Hunter-gatherers and the archaeology of discard behavior: an analysis of surface stone artifacts from Sturt National Park, Western New South Wales, Australia.

SURFACE SCATTERS OF STONE ARTIFACTS FORM THE BULK of the archaeological record in Australia, yet for all their ubiquity, they continue to pose serious problems for archaeologists. Surface deposits lack stratigraphy in the conventional sense, hence it is difficult to assign them an age and more difficult still to use surface material to demonstrate change.

They often represent long periods of deposition and spatial proximity is no guarantee of synchrony. Where artifacts can be dated directly (e.g., the heat-retainer hearths discussed in the example below), hundreds of years may ...

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