Beyond the Barriers: A New Model for the Settlement of Australian Deserts

This article re-envisages the human settlement of Australia’s deserts. It makes a case for their early occupation at the continental scale (a) by c. 60 ka; (b) during an early wet phase; (c) with rapid expansion of people; (d) relying on water features; and (e) showing changes through time in response to changing regional conditions. It is now well established that Australia’s deserts are as diverse as they are extensive and that ‘behavioural dynamism’ provides a better explanatory framework for arid zone social organization than ‘cultural conservatism’. Conceptual building blocks to explain desert settlement have included the process of human biogeography, the role of cryptic refugia in providing wide-scale foraging networks, and shifts in mobility in response to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and other climatic events. The models which have emphasized different characteristics and scales of change in desert societies include peoples’ responses to ‘glacial refugia’, ‘desert transformations’, ‘water distribution’, and ‘cryptic refugia’. The article synthesizes new archaeological results and climate data from key sites across Australia’s deserts. The authors propose a new model for the settlement of Australia’s arid zone based on new climatic and archaeological data and finer-grained ecological and social approaches.