Lithic raw material distribution in Tasmania

After pondering this 'Latin' rhyme one hazy summer afternoon in 1983, Allen, Cosgrove, Jones and Stadler concluded that deciphering the modes of resource movement was as difficult as identifying the range of produce involved, particularly when on the consumption side of the bar .In this case interpreting the meaning without any prior knowledge or framework of language would be an almost impossible task. In much th same way ethnography has played a key role in providing a framework within which to examine trade and exchange in the archaeological record. for example, in a series of important papers Allen (1977a, 1977b, 1984) used the ethnography of the central Papuan coast to reconstruct the trading mechanisms thought to be reflected in the archaeological record found on Motupore Island. the rsulting model sugested that as complexity increased, the socal system became unstable resulting eventually in a crash only to rise again enhanced in its complexity and specialisation though time.