Article ID: CBB069456008

Everything You’ve Been Told About the History of Australian Archaeology is Wrong! (2020)

unapi

This paper challenges the oft-repeated conventional story of the beginning of ‘modern’ Australian archaeology, seen as the era of the professional archaeologist that succeeded an undisciplined phase of indiscriminate collecting of skulls and stone artefacts by ‘amateurs’ who, on the whole, believed that Indigenous Australians had arrived on the continent so recently that any excavation of archaeological sites would be pointless. Cambridge-trained John Mulvaney’s excavations at Fromm’s Landing on the Murray River in South Australia commencing in January 1956 have been seen most recently as marking the decisive break, one between ‘good’, professional and ethical archaeology and the earlier ‘bad’ amateur period of mere antiquarianism, ignoring the concerns of and trampling upon the rights of Indigenous Australians in the spirit of triumphant colonialism. This contrast is inaccurate, overdrawn, and ignores the positive contribution of many earlier conscientious scholars; labelling all of them as ‘amateurs’ confuses rather than enlightens the history of Australian archaeology.

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Authors & Contributors
McDonald, Jo
Richards, Michelle J.
Günther, Jasmin
Spriggs, Matthew
Melander, Victor
Lahiri, Nayanjot
Concepts
Archaeology
Excavations (archaeology)
Indigenous peoples; indigeneity
Amateurs
Historiography
Migration
Time Periods
20th century
20th century, late
Ancient
19th century
Iron age
Prehistory
Places
Australia
Polynesia
Islands of the Pacific
Wales
United States
North America
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