Abstract:
Large mounds of shell are identified as monumental construction and investigated as such, leading to inferences about complex social behaviours and the creation of social memory. This reflects a renewed interest in early examples of monumentality which are no longer solely associated with complex agrarian-based societies. The allure of inferring grand human architectural design from the mounds results in the interpretation of form as directly reflective of past human behaviour. This ignores the fact that the current form of the mound is the product of multiple cultural and natural depositional and post-depositional processes. While the significance attributed to shell mounds reflects different concepts of monumentality, shape and size is used as the basis for differentiating shell mounds from other midden features. However, shell mound shape and size is rarely quantitatively assessed. This study uses terrestrial laser scanning integrated within a geoarchaeologically-based interpretive framework to investigate the formational processes that have contributed to the form of shell mounds as they are seen today. Investigating all shell mounds on an extended spatial and temporal scale presents a holistic narrative of human-environmental interaction and a better understanding of the histories represented by the mounds. The results reflect considerable variability in shell mound shape and size. Not all mounds are ‘monumental’ in size and thus attributing differences in shell mound size exclusively to past human behaviour is unfounded. Rather, the results suggest complex formational histories for many of the mounds. As opposed to a hindrance to interpretation, this variability presents the opportunity to investigate various processes at multiple scales and hence uncovering multiple facets of the past. Key words: Shell mounds, monumentality, geoarchaeology, terrestrial laser scanning, 3D modelling, Australian prehistory
