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The ‘Neolithic problem’ refers to forager/farmer interaction in northern Australia, where despite a shared environmental inheritance with their New Guinea neighbours, Indigenous Australians seemingly rejected both the domesticates and the practices of the Melanesian horticultural economy (White, 1971). This ethnographic example is often used to suggest that hunter-gatherers elsewhere may have chosen not to adopt agriculture. However, the premise of the ‘Neolithic problem’ has been criticised for its over-reliance on the ethnographic record and on an anachronistic notion of cultural evolution, which exaggerates the dichotomy between New Guinean agriculturalists and Australian hunter-gatherers. In this paper we review the historical and theoretical treatment of the ‘Neolithic problem’ and the archaeological evidence for subsistence practices in northern Sahul spanning the past 50–60,000 years. Using niche construction theory (Rowley-Conwy and Layton, 2011) to re-examine the archaeological and ethnohistoric record, it is possible to observe the development and expansion of a variety of subsistence systems. Contrary to the premise of the ‘Neolithic problem’, the past 50–60,000 years of occupation in Sahul has seen the development of a varied array of food-producing subsistence practices in both New Guinea and Australia. However, the archaeological evidence for the expansion of horticultural practices and cultivars outside of highland New Guinea suggests a spatially and temporally narrow window for the adoption of agriculture by Indigenous populations in Cape York. Instead, the interaction between different subsistence systems in northern Sahul may have centred on the New Guinea lowlands and the Bismarck Archipelago, where, in the late Holocene, local communities interacted with other Melanesian and Austronesian populations. Whilst further archaeological investigation is required, it is clear that the image of culturally-static Indigenous Australian populations often implied in the consideration of forager/farmer interactions belongs to another era of archaeological thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published ages of >50 ka for occupation at Madjedbebe (Malakunanja II) in Australia's north have kept the site prominent in discussions about the colonisation of Sahul. The site also contains one of the largest stone artefact assemblages in Sahul for this early period. However, the stone artefacts and other important archaeological components of the site have never been described in detail, leading to persistent doubts about its stratigraphic integrity. We report on our analysis of the stone artefacts and faunal and other materials recovered during the 1989 excavations, as well as the stratigraphy and depositional history recorded by the original excavators. We demonstrate that the technology and raw materials of the early assemblage are distinctive from those in the overlying layers. Silcrete and quartzite artefacts are common in the early assemblage, which also includes edge-ground axe fragments and ground haematite. The lower flaked stone assemblage is distinctive, comprising a mix of long convergent flakes, some radial flakes with faceted platforms, and many small thin silcrete flakes that we interpret as thinning flakes. Residue and use-wear analysis indicate occasional grinding of haematite and woodworking, as well as frequent abrading of platform edges on thinning flakes. We conclude that previous claims of extensive displacement of artefacts and post-depositional disturbance may have been overstated. The stone artefacts and stratigraphic details support previous claims for human occupation 50-60 ka and show that human occupation during this time differed from later periods. We discuss the implications of these new data for understanding the first human colonisation of Sahul., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)