Thesis abstract: Shared Histories – Shared Landscapes: An Exploration into the Continued Manufacture and Trade of Kimberley Points at Marralam Boab

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 exhibits an increase in stone tool production during the contact era which I argue, following Head and Fullagar, is due to the continued need to manufacture goods to uphold trade and exchange networks. This hypothesis is used as a point of departure to explore reasons and explanations of continuity within the pastoral industry of the Kimberley region. I apply a shared histories approach, incorporating interdisciplinary material and focusing on aesthetics to explain the atypical increase in stone tool production at the site in the contact era.