Grand hypotheses: palaeodemographic modelling in Western Australia's South‐west

Abstract

Abstract Appraised are two palaeodemographic models proposed for Late Quaternary Aboriginal cultural history in Western Australia's South‐west. Both are grounded on two ideas: (1) wetter conditions regionally lead to replacement of open vegetative associations by forest unsuited for foraging populations; (2) large‐scale shifts in stone artefact 'discard rates' recorded in occupation deposits indicate regional population changes. The original model proposes regional Middle Holocene depopulation. The second model, partly based on the same archaeological evidence, is a large‐scale construct calling for variations in population sizes in the South‐west and elsewhere before and after the last glacial maximum, followed by Holocene population rise. In this construct, population fluctuations are caused by changes in Late Quaternary physical conditions outlined in a global climatic model, though this model disagrees with more generally accepted continental palaeoclimatic modelling, and with regional faunistic and vegetative records. Interpretation of artefact discard rates in the stone industrial sequences of three of four principal occupation sites on which both models are based disregards relevant stratigraphic, chronological and other site‐specific factors. Proposed is an alternative regional model of population mobility and fluctuating occupation patterns explaining variations in amounts of archaeological material discarded in occupation sites as well as variations in these sites' distributions.