Attenbrow, Val (Australian Museum), Trudi Doelman (Department of Archaeology, University of Sydney), Tessa Corkill (Australian Museum) and Hugh Watt (Australian Museum)

Artefact Size and Raw Material Sources in the Sydney Region: A Preliminary Investigation

Ethnographic and archaeological studies indicate raw material availability influenced the types of raw materials used, the extent to which flakes to be used as tools were retouched, and the size of artefacts found on habitation sites. Assemblages at some distance from sources tend to have more intensively retouched artefacts, smaller artefacts and a smaller size range than assemblages found at or close to quarries. In the Sydney region, silcrete is a common stone used for making flaked tools. Earlier researchers suggested there were few, if any, sources of suitable flakeable stone in coastal Sydney and that silcrete was brought to coastal sites from the Cumberland Plain up to 40 km away. Recent investigations challenge that proposition; several silcrete sources are now known near the Sydney CBD, though the number and extent of known sources on the Cumberland Plain exceeds those known in the coastal zone. If silcrete sources were less abundant in the coastal zone, or if silcrete was brought into the coastal zone from the Cumberland Plain because of its greater abundance or its greater accessibility there, it might be expected that silcrete artefacts in coastal zone assemblages would be smaller in size, have a smaller size range, and/or that retouched flakes would be more greatly reduced than those in Cumberland Plain sites. This study examines only the size of artefacts.

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