Fish Traps, Seed-Grinding and Food Stores: Reconstructing Complex Mithaka Indigenous Economic and Water Management Technologies

Over the last decade of Australian archaeology there has been a notable absence of studies of Aboriginal social and economic systems on a regional scale, due in part to preference for generic modeling incorporating metadata. Such broad narratives generated by meta-data models and use of carbon dates as proxies for understanding demographic transitions can gloss over important local dynamics and details. In this study, the authors employed a regional approach to assess Australian Aboriginal food production systems. They combined early ethnographic observations with available archaeological evidence to reconstruct Mithaka economies, especially pertaining to fish traps, water management, fishing, and utilization of seeding grasses. These specific activities were targeted as being central to current debates on Australian Aboriginal food production systems. The ethnohistoric record was found to support a model of the Mithaka and their neighbors being considerably less mobile than previously assumed, concentrating on permanent waterholes especially during dry periods. The study revealed an economy uniquely adapted to the region’s “boom and bust” ecology. It was dominated by the construction and use of gigantic nets, fish traps, long-distance trade, and the processing and storage of “preserves.” On the basis of this case study, the authors propose methodologies for further archaeological investigation that could inform the “Dark Emu” debate that is currently prevalent in interpreting Australia’s deep past.