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Eastern Sequence ProjectV. AttenbrowThe long-term aim of the Eastern Sequence Project is to identify the nature and directionality of technological changes in stone artefact assemblages in Aboriginal sites in the Sydney Basin, and to compare temporal trends between and within sub-regions of the Basin. Presently documented regional differences in the timing of changes used to identify phases in the stone artefact assemblages and in the writing of the prehistory of south-eastern Australia are being investigated. The project, which is being undertaken in collaboration with Dr. Peter Hiscock (Archaeology and Anthropology, ANU), differs from earlier studies in that it focuses on the technological structure and change in stone artefact assemblages during the Holocene rather than changes in the abundance of different implement types. Previously excavated assemblages from key sites in the following sub-regions will be re-assessed during the project: the Blue Mountains, the Hunter Valley, the New South Wales south coast, Sydney, and the Upper Mangrove Creek catchment. To date, assemblages from Capertee 3 in the western Blue Mountains have been re-analysed. Capertee 3 was the 'type' site originally used by archaeologist FD McCarthy, who excavated this site in the 1960s, to define the nature of the earliest of three phases of a sequence for eastern New South Wales. McCarthy labelled this earliest phase 'Capertian'; he called the later two phases of the Eastern Regional Sequence 'Bondaian' and 'Eloueran' on the basis of assemblages from a rock-shelter at Lapstone Creek, on the eastern foot-slopes to the Blue Mountains. Subsequent researchers discontinued use of the term Eloueran and this phase is seen as a sub-phase within the Bondaian. The current re-analysis shows that in the Capertian assemblages at Capertee 3 there was a stone-working technology structured around continuous reduction of retouched flakes without distinct evidence of 'imposed form'. We hypothesise that differences between the previously identified scraper types may be explained in terms of the extent of knapping each object has undergone. Specimens that have received little retouch will have relatively straight retouched edges, with small retouched scars restricted to a short section of the flake margin. In contrast, specimens that have been extensively retouched will have longer, more curving retouched edges; with larger retouched scars spread along much of the flake margin. Related links
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Copyright © Australian Museum, 2002 |
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