Sticks and stones: a functional analysis of Aboriginal spears from Northern Australia

Abstract

Ethnographic information indicates that, prior to British colonisation in 1788, Aboriginal Australians used spears for hunting, fishing, fighting, retribution, punishment, in ceremony and as commodities for trade. Aboriginal peoples understood the seasons and the availability of food resources within their countries. The British colonists, in rapidly developing much of the continent, dispossessed many Indigenous peoples of their land disrupting their way of life, especially access to food resources. Spears were an integral component of the toolkit Aboriginal people used to procure such resources but by the turn of the twentieth century, they increasingly made spears for trade and barter rather than for hunting and fishing. By the mid-twentieth century, spears, often incorporating the use of European technology and materials, were being made for sale in a cash economy. No residues were detected on the archaeological wooden spear tips indicating that organic residue survival on wood requires anaerobic burial conditions such as extremely desiccated or waterlogged terrestrial environments that are rarely found in Australia. The results of a burial experiment support this conclusion. Hypothesised indications of use-wear observed on the wooden spearheads did not always co-occur with use-related residues. Arguably, wear traces indicative of wooden projectile use may be very difficult to ascertain. Apart from fish scales and adipose tissue, however, a considerable variety of use-related residues were detected on many spears. Considered to be the key indicator of a spear's past use for hunting, fighting, fishing and in ceremony is the presence of blood. The biochemical test to screen for the presence of blood on wood was assessed as reasonably reliable but only for approximately two years, therefore explanations for the absence of blood residues on this raw material remain problematic. Blood residues, bone, hair and muscle tissue were detected on only one stone-headed spear that was collected in the early twentieth century from the iii southern Gulf of Carpentaria mainland. This result indicates the spear was likely used to hunt small game rather than made specifically for trade or barter. The remainder of the sample collected at around the turn of the twentieth century displayed many residues, including starch granules, hair, feather, and muscle tissue but no blood. These spears were likely manufactured in campsite environments, possibly as trade items. Most spears collected in the mid-twentieth century displayed few residues, suggesting they were made for sale in workshop environments. Residues indicative of specific manufacturing processes were also observed on some spears. In addition, the macroscopic examination of spears in tandem with relevant ethnographic information suggests that not all of the spears were made at the places recorded as their collection location in museum documentation.Although more research involving residue analysis of archaeological wooden material is required, especially to initially...

A Purported Pleistocene Sand Sculpture From South Africa

“…Other pragmatic reasons for removing a stingray tail become apparent through considering the use of the spine for blood-letting rituals in Mayan societies (Haines et al 2008) or as a spear in more recent Aboriginal societies (Davidson 1934;Nugent 2015). However, there is no evidence of this kind in the southern African archaeological or ethnographic record.…”