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Submission note: A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the School of Humanities, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Bundoora.

Archaeology Program, La Trobe University

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This paper was included in the 11th issue of Excavations, Surveys and Heritage Management in Victoria and was presented at the annual Victorian Archaeology Colloquium (held on-line) by La Trobe University on 4 February 2022.

This paper was included in the 11th issue of Excavations, Surveys and Heritage Management in Victoria and was presented at the annual Victorian Archaeology Colloquium (held on-line) by La Trobe University on 4 February 2022.

This chapter includes an appendix: Recording guidelines for Low Density Artefact Distributions [and was] reproduced with permission of Kellie Clayton, Office of Aboriginal Affairs Victoria.Archaeology Program, La Trobe University

The Quartz Archaeology Project is creating open-access datasets for quartz occurrences in a variety of archaeological and natural contexts to improve our understanding of the significance of quartz in the deep and recent past. This project will investigate the physical characteristics of quartz pieces at natural outcrops, archaeological sites, and locations of more recent industrial activities. It will also involve the creation of experimental assemblages of quartz fractured using different methods, such as knapping, mechanical crushing, and handheld tools. Analysis and comparison of the attributes of fractured quartz from natural, archaeological and experimental assemblages will generate information about the ‘signature’ of quartz pieces from these different contexts. The resulting datasets, excluding those derived from Aboriginal places, will be made freely available online. This will facilitate development of integrated and collaborative approaches to the identification and characterisation of quartz artefacts in archaeology and cultural heritage management. The citation for this project (including datasets) is Spry, C., E. Foley, R. Kurpiel, J. Turnbull and P. Penzo-Kajewski 2020 Quartz Archaeology Project. http://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/N8CWR, Open Science Framework, Accessed 22 July 2020. For more information about this project, please see: Spry, C., R. Kurpiel, E. Foley and P. Penzo-Kajewski 2021 Revisiting the “Quartz Problem” in Lithic Studies: A Review and New, Open-access, Experimental Dataset. Lithic Technology. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01977261.2021.1981655 Spry, C., R. Kurpiel, E. Foley, J. Turnbull and P. Penzo-Kajewski 2021 Disentangling activity traces on Australian goldfields: an experimental study of quartz assemblages derived from knapping and gold prospecting. Australian Archaeology. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.2021.1885109. Spry, C., E. Foley, R. Kurpiel and J. Turnbull 2019 Identifying quartz artefacts in archaeology and cultural heritage management: issues, approaches and a new open-access project. In Spry et al. (eds), Excavations, Surveys and Heritage Management in Victoria, pp. 77-83. Melbourne: La Trobe University: http://arrow.latrobe.edu.au:8080/vital/access/manager/Repository/latrobe:43467.

This paper was included in the ninth issue of Excavations, Surveys and Heritage Management in Victoria and was presented at the annual Victorian Archaeology Colloquium held at La Trobe University on 1 February 2020.

This paper was included in the 10th issue of Excavations, Surveys and Heritage Management in Victoria and was presented at the annual Victorian Archaeology Colloquium (held on-line) between 1 and 4 February 2021.

This paper was included in the 10th issue of Excavations, Surveys and Heritage Management in Victoria and was presented at the annual Victorian Archaeology Colloquium (held on-line) between 1 and 4 February 2021.

This paper was included in the 10th issue of Excavations, Surveys and Heritage Management in Victoria and was presented at the annual Victorian Archaeology Colloquium (held on-line) between 1 and 4 February 2021.

This paper was included in the ninth issue of Excavations, Surveys and Heritage Management in Victoria and was presented at the annual Victorian Archaeology Colloquium held at La Trobe University on 1 February 2020.

Supplemental material, Fitzsimmons_et_al_Mungo_Holocene_Supplementary_revision12112018 for Holocene and recent aeolian reactivation of the Willandra Lakes lunettes, semi-arid southeastern Australia by Kathryn E Fitzsimmons, Caroline Spry and Nicola Stern in The Holocene

This poster presents the preliminary results from my PhD thesis, which investigates Aboriginal stone tool technology between 24,000-14,000 years and 14,500-8,000 years ago at Lake Mungo, southeastern Australia (Spry 2014).This poster was presented at the Australian Archaeological Association Conference in 2011. It won the prize for Best Student Poster.

© The Author(s) 2019. The Willandra Lakes in semi-arid southeastern Australia provide some of the most continuous combined palaeoenvironmental and archaeological records on the continent. These are best preserved within the transverse shoreline (lunette) dunes on their downwind margins. Following final lake retreat c. 15 ka avulsion of the dominant fluvial inflow eastwards, the Willandra lunettes periodically reactivated, experiencing erosion, aeolian redeposition and alluvial sheetwash. These reworked sedimentary archives reflect regional climatic conditions rather than those of the entire catchment. Yet the focus of most study in the region to date has remained on the late Pleistocene. The general paucity of Holocene data has contributed to a perception that people largely abandoned the area in favour of the perennial Murray and Darling Rivers to the south and west. Our study reconstructs past geomorphological conditions and patterns of human mobility in adjacent Lakes Mungo and Durthong over the last c. 15 ka subsequent to final lake retreat, including the most recent 150 years since Europeans established pastoralism in the region. Our data show that Indigenous people did not abandon the area as previously assumed, but developed effective strategies for responding to the changed environmental conditions. Final lake retreat transitioned into a phase of aeolian accumulation c. 15–12 ka, indicating locally dry conditions. Subsequent aeolian reactivation peaked during arid phases experiencing less rainfall in the early Holocene and twice in the most recent 1000 years prior to European settlement in the area. Alluvial sheetwash was deposited onto lake floors during the mid-Holocene, and again in the early decades of European settlement. Aeolian reactivation, likely driven by European pastoral activities, increases in the most recent 150 years. Our study underscores the necessity of integrating geomorphological and archaeological investigations over landscape scales in order to optimise our understanding of interactions between people and their environment through time.