Gleaning the rocky shore? 2500 years of coastal resource use at Red Bluff 1, GunaiKurnai Country, SE Australia

Shell middens in Gippsland along the eastern half of Victoria's coastline have usually been characterised as small, short-duration camp sites with relatively low shell densities and low taxonomic diversity. Here we present new excavation results from a dense, high-diversity site at Red Bluff near the eastern end of GunaiKurnai Country, a location that features the first intertidal rocky platform habitat between Wilsons Promontory in the west and Cape Conran in the east (a distance of 230 km). We found that the climbing sand dune at Red Bluff began to accumulate c. 2500 cal BP, and that over the past c. 1000 years in particular, the Old Ancestors kept the dune environment relatively open through cultural burning, repeatedly camping on the dune to obtain a range of resources from the adjacent rocky shore and sandy beach, estuary and river mouth. These resources include a broad range of shellfish taxa consistently dominated by high numbers of Mytilus planulatus and Lunella undulata and small to medium-sized fish, probably from rock platforms and sandy shallows, processed with locally sourced stone artefacts. Although exhibiting a degree of similarity in the harvesting of specific mollusc taxa through time, there is notable variability in taxonomic richness and diversity that emphasises differences in subsistence activities and an active engagement with structurally complex nearshore environments.