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Riverine, biological and cultural evolution in southeastern Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Colin Pardoe
Colin Pardoe*
Affiliation:
South Australian Museum, North Terrace, Adelaide 5000, Australia
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Abstract

The rise of cemeteries, extreme biological diversification, size decrease, increased violence, disappearance of megafauna, exploitation of different resources, evolution of rivers to an expanded system of microenvironments, changes in occupation. How are these features of Australian Aboriginal societies in the great river-systems of the southeast related? From evidence of geomorphology, skeletal biology and other aspects of the archaeological record, a sharp disjunction between two different and relatively stable states is seen: a transforming transition rather than a gradual change.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 69 , Issue 265 , 1995 , pp. 696 - 713
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1995

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