Event-based analysis: Identifying and sequencing prehistoric activities in buried palimpsests. An example from Lake George, Australia.

Abstract

This thesis presents a new methodology for sequencing behavioural events in sub-surface stone artefact assemblages. While methods have been previously presented for the identification of activities, often termed 'moments in time', these studies have focused on temporally bounded living floors, usually in cave environments. Buried assemblages in open landscapes often do not retain such coherence, and so the development of a methodology for identifying and sequencing behavioural events in mixed assemblages is needed. This study develops a method, here termed event-based analysis (EBA), for the temporal sequencing of discrete activities in undifferentiated stratigraphies with vertically distributed artefactual deposits, which then allows comparisons of prehistoric activities to be made across space and time. Event-based analysis draws on several methods previously presented in the literature, principally RMU analysis, life-history framework and refitting for the reunification of refuse from single stone-working activities and the construction of inferences regarding the reduction and flow of stone though a site. Event-based analysis relies on these methods for identifying and understanding discrete stone working activities. EBA then extends the applicability of these methods to the analysis of temporally deep buried assemblages by providing a method whereby identified knapping and discard events can be sequenced. This shifts the unit of analysis in buried palimpsests from the assemblage to the event, and allows comparisons to be built over time and space from this behaviourally meaningful unit. This thesis is concerned with how archaeologists make inferences about prehistoric cultures from the archaeological record. To this end, a new methodological framework, event-based analysis, is advanced which both guides the construction of evidence-led inferences regarding prehistoric behaviour, and promotes the comparison of those behavioural inferences for the purpose of producing generalisations concerning use of place (Schiffer 2011). Using EBA, this project examines the configuration of foraging economies and technologies in the Lake George area of south-eastern Australia. A detailed place-use history is built from the comparison of discrete knapping and discard events over time and space. This thesis thus contributes to the development of archaeological methodologies which seek to build detailed and meaningful ‘thick descriptions’ (sensu Geertz (1973)) which are firmly grounded in the evidence examined. The aim is to provide detailed descriptions of the human activities which produced the stone artefact assemblages; it is to elucidate the ‘delicacy of its distinctions, not the sweep of its abstractions’ (Geertz 1973:25).