Archaeological investigations at a stratified open site near Humpty Doo, Northern Australia

The coastal plains region east of Darwin is a low-lying seasonally inundated area withextensive1black soil flood plains, palaeochannels, freshwater swamps, and relict beach ridges associated with rapid coastal progradation. In the early 1980s the Northern Territory Museum and the North Australia Research Unit (ANU) sponsored a series of investigations into the late Holocene prehistory of the region (Baker 1981; Cundy1985; Smith 198la&b). As part of this program a small excavation was carried out at Scotch Creek 1, an open site situated on the margins of the Adelaide River flood plain near Humpty Doo (Figure 1 ). This site is one of the few intact stratified open sites in the region and contains a rich assemblage of bifacial points, ground stone implements and ochre. Unlike other open sites in the region it also preserves organic remains such as eggshell and bone. Given renewed interest in the prehistory of the flood plains we feel that this work should now be more widely accessible. This paper presents details of the 1980 excavation together with a preliminary analysis of the material recovered.