This paper reports on archaeological analysis carried out on assemblages recovered from two stratified cave sites on Campbell Island in the Montebello group in northwest Australia. These sites provide unique insights into human responses to the drowning of the extensive arid plains of north-west Australia following the Last Glacial Maximum. Rich faunal assemblages have been recovered which date to the period 30,000 - 7000 BP as the local environmental context changed in response to the post-glacial marine transgression.

This book offers a ground-breaking critique of the concept of 'tradition' as it has been applied in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander context. The authors offer a refreshing new style of analysis. In writing that is rich in detail, strong in analysis and informed by their research experience, they argue for a deeper appreciation of the creativity inherent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social life, and the way that knowledge is constructed and deployed in complex intercultural contexts in contemporary Australia.Each chapter draws on detailed local inter-cultural information which include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land and sea ownership and management, native title processes, service delivery arrangements for health and outstation management, and representations in art, song and broadcasting. In each arena there are multiple engagements with broad global processes. The advent of Native Title legislation has led Indigenous communities across the country being required to demonstrate their 'traditional' connections to country.For many, their experiences of these processes are increasingly at odds with the complex inter-cultural realities of their lives. They feel the constraining effect of outmoded frameworks of 'tradition' in legislation and policy where social and cultural innovation are characterised as inauthentic. The book draws together key scholars in Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander social research. The authors provide productive ways of characterising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social life and develop a multi-disciplinary theoretical critique to the concept of tradition.