Serpents Glen (Karnatukul): New Histories for Deep time Attachment to Country in Australia’s Western Desert

Abstract

Our archaeological understanding of Western Desert cultural landscapes continues to change and become more nuanced. Through a multi-decadal relationship forged between Aboriginal people and collaborating anthropologists and archaeologists (specifically Bob Tonkinson, Peter Veth and more recently – since 2000 – Jo McDonald), this place’s deep significance to the Martu Traditional Owners is confirmed. Our investigations of Serpents Glen (Karnatukul) are also contributing to a deeper understanding of the archaeology of Australia, particularly in relation to the flexibility of arid-zone hunter-gatherers. The re-analysis of key sites around Australia continues to reveal greater antiquity of Aboriginal culture while increasingly viable data sets also provide new evidence for the models we deploy to understand human behaviour. Australian sites excavated by pioneering archaeologists (Bowdler 1976; Bowler et al. 1970; Gould 1977; Mulvaney 1960; Wright 1971) began to unravel the myth of a shallow timeframe. The rise of professionalism and regionalism at the end of last millennium saw the focus shift from hunting deep-time excavations, to gathering understandings of social geography and cultural complexity: seen by some as gendered practice (Moser 2007). The last decade has seen a number of the landmark sites being revisited (e.g. Riwi, Carpenter’s Gap, Puntutjarpa, Malakunanja II/Madjedbebe) and explored in new detail with a range of improved scientific techniques. This has resulted in increasingly earlier evidence for arrivals on the Australian continent (Norman et al. 2017; Veth 2017). This recent efflorescence also provides greater clarity on the complexity and adaptability of the first Australians (Balme 2000/Wood et al. 2016; Whitau et al. 2016; O’Connor 1995/Maloney et al. 2018; Gould 1977/Smith et al. 2017; Roberts et al. 1990/Clarkson et al. 2017). The most recent archaeological excavations at Karnatukul were at the request of Native Title holders who wanted additional knowledge about the landscape before the installation of the first tourist facilities. This investigation has almost doubled the known occupation of this site, making it the earliest known in the Australian arid zone, providing further contradiction to Gould’s model for a late Pleistocene-Early Holocene entry into the interior deserts. The stylistic discontinuities at both the regional and site level also refute his Australian Desert Culture being one of long-term cultural conservatism. Revisiting Serpents Glen has resulted in a revision to its deep time significance, but it has also demonstrated the complexity of Holocene arid-zone lifeways. Reanalysis has mobilised stone tool and rock art productions; and by exploring the contemporaneity of these two behaviours we have achieved a level of understanding which Gould University of Western Australia, AU jo.mcdonald@uwa.edu.au McDonald, J. 2020. Serpents Glen (Karnatukul): New Histories for Deep time Attachment to Country in Australia’s Western Desert. Bulletin of the History of Archaeology, 30(1): 5, pp. 1–13. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/bha-624 Bulletin of the History of Archaeology