Towards a Late Holocene archaeology of the Inland Pilbara

Stone artefact scatters dominate the archaeological landscape of the inland Pilbara. While the archaeological record from rockshelter sites suggests human occupation consisting of brief, intermittent visits by small groups of people, artefact scatters which range from small, discrete single flaking events of perhaps 5–10 artefacts to widespread and varied scatters, sometimes of hundreds of thousands of stone artefacts extending over hundreds of thousands of square metres, clearly tell a different story. This paper presents an analysis of stone artefact assemblages from nine inland Pilbara surface artefact scatters and demonstrates that sites of this type have the potential to contribute much to our knowledge of human occupation of the region. We propose a testable model of Aboriginal occupation of the Pilbara during the Holocene.