Health & Environmental Research Online (HERO)


Print Feedback Export to File
6670771 
Journal Article 
Source of food items in an Aboriginal midden at Little Dip, near Robe, southeastern South Australia: implications for coastal geomorphic change 
Cann, JH; Murray-Wallace, CV; , 
1999 
1 
Royal Society of South Australia. Transactions
ISSN: 0372-1426 
ROYAL SOC SOUTH AUSTRALIA INC 
ADELAIDE 
123 
43-51 
English 
WOS:000080719900005 
At Nora Creina Bay, in southeastern South Australia, fossil shell of the intertidal mollusc Katelysia scalarina from outcropping sediment yielded a radiocarbon age of 5600+/-140 y cal BP. The presence of intertidal sandflat sediments of this age, preserved in an open ocean coastal setting, implies that the western, mostly eroded side of Robe Range once sheltered quiet water embayments with intertidal sandflats. Radiocarbon ages for fossil molluscs from marine sediments landwards of Robe Range reveal that autochthonous deposition rook place within an extensive Holocene coastal back-barrier lagoon environment from approximately 5500-4000 y BP. It was originally proposed that the shells of Katelysia cockles, gathered by Aboriginal people and now preserved within the archaeostratigraphic Early Horizon midden at Little Dip, had originated in this back-barrier lagoon. As the Katelysia sp. shell from the Early Horizon midden is more than 3000 y older than Katelysia spp. from the nearby autochthonous lagoonal sediments (e.g. at Fresh Dip Lake), it now seems that the cockles were harvested from intertidal sandflat environments on the seaward side of Little Dip, probably before marine incursion into the low lying land behind Robe Range. These sandflats were ephemeral features, eroded as the protective outer margin of Robe Range was also reduced by the erosive force of the Southern Ocean to a linear array of small islands and sea stacks that characterise the present coastline. 
Science & Technology - Other Topics; South Australia, coastal, Holocene, Pleistocene, Aboriginal midden,; mollusc, foraminifera, radiocarbon, amino acid racemisation