Country and garden

Abstract

We examine spatial and temporal variability in Aboriginal plant use in the Keep River region, northwestern Australia, using ethnobotanical and archaeobotanical evidence. The concepts of country and garden, and domain, domus and domiculture (after Chase), are used to problematize important variables such as scale, boundedness and landscape transformation, and incorporate notions of social space. We focus on three main examples: yam patches, fruit trees and a modern domestic garden. The interplay between social and ecological processes, and the characteristics of human intervention, are examined in each case. In combination with archaeological data relating to fruit seed processing, we discern patterns of plant manipulation over a period of 3500 years, focusing on the changes associated with European arrival.