed blades, and tulas were manufactured in most parts of Australia until European contact. It is true that in many southern areas unifacial points disappear from the archaeological record by 3-4,000 B.P., but this pattern is not repeated with the other major implement classes. Tulas and bifacial points in the north were still being made historically. Claims that backed blades ceased being made 1-2,000 years ago appear groundless. Although it has been claimed that backed blades from recent levels in sites have been ‘scuffed up’ from earlier levels (Morwood, 1984, p.355), their recent occurrence is undeniable. Backed blades are recorded from deposits dating to the last 1,000 years in western Victoria (Williams, 1988, p.145), the southern highlands of New South Wales (Flood, 1980), the Hunter Valley of central coastal New South Wales (Hiscock, 1986), northern New South Wales (McBryde, 1974, p.264), southeastern Queensland (Hiscock and Hall, 1988; Morwood, 1986), central Queensland (Morwood, 1981, 1984), north Queensland (Morwood, 1990), and southwestern Western Australia (Dortch, 1977, p.128; Ferguson, 1985, p.358; Hallam, 1981). It several instances these specimens are near the surface of the deposit and must date to the last few hundred years, a proposition demonstrated by the existence of backed blades made from glass (White and O’Connell, 1982, p.125).

It is reasonable to conclude that in most regions these implement types continue to be used throughout the late Holocene. However, their absolute abundance as well as their proportional contribution to assemblages decreased markedly in many regions. It is this decrease that led to impressions of diminished stoneworking skills (Hale and Tindale, 1930, p.204). In reality, late Holocene assemblages are not a product of unskilled knapping, or of a lack of interest, but are a response to a new set of economic stresses. Perceiving points, backed blades, and tulas as a technological strategy for risk reduction, implies that when risk induced by mobility and new landscapes is reduced, other economic stresses may encourage alternative technological strategies.

One of the tenets of the risk reduction model outlined earlier was that in the mid-Holocene rapid environmental change and colonisation of entire regions placed hunter-gatherers in situations in which they could not reliably predict resource distributions. By the late Holocene resident, and possibly growing populations would have gained familiarity with their landscape, and at least in some regions the rate of environmental change may have decreased. In this situation the reduction in the manufacture and use of those toolkits designed for risk reduction becomes explicable.

A reduction in resource uncertainty, by itself, may not have stimulated a new technological strategy. Late Holocene trends in artefact assemblages cannot be seen in isolation. I have already mentioned the ubiquitous interpretations of increased population size and dramatically greater sedentism in the late Holocene (cf. Lourandos, 1993). Although documentation is poor there is a correlation between sites indicative of high sedentism and highly reduced assemblages containing an emphasis on local stone but comparatively few retouched flakes. In many regions assemblages of this kind are present in the upper levels of rockshelter deposits where the abundance of cultural material has been interpreted as increased occupation intensity and sedentism (eg. Attenbrow, 1987; Morwood, 1984, 1986; Lampert, 1971). Perhaps the strongest case can be made for shell and earth mounds, because these sites provide strong evidence for low residential mobility. For example, earth mounds in Victoria excavated by Williams (1988, pp.117, 145, 203) contain assemblages dominated by small unretouched flakes made on local quartz using bipolar techniques. Seal Point shell mound has a similar assemblage (Mitchell, 1988). Shell and earth mounds in the Alligator Rivers region reveal similarly patterned assemblages.

Correlation between late Holocene increases in sedentism and assemblages dominated by highly reduced local rock has noted by others. Williams (1988, p.110) suggests that population increase led to restrictions on raw material availability, presumably because sources were exhausted or territorial boundaries imposed. A more likely mechanism is the reduction in mobility of these populations.

A similar trend is visible in north America, where Parry and Kelly (1987) have pointed to a correlation between sedentism and an ‘expedient core technology’ producing large numbers of flakes and few extensively retouched flakes. They propose that in the absence of mobility induced pressures toward portable and reliable toolkits, sedentism encourages maximisation of raw materials. Elsewhere I have argued that the frequent use of bipolar knapping in late Holocene assemblages from Arnhem Land serves to prolong reduction, thereby extending the exploitation of cores, and reducing the raw material importation costs incurred by sedentary groups (Hiscock, 1994a). Following this argument, I propose that the decline in the use of points and backed blades during the late Holocene is primarily a response to the economics of raw material usage associated with low residential mobility, together with a reduction of uncertainty in landscape exploitation.

This risk-reduction model for the Australian mid-Holocene can be further tested in a number of ways. A high level of multifunctionality is expected on implements such as points, and should be visible in usewear analyses. Evidence for point use already suggests a range of functions, but further studies are required across the country. Technological studies should be able to identify the nature and degree of raw material conservation built into stoneworking strategies. As spatial and economic data become available, the structure of landscape use should indicate relatively high mobility and the proliferation of other risk-reduction strategies during the mid-Holocene. Evidence for movement of resident populations into unoccupied or little used regions 3-6,000 years ago should continue to emerge from not only archaeological investigations, but also linguistic studies. Finally, as uncertainty is reduced by increasing familiarity of resident populations with their landscape, and residential mobility decreased, the late Holocene assemblages in many regions should continue to display a measurable trend away from these kinds of technology-based risk reduction strategies.

The model sketched here relates mid-Holocene colonisation of regions by resident groups, and adjustments to environmental change, to the stoneworking technologies that appeared at that time. A broad brush has been applied in an attempt to capture a general impression of the archaeological changes that occurred in the mid-Holocene. In a continent as large as Australia it is possible that different implement types will reflect disparate adaptive strategies. However, even if these phenomena are different, their co-occurrence in the early- to mid-Holocene still requires explanation. It is possible that while not a package, in the sense of a single cultural tradition, the widespread development of these complex, hafted toolkits reflect a common response to a widespread underlying stress.

These arguments converge with Godwin’s (1990) interpretation of an elaboration of information processing and validation in Australian prehistory, and provide an example of one way in which technology mediated the stresses incurred by human occupation of unknown or changing environments. Success in occupying these landscapes may be reflected in the trends discussed by Godwin (1990, p.391), including population increase, regionalization of art styles and the development of long-distance trading networks.

Because the risk reduction model described above explores the economic/adaptive benefit of the new implements and stoneworking technologies it can readily be integrated with previously suggestions for origin of points, backed blades, and tulas. For example, this model does not exclude Bowdler’s (1981) suggestion that social transformations resulted from the diffusion of archaeologically invisible technologies enhancing resource exploitation (Bowdler, 1981). What is clear, however, is that these stone implements were organisationally linked with economic shifts in the mid-Holocene and were not only a stylistic phenomena (White and O’Connell, 1982, p.124), symbols of social reorganisation (Bowdler, 1981, p.110), or technological esoterica (Walters, 1989, p.219).

Interpretations of Australian prehistory have often emphasised continuity and stability (Lourandos, 1987). Perceptions of rapid change, environmental and archaeological, are now increasingly emerging (eg. Bowdler, 1981; Hiscock and Veth, 1991; Lourandos, 1987, 1993; Smith, 1989). A range of data suggests that the response to the creation of new, mosaic environments in the mid-Holocene was a diversified mobile foraging pattern supported by composite tools designed for reliability and portability. High mobility and the colonisation of landscapes during the mid-Holocene are proposed as the mechanisms stimulating the widespread use of technological strategies aimed at risk-reduction. Archaeological indicators of these strategies include the distinctive stone points, backed blades, and tulas. Technological changes during the Holocene can therefore be seen to enhance our understanding of economic trends in Australian prehistory.

I thank Peter White for suggesting that I write this paper. Several researchers working in northern Australia read and commented on sections of this paper. I especially thank Sally Brockwell, Robin Gregory, and Scot Mitchell. I also benefited greatly from discussions with Kim Akerman, Chris Healey, Robin Torrence, and Richard Wright.

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