Change in Holocene Australia is typically depicted as establishing greater control over the environment, with heightened prosperity, growth of social complexity, status competition, intergroup congregation, and population. Endogenous social processes altered Australian forager life yielding, on average, increased per capita output. Those claims were named Intensification. We critique that concept, re-evaluate evidence, and conclude there is no evidence for release from environmental constraint or heightened prosperity.

Our model is more capable of explaining change in Holocene Australia. This Red Queen model claims cultural changes reflect unfavourable alterations in economic opportunity, driven by coevolution with dingos during worsening environmental conditions. Restructured environments with fewer high ranked foods led to greater diet breadth, expansion into marginal landscapes, and focus on atypical resource rich spots. By increasing their labour groups sought to maintain population size, this strategy reducing the likelihood of neighbouring groups seizing resource hot spots. Foragers responded to tensions with neighbours over resource access by magnifying social defence, offering limited use of resources in return for maintenance of territorial control. Those political negotiations constructed moderately stable alliances. We test the Red Queen model and show it, not Intensification, explains the emergence of ethnographically identified social interactions, economy and settlement systems.

全新世澳大利亚的变化通常被描述为对环境建立更大的控制，繁荣加剧，社会复杂性增加，地位竞争，群体间聚集和人口增加。内生社会过程改变了澳大利亚的觅食生活，平均而言，人均产量增加了。这些声明被命名为Intensification。我们批评该概念，重新评估证据，并得出结论，没有证据表明可以摆脱环境限制或增加繁荣。

我们的模型更能解释澳大利亚全新世的变化。这个红皇后模型声称文化变化反映了经济机会的不利变化，这是在环境条件恶化期间与野狗共同进化所驱动的。重组后的环境中，高级食物更少，导致饮食范围更大，扩张到边缘景观，并关注非典型资源丰富的地方。通过增加他们的劳动力群体来维持人口规模，这种策略减少了邻近群体夺取资源热点的可能性。觅食者通过扩大社会防御来应对与邻居在资源获取方面的紧张关系，提供有限的资源使用以换取维持领土控制。这些政治谈判构建了适度稳定的联盟。