Paper short abstract:

Hunter-gatherers in Australia needed rights to retreat to a permanent water source during drought and a network of social relationships that guaranteed the right to forage over a wider area during normal times. 2 cultures in different ecologies are compared to show adaptations of the core culture.

Paper long abstract:

Culture and ecology in Aboriginal Australia – two case studies (proposed for panel 08)

Robert Layton, University of Durham

Two basic requirements for survival as hunters and gatherers in Australia were (a) to have rights to retreat to a permanent water source during drought and (b) to have a network of social relationships that guaranteed the right to forage over a wider area during normal times. These were (and are) intimately associated with two core elements in traditional Aboriginal culture: the sacred site and the ancestral track, which also allocate people’s corresponding responsibilities to care for the land, its ecology and features. Australia’s ecology is, however, very varied. Aboriginal cultures have adapted creatively to these diverse conditions. In this paper I propose to compare the two cultures with which I am most familiar: the Anangu living around Uluru in the Western Desert, and the Alawa in the monsoon woodland south of the Gulf of Carpentaria, to show how a common core of cultural themes have been adapted in different and creative ways.