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THESIS ABSTRACTS
KNOWLEDGE,
POWER
AND
VOICE:
AN
INVESTIGATION
OF
INDIGENOUS
SOUTH
AUSTRALIAN PERSPECTIVES OF ARCHAEOLOGY
Degree and University: PhD, Department of Archaeology.
Flinders University.
Date Submitted: 2003.
Copies Held: Department of Archaeology, Flinders
Amy Roberts
University; Central Library, Flinders University.
This thesis presents a qual itati ve investigation of sixteen
Indigenous South Australian perspectives of archaeology.
The study is based upon results obtained from in-depth
interviews conducted over a two-year period. The research
reveals that there are fjfteen supportive factors that are
currently contributing to meaningful collaborative
archaeological research between archaeologists and
Indigenous South Australians. However, although it may be
understood that these themes or 'I ived experiences' are
evidence that some or many of the relationships between
Indigenous South Australians and archaeologists are
improving and in some cases even producing real
partnerships and sites for reconciliation, it must also be
admitted that these experiences are tempered by or held in
tension with the participants' inhibitive feelings, opinions
and 'lived experiences' (explored in twenty-two themes).
Thus, it is argued that relationships between archaeologists
and Indigenous peoples can be improved further by taking
a highly educative approach to cross-cultural awareness
issues in relation to archaeoJogy, Indigenous peoples, the
public, university students, government and commercial
organisations.
The implications of these findings are that new and
structured approaches to working with Indigenous peoples
are required in order to overcome the taken-far-granted
practices within the archaeological discipline and to make
attempts to rectify these tensions in the future. As a result,
it IS proposed that professional
archaeological
organisations and institutions need to work more closely
with Indigenous groups in an 'applied anthropological'
manner, in order to facilitate the areas for change outlined
by the participants, so that self-determination for
Indigenous communities can be achieved through the
archaeological discipline. A number of areas have been
identified for structured discussions in this regard
including: I) Training students to understand power
differences: 2) Teaching contested histories; 3) Creating
policies to facilitate Indigenist approaches; 4) Teaching
applied approaches; 5) Changing government policies and
legislation in relation to - Indigenous control over report
writing and other aspects of the archaeological research
process, Indigenous control over choosing researchers,
Indigenous control
over research
designs
and
interpretation. and Indigenous control over intellectual and
cultural property rights; 6) Funding; 7) Multi-disciplinary
re-casting; 8) Public education: and 9) Designing
innovati ve collaborati ve approaches to faci I i tate
Ind igenous self-determ ination.
Current Affiliation: Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement,
44
Native Title Unit.
Email: amyr(g)nativetitlesa.org
NGARRANGGANI, NGAMUNGAMU, JALANIJARRA:
'LOST
PLACES',
RECURSIVENESS
AND
HYBRIDITY AT OLD LAMBOO PASTORAL STATION,
SOUTHEAST KIMBERLEY, W.A.
Rodney Harrison
People use the traces of the past to construct social and
political identity in the present. Archaeology, as physical
traces of the past that are experienced as part of the
embodied engagement with landscape, is integral to this
creative act of making history. The various ways in which
people use the traces of the past in the present are examined
in this thesis with reference to a case study in
archaeological and ethnographic fieldwork undertaken in
the southeast Kimberley with the 'Lamboo mob', a group of
Jaru language speakers who are former pastoral workers
from Old Lamboo Pastoral Station. The Lamboo mob
directed the process of site survey, which focussed on
identifying places with an archaeological component which
they felt were important to the story of their ancestors' past
and to their sense of identity in the present. A sample of
these places was then selected for more detailed
archaeological study. Finally, the significance of this series
of places to the story of the Jaru past and present is
articulated both through archaeological analysis and
through oral narrative and biography.
Central to the Lamboo mob's understanding of the past
are their locally mediated experiences of colonialism during
the late nineteenth and twentieth centLllies. This has been
principally associated with the intrusion of gold-miners and
settler pastoralists, and eventually their almost wholesale
inclusion as labourers in the pastoral industry. followed by
a much more recent period of diaspora from these same
pastoral properties to settle on the margins of towns
throughout the study area. Of critical importance to
understanding these events of the recent past are deeper
historical structures that have continually re-emerged over
the past 5,000 years. which have ultimately impacted on the
way that the history of the pastoral industry in the southeast
Kimberley has been experienced by both Aboriginal and
settler pastoralists. While it was my intention to study the
archaeology of encounters between Aboriginal and settler
pastoralists in the southeast Kimberley, the project
developed through collaboration between myself and the
AlIsmdia/i Archaeo!ofj.". Number 58. 2004
Debilage
Lamboo mob to explore both the recent and deep pasts of
the study area, and the role of the material remains which
relate to these pasts in articulating contemporary
attachments to place. Drawing on archaeological research.
documentary research and oral history, the thesis makes a
methodological contribution to the growing field of
'contact archaeology' in Australia, and to an understanding
of the agency of Aboriginal people in developing hybrid
social structures within the context of the pastoral industry
in the Kimberley.
Archaeological mapping, surface collection and
excavation focussed on a series of historic Aboriginal
pastoral worker's encampments associated with the Old
Lamboo Homestead site. Aboriginal people provided
detailed accounts of the history and importance of Old
Lamboo and its material remains. A dialectic approach,
involving the recording of particular archaeological remains
and community dialogue regarding their significance and
meaning, was employed. This allows me to analyse the ways
in which both the spatial and the social order of the pastoral
property was used in the past (and present) by Aboriginal
'insiders' to develop new, hybrid social identities as pastoral
labourers. Further excavations at two precontact rockshelter
sites detail long-term historical trajectories in the meaning of
particular artefact forms and the perception of inside and
outside space which give context to these 'changes' that
occurred within the pastoral industry in the southeast
Kimberley during the first part of the twentieth century.
Analysis of artefacts from a series of pre- and post­
contact open artefact scatters is employed to develop a
model of post-contact changes in stone tool manufacture in
the study area. Within the study area, stone tools, in
particular the finely pressure flaked biface 'Kimberley'
point, continued to be manufactured throughout the
twentieth century; however, the meaning of these objects
changed such that they become aesthetic objects devoid of
function. The 'intensification' in the manufacture of stone
and glass spearheads after AD 1890 is linked to their role as
collected objects and as symbols associated with changing
notions of masculinity on the pastoral frontier.
I have coined the phrase vernacular archaeologies to
refer to the ways in which non-archaeologists interrogate
the traces of their past in the present, due to the similarities
between this act of creative recursiveness and the
archaeological project that is carried out by professional
archaeologists in the modern world. What is different about
these two approaches is the way in which vernacular
archaeologies draw on embodied and profoundly local
understandings of the landscape, which I term la/ldscape
biographies, to make meaning from these traces in the
present.
Degree and University: PhD, Discipline of Archaeology,
School of Social and Cultural Studies, University of
Western Australia
Date Submitted: 2002
Copies Held: Reid Library, University of Western Australia
[Perth]; Kimberley Aboriginal Land Council Library
[Derby]; Kimberley Language Resource Centre Library
[Halls Creek]; Department of Indigenous Affairs Library
[Perth]; Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Studies Library [Canberra].
Current Affiliation: Research Unit, Cultural Heritage
Division. NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service.
Email:
Ausrrolial1 Archaeolug\". Number 58.2004
SITE UNSEEN: ARCHAEOLOGY, CULTURAL
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, PLANNING AND
PREDICTIVE MODELLING IN THE MELBOURNE
METROPOLITAN AREA
Shaun Canning
This main aim of this thesis is the construction of
predictive models of Aboriginal archaeological site location
in the Melbourne metropolitan area. Existing information
from Aboriginal Affairs Victoria sites database was the
primary source of data for the predictive modelJing
exercise. Many problematic issues regarding the
construction and collection of archaeological data are
identified and discussed throughout the thesis. Particular
areas of concern are the biases that exist in data generated
from cultural resource management surveys. which are
subsequently present in the AAV database. Methods are
explored for utilising biased data in predictive modelling.
Methodological improvements are suggested in order to
make future data collection more rigorous. The site concept,
sampling, survey intensity, shovel test pit excavation, report
formats; survey design and visibility constraints are
analysed and discussed in depth. The predictive model
developed uti Iises Dempster-Shafer Bel ief theory (a branch
of Bayesian statistics) and the IDRIS132 GIS in order to
make use of the vast corpus of biased data housed in the
AAV database.
Degree and Universit)': PhD, Department of Archaeology,
La Trobe University.
Date Submitted: October 2003.
Copies Held: Department of Archaeology, La Trobe
University.
Current affiliation:
Email:
THE RAW AND THE COOKED: A STUDY OF THE
EFFECTS OF COOKING ON THREE ABORIGINAL
PLANT FOODS FROM SOUTHEAST QUEENSLAND
,Jenna Lamb
Cooking is an essentially human activity, embodying the
transformation from the natural to the cultural and
increasing the palatability and availability of food
resources. Plants probably formed the major part of the
hunter-gatherer Aboriginal Australian diet and plant
residues on stone tools used for processing have been
identified by Australian archaeologists. Ethnohistories also
record the cooking and processing of plants by Aboriginal
people, but very Iittle direct archaeological evidence of
plant food cooking has been confirmed.
In this vein, replicative cooking and stone tool
processing of three ethnohistorically recorded starchy plant
foods from southeast Queensland (Alocasia macrorrhiza
[native taro], Blechnul11 indicum [fern-root] and
Cas/Qnospermum aus/rale [Moreton Bay chestnut]) was
undertaken. The resulting residues were compared using
microscopy and a biological stain, in order to test the effects
of cooking on starch grains, which demonstrate irrefutable
changes after being affected by heat. Results revealed that
the main morphological effects of cooking on starch are
swelling, and disruption of the extinction-cross; and that
Congo Red dye stains gelatinised, and otherwise damaged,
starch such that raw grains are distinguishable from cooked
grains. Application of the Congo Red stain to the residues
45
Dehifage
of three bevel-edged artefacts (functionally associated with
B. indicum processing) produced consIstently reliable
results. allowing identification and differentiation of
cooked, damaged and raw starch. Several grains seen on
these artefacts were similar to those in cooked B. il1dicUII1
reference samples.
This thesis reports the first successful archaeological
use of Congo Red, and the first detailed evidence of the
effects of cooking on starchy plants known to have been
cooked and processed by past Aboriginal people. The
results of this study may be used by archaeologists to infer
archaeological residues deriving from cooked starchy foods
and thus identify cooking as a specific form of activity in
past subsistence behaviour.
Degree and University: B.A. (Hons), School of Social
Science, University of Queensland.
Date Submitted: November 2003.
Copies Held: Fryer Library, Uni versity of Queensland:
School of Social Science, University of Queensland.
Current Affiliation: School of Social Science. University
of Queensland.
Email: [email protected]
THE
EARLY
MYCENAEAN
ARMY:
A
RECONSTRUCTION
OF
THE
EQUIPMENT,
TACTICS
AND
ORGANISATION
OF
THE
MYCENAEAN ARMY CA 1600 - 1400 BC.
Nicolas Grguric
Li ttle attempt has been made in the past to
comprehensively reconstruct the Mycenaean army. The aim
of this research topic was to redress this.
The methodology used in this research project started
with the premise that there are and always have been some
universal rules which define a soldier's likely tactical use
(his troop type) based upon his weaponry and armour
combination. Next a template of the different troop types
generally used in the ancient world was created and placed
over the known corpus of Mycenaean evidence of \veapons
and wrufare in order to deduce their most likely troop type.
Once a warrior's troop type is determined this can suggest
the most likely organisation and social status of this type of
warrior.
Analysis of where various types of weapons and armour
types first appear in the archaeological record showed that
most of what later became characteristics of the early
Mycenaean army originated in Minoan Crete. It is argued
that Minoan military technology, like other aspects of
Minoan culture. was introduced onto the mainJand via the
process of secondary diffusion where it was rapidly adopted
by the Mycenaeans. However, it was also found that the
Mycenaeans were also influenced by the military
technology of the Near East in addition to indigenous
innovations.
Using the methodology described above, many different
early Mycenaean troop types were identi fied, showing that
the various types of early Mycenaean warriors known from
depictions all corresponded closely with the general
characteristics of ancient troop types. This showed that in
terms of tactics and organisation the early Mycenaean allllY
was not that different from most other heavy infantry-based
ancient armies.
It was shown that the early Mycenaean army was
composed of several troop types organised into units and
trained to use specific tactics depending on the particular
troop type. This research project demonstrated that the early
Mycenaean army was actually quite conventional, allowing
for differences imposed by the landscape of Greece such as
the difference in the use of chariots compared to Egypt and
the Near East. These findings stand in contrast to the
traditional Homeric view of Mycenaean warfare.
It was also shown that the early Mycenaean army was
organised and supplied by a highly centralised. palace­
based military bureaucracy. This was based on an analysis
of both the troop types themsel ves and the Linear B tablets
and artefacts from Knossos and Pylos.
Furthermore it was demonstrated that in order to field a
heavy infantry-based army such as that of the early
Mycenaeans. more men than the upper class of a
Mycenaean palace-state would have been required. Thus it
was argued that the Mycenaean army was composed of men
drawn from all levels of society, with those from the lower
classes most likely making up the majority of the soldiers.
Degree and University: BA (Hons). Centre for European
Studies and General Linguistics, Adelaide University.
Date Submitted: October 2002
Copies Held: Barr Smith Library, University Of Adelaide.
Present Affiliation: None
Email: [email protected]
Lithic Analysis
by George H. Odell
University of Tulsa, OK, USA
Series: Manuals in Archaeological Method, Theory and Technique. 2003, 258pp
Kluwer
Hardbound ISBN 0-306-48067-0 Price: Eur: 98.00; US$107.00
Paperback ISBN 0-306-48068-9 Price: Eur: 40.00; US$44
www.kl.uweronline.com
46
Allslrul;"1/ Arclrueololi.", Number 58. 2004