Abstract:
The aim of this research is to illuminate aspects of the division of labour among individuals buried at Roonka Flat. This burial ground has been used by Indigenous Australians of the Murray River Region in South Australia since at least 4,000 BCE until the 19th Century CE. Ethnohistoric resources compiled by European explorers and colonists outline a sexual division of labour in this region, with women being treated as inferior to the men that governed their society. This rhetoric has influenced previous research into aspects of life in Roonka, by prompting some researchers to gather and interpret data in a way that takes for granted sexual inequality among the males and females buried at Roonka. This thesis examines dental microwear using a scanning electron microscope and light microscopy to identify extramasticatory activities that are predicted by ethnography and past research. These microwear features are chipping, microstriations along the occlusal surface caused by fibre or sinew processing, and labial striations caused by stuff-and-cut activities. By analysing these features, it emerged that there is no difference in chipping distribution or microstriation patterns between males and females, indicating that there may have been a level of parity between males and females in using the teeth as tools, and processing plants and sinew into cord and fishing equipment. Analysing labial striations revealed that there was a significant difference in the presence of this feature on male and female dentition, with almost every individual with labial striations being male. While this may indicate that stuff-and-cut activities are dominated by males, female inclusion in this activity indicates that a strict sexual division of labour in this activity may be inaccurate. Overall, microwear features indicate both male and female participation in the activities that are identifiable in dentition, calling into question the reliability of ethnohistoric resources to understand prehistoric ways of life.
