Journeys into the Rainforest: Archaeology of Culture Change and Continuity on the Evelyn Tableland, North Queensland

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This book presents a study of contact archaeology that explores the dynamics of Aboriginal occupation of far north-east Queensland's rainforest region. It presents the results of archaeological research that takes a long-term approach, exploring variability in terms of change and continuity before during and after Aboriginal/European contact. The research is interdisciplinary and integrates diverse data sources recovered from Aboriginal open sites occupied in the pre- to post-contact periods, historical documents and information gathered in oral histories. The analyses focus on open archaeological sites as a means of discovering variability used together with the historical sources and oral histories that provide the study with a historical context. Cultural trajectories traced through time are defined by material culture and technology, plant use and rainforest settlement patterns. The results show that applying a temporal interdisciplinary framework to contact investigatigations has the capacity to reveal continuity as well as change in an Aboriginal society. The outcome is a better informed and textured long-term history of Aboriginal rainforest occupation