The Great Kartan Mystery

Abstract

Survey of distinctive Kartan stone tool industry on Kangaroo Island and adjacent mainland and comparison with separate small tool industry; distribution and typology of Kartan tools related to environmental, climatic and eustatic data; late Pleistocene conditions in region compared with drier Holocene to support hypothesis that sites on Kangaroo Island postdating isolation from mainland result from declining relict population rather than reoccupation from mainland; Kartan - small tool succession placed in context of wider Australian change from core tool and scraper to small tool tradition but with unique local features resulting from regional nature of Kartan industry and isolation of Kangaroo Island during small tool time. Show more