Reduction, Recycling, and Raw Material Procurement in Western Arnhem Land, Australia

Complex lithic assemblage variation in Arnhem Land, Australia, was initially explained by suggestions that multiple cultural groups had co-existed or that a single group had used different toolkits as they moved seasonally to exploit temporary resources. These models have proved untenable and differences in assemblage composition across the landscape are now explained in terms of procurement economics: as knappers rationed, recycled, and substituted artifacts in response to the varying cost of obtaining replacement stone in each location. The economics of raw material use, and its articulation with technological strategies suited to different contexts of mobility and risk, provides mechanisms that can explain the persistence of geographical differences in artifact assemblages but which can also make sense of temporal subtle changes in technological activities. Unlike earlier archeological theories, we can now conclude that site function and identity of the local residence groups were factors of little significance in the production of assemblage differences.