Law, W. Boone, and Slack, Michael J. (2020) The story is in the rocks: how stone artifact scatters can inform our understanding of ancient Aboriginal stone arrangement functions. Journal of Field Archaeology, 45 (2). pp. 106-119.

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Abstract

The Aboriginal stone arrangements of Australia’s northwest Pilbara region are cultural features of considerable interest to Australian scholars. Despite decades of investigation, the function and purpose of the stone constructions remain largely enigmatic. In the absence of physical evidence, most researchers contend that stone arrangements served a ceremonial and ritualistic function. This viewpoint is based largely on ethnographic literature from elsewhere in Australia; however, we suggest that the pan-Australian applicability of ethnographic observations is inappropriate without supporting archaeological evidence. In this article, we characterize stone artifact scatters associated with stone arrangement sites near the Gurdadaguji Valley, in the east Hamersley Range of Western Australia, and argue that assemblage attributes can provide insight on the different kinds of activities that occurred in proximity to particular stone arrangement designs. We use this evidence-based information in conjunction with local ethnography to suggest that some types of stone arrangements functioned as symbolic cultural monuments rather than as places where ceremonial or ritualistic activities occurred.

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