- School of Arts and Communication
Faculty of Business, Education, Law and Arts
University of Southern Queensland
Toowoomba, QLD., 4350
Australia - +61 7 46311069
- University of Southern Queensland, Public Memory Research Centre, Faculty Memberadd
- Historical Archaeology, Anthropology of the Body, Cultural Heritage Management, Coastal and Island Archaeology, BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, Sadomasochism), Kink, Fetish, Stone artefacts (Archaeology), and 8 moreAnthropology of BDSM and ‘sexual deviancies’, Migration stories of the Kerewo, Kikori River Delta, PNG, The archaeology of the Kikori River, Anthropology, Archaeology, Archaeology of poverty, Papuan Gulf, and Anthropology of Religionedit
There is evidence to suggest that the South Molle Island stone quarry, in the Whitsunday Islands, central Queensland coast, has been used by the indigenous inhabitants of the region from at least 9,000 BP to the present. Distribution of... more
There is evidence to suggest that the South Molle Island stone quarry, in the Whitsunday Islands, central Queensland coast, has been used by the indigenous inhabitants of the region from at least 9,000 BP to the present. Distribution of stone from the quarry extends for at least 170km along the coast, from Abbott Point in the north to the Repulse Islands in the south. A comprehensive technological characterisation of the quarry has demonstrated that a range of manufacturing behaviours was conducted on-site, including the initial extraction of the raw material, through to the final stages of artefact retouch. The systematic production of backed artefacts is included among this suite of technological practice. This research has demonstrated that the antiquity of backed artefacts and the timing of high production rates of backed artefact manufacture occurs earlier in the Whitsunday region than elsewhere in southern Australia. In the Whitsunday Islands backed artefact production has been shown to be present from the start of the Holocene and to have been a key technological element in the early Holocene. A new understanding of backing technologies in Australia can be developed in light of this recognition of regional variation. A risk-oriented model of Holocene technological change in the Whitsunday region is presented here, as well as a discussion of the implications for wider coastal and island technological systems throughout the Holocene.
This monograph takes a new look at various aspects of stone artefact analysis that reveal important and exciting new information about the past, and in particular Australian perspectives on lithics. The ten papers making up this volume... more
This monograph takes a new look at various aspects of stone artefact analysis that reveal important and exciting new information about the past, and in particular Australian perspectives on lithics. The ten papers making up this volume tackle a number of issues that have long been at the heart of archaeology’s problematic relationship with stone artefacts, including our understanding of the dynamic nature of past stoneworking practices, the utility of traditional classificatory schemes, and ways to unlock the vast amount of information about the strategic role of lithic technology that resides in stone artefact assemblages. The dominant theme of this monograph is the pursuit of new ways of characterising the effects of manufacturing and subsistence behaviour on stone artefact assemblages.
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Recent excavations at Nawarla Gabarnmang in Jawoyn Country, southwest Arnhem Land have produced a long sequence of AMS radiocarbon determinations on individual pieces of charcoal reliably associated with stone artefacts dating back to... more
Recent excavations at Nawarla Gabarnmang in Jawoyn Country, southwest Arnhem Land have produced a long sequence of AMS radiocarbon determinations on individual pieces of charcoal reliably associated with stone artefacts dating back to 45,180±910 cal BP. It represents one of the earliest radiocarbon-dated archaeological sites in Australia. Here we report on initial results
Dans le cadre du projet du "Jawoyn RockArt and Heritage Program", des membres de la Jawoyn Association et les partenaires francais (EDYTEM et CNP) se sont interesses a l'etude du panneau de Genyornis, en Terre d'Arnhem... more
Dans le cadre du projet du "Jawoyn RockArt and Heritage Program", des membres de la Jawoyn Association et les partenaires francais (EDYTEM et CNP) se sont interesses a l'etude du panneau de Genyornis, en Terre d'Arnhem (Australie) qui represente d'un oiseau disparu il y a environ 45 000 ans, Genyornis newtoni. Afin de determiner, i) la nature des constituants des pigments utilises et leur mode de preparation, ii) leur origine geographique et, iii) la chronologie des peintures, neuf echantillons de peinture ont ete preleves sur le panneau. Des observations macroscopiques (OM), ainsi que des analyses sur la composition des pigments faites par microscopie electronique a balayage couplee a un detecteur de rayons X en energie dispersive (MEB-EDS) et par microspectrometrie Raman ont ete effectuees sur echantillons bruts ou blocs polis. Des oxydes de fer, sous forme d'hematite et de goethite, ont ete identifies au niveau de la couche picturale. Le support matricie...
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Bien que l’on ait souvent prétendu avoir la preuve que l’Australie possède certaines œuvres d’art rupestre les plus anciennes du monde et figure au premier plan des études sur cet art, très peu sont en fait bien datées. Récemment, fut... more
Bien que l’on ait souvent prétendu avoir la preuve que l’Australie possède certaines œuvres d’art rupestre les plus anciennes du monde et figure au premier plan des études sur cet art, très peu sont en fait bien datées. Récemment, fut signalée la première date pléistocène pour du pigment (peinture, dessin, imprimé ou en négatif) en Terre d’Arnhem, représentant l’un des exemples les plus anciens bien datés d’un art rupestre enfoui (voir Aubert 2012 et David et al. 2013a pour des études récentes sur les datations d’art rupestre australiennes).
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Western Arnhem Land’s rock art is world famous yet very poorly dated. Understanding its history over tens of thousands of years has major implications for understanding Aboriginal cultural history in Australia. In particular, very little... more
Western Arnhem Land’s rock art is world famous yet very poorly dated. Understanding its history over tens of thousands of years has major implications for understanding Aboriginal cultural history in Australia. In particular, very little is known about the composition of paints and the techniques used to make Rock Art. Here we investigate the pigments and rock surfaces of an undated rock painting that has been argued in the literature to represent the extinct megafaunal bird Genyornis newtoni, thought to have become extinct across Australia 40-45 000 years ago. Small flakes of pigmented and unpigmented rock were sampled from the so-called ‘Genyornis’ panel in order to address three major questions concerning: i) the constituents of the pigments used and their modes of preparation (mixing with extender(s) or binder(s); grinding; heat treatment); (ii) the geological formations which provided such pigments; and (iii) the antiquity of paintings on the rock walls. Following macroscopic o...
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Identifying extinct fauna in rock art is a common but difficult exercise. Here we use geometric morphometric analysis of shape to examine the oft-cited painting from Arnhem Land attributed by Gunn et al. to the long-extinct species... more
Identifying extinct fauna in rock art is a common but difficult exercise. Here we use geometric morphometric analysis of shape to examine the oft-cited painting from Arnhem Land attributed by Gunn et al. to the long-extinct species Genyornis newtoni. We compare the shape of key anatomical features in this painting to anatomical depictions of Genyornis as well as to two other possible candidates e the emu and the magpie goose. Comparisons are also made to rock art depictions of these birds from northern Australia. We find that while the so-called 'Genyornis' painting does more closely resemble anatomical depictions of Genyornis than any other bird examined, all rock art images overlap in shape to such a degree that confident assignment of this image to any avian species is problematic.
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Since the 1970s the site of Emo (aka ‘Samoa’, ‘OAC’) in the Gulf Province of Papua New Guinea has been cited as one of the earliest-known ceramic sites from the southern Papuan lowlands. This site has long been seen as holding c.2000 year... more
Since the 1970s the site of Emo (aka ‘Samoa’, ‘OAC’) in the Gulf Province of Papua New Guinea has been cited as one of the earliest-known ceramic sites from the southern Papuan lowlands. This site has long been seen as holding c.2000 year old evidence of post-Lapita long-distance maritime trade from (Austronesian-speaking) Motu homelands in the Central Province, where pottery was manufactured, to the (non- Austronesian) Gulf Province some 400km to the west where pottery was received and for which large quantities of sago were exchanged (the ancestral hiri trade). However, until now the only three radiocarbon dates available for Emo were out of chronostratigraphic sequence, and few details on the site had been published. This paper presents the results of new excavations and the first detailed series of AMS radiocarbon determinations from Emo, thereby resolving long-standing uncertainties about the age of the site and its implications for the antiquity of the long-distance Motuan hiri maritime trade.
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We report newarchaeological excavations from northern Australia revealing part of a charcoal design likely to be c. 28,000 years old (and chrono-stratigraphically constrained within the period 15,600e45,600 cal BP) on a small rock slab... more
We report newarchaeological excavations from northern Australia revealing part of a charcoal design likely to be c. 28,000 years old (and chrono-stratigraphically constrained within the period 15,600e45,600 cal BP) on a small rock slab fallen from the ceiling at the rockshelter of Nawarla Gabarnmang in Jawoyn country, Arnhem Land. This represents the oldest confirmed pictograph in Australia.
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The Giru Dala Council of Elders Aboriginal Corporation is a group of traditional owners who are becoming recognised across Australia as modern pioneers in the area of traditional and contemporary land and sea management. They have... more
The Giru Dala Council of Elders Aboriginal Corporation is a group of traditional owners who are becoming recognised across Australia as modern pioneers in the area of traditional and contemporary land and sea management. They have participated in technical workshops ...
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This paper proposes an explanatory model of occupation for the densely populated Kikori River Delta within Kerewo clan lands in the western Gulf of Papua, Papua New Guinea. We suggest that efforts by local tribes of the Kikori River... more
This paper proposes an explanatory model of occupation for the densely populated Kikori River Delta within Kerewo clan lands in the western Gulf of Papua, Papua New Guinea. We
suggest that efforts by local tribes of the Kikori River Delta to indirectly control the trade of redistributed pots coming from the east led to the initial permanent occupation of the islands and allowed for large population densities as well as the development or expansion of the Kerewo head-hunting cult. Fieldwork to test this model has now been carried out at
3 abandoned ancestral village sites in the Kikori Delta. The archaeological results point to initial establishment of villages in the Delta islands from around 500 years ago. Initial village
establishment coincides with the beginnings of the Hiri trade described in Motu oral traditions and is thus broadly supportive of the proposed model of occupation.
suggest that efforts by local tribes of the Kikori River Delta to indirectly control the trade of redistributed pots coming from the east led to the initial permanent occupation of the islands and allowed for large population densities as well as the development or expansion of the Kerewo head-hunting cult. Fieldwork to test this model has now been carried out at
3 abandoned ancestral village sites in the Kikori Delta. The archaeological results point to initial establishment of villages in the Delta islands from around 500 years ago. Initial village
establishment coincides with the beginnings of the Hiri trade described in Motu oral traditions and is thus broadly supportive of the proposed model of occupation.
In 2003 Ian McNiven published a paper in which he posited that stone arrangements on salt flats at Shoalwater Bay on the central Queensland coast were ritual sites relating to ‘sea peoples’ attempts to “spiritually manage and control... more
In 2003 Ian McNiven published a paper in which he posited that stone arrangements on salt flats at Shoalwater Bay on the central Queensland coast were ritual sites relating to ‘sea
peoples’ attempts to “spiritually manage and control their seas and ultimately orchestrate their seascapes”. This paper describes identical forms of arrangements on salt flats at Mine
Island and posits that this unique form of ceremonial arrangement – duplicated at several sites ranging from Cape Upstart in the north down to Shoalwater Bay in the south - forms part of a culture complex relating to among other things a shared belief system explicitly linked to “spiritual engagements with the sea”. A recent midden excavation directly associated with the Mine Island stone arrangements (one of literally dozens of associated middens) provides the first evidence of a possible temporal framework for the initial
establishment of the stone arrangements and associated ritual practice.
McNiven. I. 2003. Saltwater People: spiritscapes, maritime rituals and the archaeology of
Australian indigenous seascapes. World Archaeology Vol. 35 (3) pp 329-349.
peoples’ attempts to “spiritually manage and control their seas and ultimately orchestrate their seascapes”. This paper describes identical forms of arrangements on salt flats at Mine
Island and posits that this unique form of ceremonial arrangement – duplicated at several sites ranging from Cape Upstart in the north down to Shoalwater Bay in the south - forms part of a culture complex relating to among other things a shared belief system explicitly linked to “spiritual engagements with the sea”. A recent midden excavation directly associated with the Mine Island stone arrangements (one of literally dozens of associated middens) provides the first evidence of a possible temporal framework for the initial
establishment of the stone arrangements and associated ritual practice.
McNiven. I. 2003. Saltwater People: spiritscapes, maritime rituals and the archaeology of
Australian indigenous seascapes. World Archaeology Vol. 35 (3) pp 329-349.
This paper looks at the transformation of notions of boundary amongst the Kesele and Keipte Kuyumen clan groups at Baina, on the upper reaches of the Kikori River. Customary concepts of clan boundary in this region tend to be fluid,... more
This paper looks at the transformation of notions of boundary amongst the Kesele and Keipte Kuyumen clan groups at Baina, on the upper reaches of the Kikori River. Customary concepts of clan boundary in this region tend to be fluid, negotiable and relatively uncontested; however with the increased presence of western multi-national corporations in search of oil and gas, land ownership and boundary demarcation have taken on a new importance. Relationships between land owners and developers have overwritten customary land law with an essentialist and homogenous notion of tradition. Clan owners now require what the ‘western gaze’ recognises as clear and precise clan boundary delineations, which are necessary when negotiating access deals with oil companies. This seminar illustrates the shift in boundary perceptions with reference to a ‘boundary cutting’ ceremony that took place in February 2009 on the upper reaches of the Kikori River.