ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the extent to which Aborigines in pre-invasion times knew and utilised the physical resources of the country. It demonstrates how much the archaeological record can reveal of ancient living and movement patterns. In surveying the ethnohistorical evidence for exchange in southeastern Australia, the chapter examines the processes involved in transfer of goods, establishes what items are exchanged and under what circumstances, and explores the significance of such transactions in the life of Aboriginal societies in the southeast Australia. It applies the model derived from recent ethnographic work among Aboriginal societies of the north to the historical evidence from the regions of the temperate southeast. The diverse and complex pattern of exchange and the production of goods it stimulates is an essential component of the social networks and political hierarchies of the societies of southeastern Australia.
