Hunter Hill, Hunter Island

This thesis describes the results, analysis and interpretations of archaeological fieldwork carried out in the Hunter Islands, off northwest Tasmania. Attention is focussed on the 23,000 year-oJd sequence of deposits excavated from Cave Bay Cave, on Hunter Island. The documentary history of the Hunter Islands is summarised, together with the ethnohistoric data pertaining to Aboriginal land-use of the islands. The natural history of Hunter Island is described. My reasons for undertaking such a project are set forward, with a brief description of the field work. The bulk of the thesis is taken up with the evidence from Cave Bay Cave. Firstly, a detailed account of the site, its excavation, stratigraphy including sediment analysis, and chronology is presented, showing an intermittent pattern of human habitation. An analysis of the vertebrate faunal remains follows, which describes how species were identified; recounts what species were found, and their known ecology; discusses how different species were distributed through the site, and their abundance; and considers the origins of the bone deposit (taphonomy) A similar but shorter account of invertebrate faunal remains follows. This is succeeded by a description and analysis of stone, bone and wooden artefacts from Cave Bay Cave; the stone assemblage in particular is neither abundant nor particularly diagnostic, but hints at wider relationships, which are reinforced by the bone artefacts. The excavation and analysis of four more recent sites on Hunter Island are described summarily. These are the Stockyard Site, Little Duck Bay and Muttonbird Midden (all open shell midden sites), and the Rookery Rocksheiter. Attention is focussed on the faunal remains from these sites The remainder of the thesis attempts to synthesise the data thus far presented , and set it with in the wider Tasmanian and Australian context . Firstly , the environmental data are set out in the context of Dr. Geoffrey Hope’s analysis of pollen remains from Cave Bay Cave. It is shown that during the time of the last glacial maximum, Hunter Island was Hunter Hillon the cold , dry, almost treeless Bassian Plain . Man’s response to changing environments here , and in southern Australian genera lly, during the late Pleistocene is suggested in the light of this evidence, and that from other Pleistocene sites. During the Recent period, it is suggested that Hunter Island qua island, thought occupied immediately the sea reached its present level 6600 years ago, was then abandoned. This abandonment occurred either because the island was completely severed from the main after this time, or because the modern temperate Tasmanian rainforest reached its fullest extent after this time, and disrupted the economic system then in train. An interpretation of Tasmanian prehistory in the Recent period is put froward, which disagrees with that developed by Rhys Jones; the difference is suggested to be due to a different theoretical underpinning. Within this model, the Tasmanians are seen not as a depauperised version of Pleistocene man in Australia, but as a viable and successful adaptation to a complex and changing environmental scene.v.1. Text - v.2. Published paper