Southwest Australian coastal economies: A new review

Despite a growing body of evidence to the contrary, the myth of the absent southwest and southern littoral Aboriginal economy continues to be propounded (e.g. Lilley 1993:40; Gara and Cane 1988; Nicholson and Cane 1991:3). The absence of shell mounds or middens, in com­bination with observations by early European colonial settlers in the Swan coastal plain and the King George Sound area about supposed prohibitions on shellfish as food, has been the foundation for dismissal of the role of marine resources in southwest Western Australian coastal economies. ...