Accelerated Development

 

     "At the time of European colonial arrival in the late eighteenth century, Aboriginal populations in Australia were observed to have strong classificatory kinship systems, complex cultural and symbolic landscapes based on geographic totemism (the 'Dreaming'), distinctive graphic art systems, land rights in the form of ritual property, and formalised exchange systems.

      This view seems in marked contrast to archaeological records from the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, which show a sparsely populated, highly mobile society with extensive open social networks, implying significant changes took place in the mid to late Holocene.

      A number of studies have suggested that many technological and social innovations occurred in the last 2,000 years, in response to population pressure and climatic variability, including a shift to broad spectrum diets, longer residence times at well-resourced localities, seed-grinding, trade networks and the appearance of large ceremonial and aggregation sites."

A more radical rebuttal of the hackneyed claim that Aborigines have the oldest continuous culture in the world is hard to imagine. Not only is that culture not continuous, but its development is restricted to a relatively recent period of Australian prehistory.

In short, it was only "after 2,000" that "demographic pressure inhibited mobility and restricted resource availability. This resulted in increased territoriality and the elaboration of social and religious systems to control resources", the "outcome of which was an increasingly complex society." It was "under these demographically packed conditions that the complex social and religious societies observed at colonial contact were informed."

AN Williams, S Ulm, CSM Turney, D Rohde, G White, 2015, 'Holocene Demographic Changes and the Emergence of Complex Societies in Prehistoric Australia', PLoS ONE, 10.6, <doi.org.10.1371/journal.pone.0128661>

Central to the revised argument for "Intensification" is Williams' Population Curve. The raw material used to calculate the curve is a continent-wide aggregation of 4,575 radiocarbon dates from archaeological "occupation sites". Its underlying assumption is that this data reflects human activity, and that together, it comprises a time-series of demographic change throughout the human era of Australian prehistory.

The Graph of Ages (below) reproduces that part of the dating record that relates to the Holocene, the last 10,000 years or so of Aboriginal presence. The data  is calibrated to calendar years and then "data-binned" in 200 year blocks. It is not "corrected" for taphonomic loss or statistically "smoothed".

The curve derived from this information predicts a fairly consistent increase in population from the low relative numbers surviving the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). From 12,000 years ago (12 ka) the rise is gradual at first, then building in intensity with pulses from 8.3 to 6.6 ka, 4.4 to 3.7 ka, and 1.6 to 0.4 ka. The overall progression towards exponential growth is hardly effected by periodic checks at 5.6 to 4.8 ka and 2.6 to 2.2 ka. 

The fall-off after 400 years ago is thought to indicate pandemic disease, drastically reducing Aboriginal numbers in the century before European arrival, and then the final disaster of European settlement and Aboriginal dispossession. Prior to that, Williams' population curve estimates for the Holocene rise from a base of about 27,000, up to some 84,000 at 8 ka, to 204,000 by 4 ka, and peaking at near 1,196,000 in 0.4 ka. 

Alan N Williams, 2013, 'A new population curve for prehistoric Australia', Proceedings of the Royal Society B, <doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.0486>

The unaltered dates are preferred here because this is the form they are in as published online by Williams et al. The advantage of staying with the raw data is therefore that it can be directly compared with its separate parts at a regional level. Each date has been allocated to the Australian Bio-Region (as at 2014) it originated from. The closest fit of bio-regions to southwest Victoria and southeast South Australia is probably the Naracoorte Coastal Plain, Victorian Volcanic Plain, and South East Coast (Warrnambool and Otway).

Reducing the area of survey certainly improves local relevance but it comes at a statistical cost. Less data means it is more difficult to interpret and generalise. Expecting perfect conformity between a Regional Ages graph, with only 266 individual radiocarbon dates, and the continent-wide Graph of Ages, with up to 4,575, is unrealistic.

When plotted on paper, the results are clearly dissimilar. But not entirely. There are two distinct trends, or changes in the degree of human activity, in the regional graph that imitate elements of the national picture over the same period.

The intervening period, the Mid-Holocene, is irregular and confused. These jagged peaks and troughs cannot be read as anything more than what they  are ― actual numbers of radiocarbon dates collected from the three regions that correspond to the time-line 8 to 4 ka. This is the price of a small sample. The figures do not indicate violent fluctuations in the number of people then occupying the coastal zone, just the limited amount of evidence  found (and dated) so far.

The first interpretable trend occurs over 2,000 years in the Early Holocene. In the context of the greater population curve, this regional rise between about 11 and 9 ka is best seen as geographical or spatial ― a spread of the existing population. Following the Last Glacial Maximum and the Melt-Water Pulse, migrant groups are thought to have left their Ice Age refuges, beginning to explore and settle new areas. The increase in archaeological records is a story of discovering and exploiting previously unoccupied sites.

A second more obvious change takes place in the Late Holocene, the most recent era. There is little difficulty in interpreting this shift as it is like the continental curve. It signals a direct and rapid lift in the number of people inhabiting these three bioregions, an increase in demographic density. This is a process of "packing", in line with what was happening elsewhere in Australia. The same amount of resources but consumed by many more mouths.

AN Williams, S Ulm, M Smith, J Reid, 2014, 'AustArch: A Database of 14C and Non-14C Ages from Archaeological Sites in Australia ― Composition, Compilation and Review (Data Paper)', Internet Archaeology, 36, <dx.doi.org/10.11141/ia.36.6>

A Williams & S Ulm, 2014, 'AustArch: A Database of 14C and Luminescence Ages from Archaeological Sites in Australia', Archaeological Data Service UK, <doi.org/10.5284/1027216>