Regional Variation in the Material Culture of Hunter Gatherers: Social and Ecological Approaches to Ethnographic Objects from Queensland, Australia

The region of Queensland is divided into six areas through drainage divisions, something which Anne Best shows to correlate with stylistic differences in objects used by modern hunter-gatherers. This largely unrevised thesis studies six categories of object (bags, boomerangs, message sticks, shields, spears and spearthrowers), 813 artefacts in total, plus secondary sources, for their spatial organisation and stylistic properties. In the hope of finding a model for which archaeologists can study past hunter-gatherers, she illustrates how, in this instance, stylistic changes aline with drainage divisions and goes on to assess the social role of style and the environmental factors that may have played a significant role.