 Subjects -> ARCHAEOLOGY (Total: 300 journals)
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- Histories of Torres Strait Islander interaction and mythological geography
Authors: Duncan Wright, Rod Mitchell, Bronnagh Norris
Pages: 1 - 24
Abstract: Archaeologists and anthropologists have long been interested in the study of past human interaction. In the Indo-Pacific, research has focused on the age and processes by which islands were settled and the role that intermediary communities played in these histories. Torres Strait, on Australia’s northern border, represents one such frontier zone. For millennia this 48,000 km2 area (containing at least 274 islands) separated predominately horticultural and pottery-using Melanesians and hunter-gatherer Australians, a contrast considered by some to be ‘starker and more perplexingly than anywhere else in the world’ (Walker 1972:405). Mirroring archaeological explanations and theoretical interests elsewhere, Coral Sea chronicles have transitioned between those prioritising large-scale migration to narratives of entanglement on the periphery of ancient globalisations. This paper develops the theme of entanglement, exploring distinctive regionally diverging histories of innovation and interaction occurring in Western, Central and Eastern Torres Strait. We suggest that traditional histories, involving the wandering trackways of Culture Heroes, provide useful insights into the deep history of human interactions, thereby helping us to understand patterns observed in the archaeological and linguistic record.
PubDate: 2022-06-03
DOI: 10.25120/qar.25.2022.3883
Issue No: Vol. 25 (2022)
- Beyond bridge and barrier: Reconceptualising Torres Strait as a
co-constructed border zone in ethnographic object distributions between
Queensland and New Guinea
Authors: Ian J. McNiven
Pages: 25 - 46
Abstract: For over 200 years, Western scholarship has presented Torres Strait variously as a bridge and barrier to cultural influences between mainland New Guinea and Australia. An alternative approach is to see Torres Strait as neither a bridge (permeable boundary) nor a barrier (impervious boundary) but as a socially and culturally co-constructed border zone. Central to this new approach is conceptualisation of the Coral Sea Cultural Interaction Sphere (CSCIS) that centres on a series of ethnographically-known, canoe-based, long-distance maritime exchange networks that linked communities and information on objects over a distance of 2000 km along the south coast of Papua New Guinea and the northeast coast of Australia. The CSCIS emphasises Indigenous agency and the shared/selective uptake of objects and ideas by potential recipient communities across Torres Strait and their New Guinea neighbours to the north and mainland Australian neighbours to the south. Object distribution maps created using data derived from anthropological texts and museum online catalogues reveal continuities and discontinuities in the distribution of selected objects across the study area. These maps illustrate three forms of object uptake: (1) shared uptake of double-outrigger canoes and bamboo smoking pipes between New Guinea, Torres Strait and Australia; (2) selective uptake of dog-tooth necklaces and cone shell armbands between New Guinea and Torres Strait and not Australia; and (3) selective uptake of nautilus bead headbands and shell-handled spearthrowers between Australia and Torres Strait and not New Guinea. Archaeological evidence for temporal changes in the geographical spread of pottery indicates that the CSCIS was historically dynamic, with numerous reconfigurations over the past 3000 years. Enhanced understanding of the CSCIS requires the addition of contemporary Indigenous perspectives.
PubDate: 2022-06-03
DOI: 10.25120/qar.25.2022.3885
Issue No: Vol. 25 (2022)
- Evidence of external contact between the Pacific Basin and the east coast
of Australia during the Holocene: A review
Authors: Michael J. Rowland, Raymond C. Kerkhove
Pages: 47 - 66
Abstract: The prospect that First Nations Australians were in contact with cultures beyond Australia prior to European arrival has fascinated theorists for over a century. Early views tended to see Aboriginal culture as too primitive to have independently developed ‘higher level’ cultural traits. Once this view was abandoned, further enquiry into external contact largely ceased. However, it has been gradually recognised that transformations occurred within Australia not only independently but also through external elements arriving from the north (Macassans and Papuans). This paper offers perhaps the first comprehensive overview of a less studied potential conduit: the eastern seaboard of Australia. Given the vast scale of the eastern seaboard (and its geographic position directly opposite the seafaring cultures of the Pacific Basin it is surprising that the notion of contact between these two realms has received such limited attention. The east coast is a potentially very large target for contact. Queensland and New South Wales mainland and island coastlines comprise in excess of 15,000 km. The Pacific Basin is similarly a huge potential source for contact, covering over one-third of the world’s surface, and containing over 20,000 islands. Our paper first considers the contrast between studies of the eastern and western edges of the Pacific Basin, and then the means (and evidence) by which ‘contact’ is normally discerned. We next consider the potential for contact based on ocean currents and similar factors. The bulk of the paper assesses specific source regions and purported evidence of contact from these regions: Papua New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia and two islands between these areas (Norfolk and Lord Howe). Our study concludes that evidence for Pacific-Australian contact ought to be relatively abundant, given the size of the source area (the Pacific Basin) and the target area (the eastern seaboard). Instead, contact must have been very limited and sporadic, as most evidence has been either inconclusive or requires further substantiation. Equally, the impact of these cultures on the development of Australian First Nations seems to have been negligible. On the other hand, this review accumulated enough evidence to suggest there was considerable potential for such contacts. We conclude that archaeological frameworks should be developed to investigate purported and possible Pacific-Eastern seaboard contacts.
PubDate: 2022-06-10
DOI: 10.25120/qar.25.2022.3889
Issue No: Vol. 25 (2022)
- Location of historic mass graves from the 1919 Spanish Influenza in the
Aboriginal community of Cherbourg using geophysics
Authors: Kelsey M. Lowe, Eric Law
Pages: 67 - 81
Abstract: The Spanish Influenza of 1919 had a devastating effect on Aboriginal Australian communities, particularly Cherbourg (formerly known as Barambah Aboriginal Reserve), which resulted in a loss of ~15% of their population. Deaths happened so quickly that coffins were not built and, in some cases, trenches or mass graves were used to inter the dead in addition to individual graves. Although the trench locations were formally unknown by the Cherbourg community today, a major concern of the Cherbourg Elders is that they wanted to memorialise those affected by the 1919 pandemic, especially 100 years later. One attempt to locate the mass graves was to apply geophysical methods in the New and Old Cherbourg cemeteries to detect these unmarked burials. Our paper demonstrates how ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and magnetic gradiometry were used along with oral histories and Indigenous knowledge to detect three mass graves associated with the Spanish Influenza. Outcomes such as this play an important role is supporting ‘Truth Telling’ for the Cherbourg Aboriginal community.
PubDate: 2022-06-16
DOI: 10.25120/qar.25.2022.3890
Issue No: Vol. 25 (2022)
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