Last Words

The current perception of Australian Aborigines is that they traditionally grouped together into small bands, to roam across the landscape and forage for sustenance and shelter. Our research shows that this belief is not based in archaeological fact.  In contrast to this, we have discovered Aboriginal burial sites and cemeteries with large numbers of interred individuals and an organized burial structure across a wide region. This trend and recurring theme in archaeological excavations around the Murray River prove that Australian Aborigines in the Southeast were often sedentary hunter gatherers who inhabited particular places for extended periods of time allowing the development of rich mortuary practices.

           

Pardoe states that cemeteries are viewed as symbolic markers of group affiliation and through that, land ownership. Pardoe also says that cemeteries are found only where groups and permanent but finite resources coincide. The archaeological sites found throughout the Murray River Basin, in their location and their amount of burials demonstrate and support the principles espoused by Pardoe.

Lake Victoria is indicative of large scale continuous habitation. With almost 10,000 bodies interred it is obvious that the environment in which these people lived, for thousands of years was able to support them while allowing for localised habitation and a ritualised connection to the land.

The many multiple-burial sites present throughout the southeast show that Aboriginal groups continuously used sites establishing persistent connection to place. Complex mortuary activity is also evident in Aboriginal cemeteries. Evidence of burial markings including scarred trees, artifacts associated specifically with graves and burial mounds show that the living meant to revisit those lost to them and create a dedicated space for this purpose. Within the graves, bodies were oriented in one consistent direction and form. For example, in the southeast bodies are aligned with the head facing towards the southwest and in an extended position. Children were always buried with others, there is evidence that mothers carried corpses of children until proper burial location and form could be arranged (Allen and Littleton 2007).

           

The fact that burials were always in resource rich areas, and consistently by a water source demonstrates that care and meaning were attributed to burial practices. Nomadic groups would not have the ability to transport large numbers of dead to specific sites if they were not in continual use of them. If, as is the common belief, Aborigines were nomadic hunter-gatherers there would be no such complex behaviour surrounding mortuary practice and specific locations. They would not have the resources or ability to establish these cultural traits. Cemeteries of sedentary hunter-gatherers mark territory (Pardoe 1988). They symbolize the rights of particular groups to resources.  Australian aboriginal cultures were much more complex than originally believed and the rich archaeological record strongly supports this.