Australian Aboriginal freshwater shell middens from late Quaternary northwest Victoria: Prey choice, economic variability and exploitation Jillian Garvey Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, 3086, Australia article info Article history: Available online xxx Keywords: Late Quaternary Freshwater shell middens Bivalves and gastropods Nutritional analysis Australian Aboriginal hunteregatherers Murray River abstract The Central Murray River Valley in northwest Victoria contains a rich and diverse archaeological history spanning the last 20,000 years, which has the potential to help inform on past human behaviour and subsistence strategies. In particular, freshwater shell middens are important as they can provide infor- mation about the local aquatic economy, and the role of these molluscs in the diet of Aboriginal hunter egatherers. Many of the middens in the region consist of thin temporal horizons while being laterally expansive in size (some measuring up to 400 m in length). These middens are dominated by two aquatic molluscs: the river mussel Alathyria jacksoni and the river snail Notopala sublineata. However whilst it is generally accepted that Alathyria jacksoni was a common human prey species, it is thought that the smaller gastropod Notopala sublineata was collected accidentally as by-catch and was not economically important. To investigate, two spatially and temporally distinct middens from different land-systems spanning the late Pleistocene to the late Holocene were studied to look at the variety and size of mollusc species. To supplement the archaeological record, the potential economic and nutritional quality of the bivalve Alathyria jacksoni was investigated. The nutritional results indicate that while Alathyria are low in fat (but are good sources of omega 3- and 6-fatty acids), they are high in protein and calorific energy (kj), and are excellent sources of magnesium (Mg), Iron (Fe), Sodium (Na) and Zinc (Zn). These results coupled with the modern behavioural ecology of these freshwater molluscs, as well as ethno- graphic and modern cooking experiments, help identify human foraging and subsistence strategies in this region. Results indicate that despite earlier ideas, the river snail Notopala sublineata was an important economic aquatic resource during the late Pleistocene and Holocene. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The Central Murray River Valley corridor in northwest Victoria contains a large number and variety of cultural sites. The range of sites includes scarred or culturally modified trees, artefact scatters, oven mounds, isolated heat retainers and heat-retainer hearths, stone quarries, grinding stones, ceremonial and sacred sites, human or ancestral burials, and shell middens (Garvey and Perry, 2015). These sites are typically confined to areas close to the modern river channel and tributaries, or its ancestral anabranches, highlighting the importance of this natural resource. The number of sites de- creases substantially as you move away from this permanent water source and into the semi-arid Mallee environment which only has seasonal water available (when not in drought). Despite this rich cultural landscape there has been limited research into human occupation and subsistence along one of Australia's greatest rivers, with research predominately focusing on the lakes and rivers to the north of the Murray River such as the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area (WLWHA) including Lake Mungo; Lake Menindee; Lake Victoria; and Lake Tandou (Allen, 1972; Kefous, 1981, 1983; Balme and Hope, 1990; Bowler, 1998; Hope et al., 1983; Balme, 1995; Pardoe, 1998, 2003; Cupper and Duncan, 2006; Allen et al., 2008; Grün et al., 2011; Stern et al., 2013; Fitzsimmons et al., 2015). Human occupation in the WLWHA dates back to 45,000 BP and appears to have ceased about 15,000 BP, coinciding with the drying of the lakes (Pardoe, 1995). Prior to this human occupation of the region depended on water availability within the overflow lake system that fluctuated between the filling and drying phases (Bowler, 1971, 1998). A similar scenario was found for the lower Darling River region of western NSW, where people were utilising aquatic resources including shellfish at 27,000 BP. However occu- pation here continued into the Holocene (Allen, 1972; Balme and Hope, 1990; Balme, 1995). Within the lower Darling River region E-mail address: j.garvey@latrobe.edu.au. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quaint http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.11.065 1040-6182/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. Quaternary International xxx (2015) 1e18 Please cite this article in press as: Garvey, J., Australian Aboriginal freshwater shell middens from late Quaternary northwest Victoria: Prey choice, economic variability and exploitation, Quaternary International (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.11.065