Kirby, Camille (School of Social Science, University of Queensland)

Shared Histories Shared Landscapes: Point of Resistance: Social Preservation through Trade and Exchange in Northwest Australia

This study aims to explain the increase in stone tool production associated with the manufacture of Kimberley points at the Marralam Boab site. The Marralam Boab contact archaeological site, excavated by Head and Fullagar in 1997, is situated in the eastern Kimberley region of the Northern Territory, Australia. The site is recorded to display an increase in stone tool production during the contact era, which I argue, following Head and Fullagar, is due to the continued manufacture to uphold trade and exchange networks. It is from this hypothesis that I base my research and explore reasons and explanations of continuity within the pastoral industry of the Kimberley region. I apply a shared histories approach, incorporating interdisciplinary material and focus on aesthetics to explain the atypical increase in stone tool production at the site in the contact era.

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