Non-destructive Provenancing of Ground-Edged Mafic Artifacts: A Holocene Case Study from the Sydney Basin,Australia |
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Authors: | Val Attenbrow Tessa Corkill Ross Pogson Lin Sutherland Peter Grave |
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Institution: | 1. Australian Museum, Sydney, Australia;2. University of New England, Armidale, Australiaval.attenbrow@austmus.gov.au https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2897-4934;4. Australian Museum, Sydney, Australia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2421-4885;5. University of New England, Armidale, Australia |
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Abstract: | Ground-edged artifacts were an important part of the Australian Aboriginal toolkit. They had practical day-to-day uses, but some had symbolic and social values that led to their movement across great distances. Australian provenance studies document long-distance Aboriginal exchange systems extending over hundreds of kilometers. The size and complexity of exchange systems and social networks were contingent upon resources and the productivity of a region's environment. Along the fertile, well-watered lands east of the Great Dividing Range, movement of objects may have been geographically more circumscribed than in drier areas to the west. One hundred and twenty-one mafic, ground-edged artifacts from the New South Wales (NSW) Central Coast and 368 geological specimens from potential sources were non-destructively analyzed by portable X-Ray fluorescence spectrometry. Results indicate the existence of a well-used basalt source within the region at Peats Ridge-Popran Creek as well as multiple local and non-local sources up to 430?km from Mangrove Mountain on the NSW Central Coast. |
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Keywords: | Aboriginal Australia portable X-Ray Fluorescence exchange systems provenance study ground-edged artifacts |
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