2018 CAS Seminars
The Missing Chapter of Hunters and CollectorsTom Griffiths’ (1996) much celebrated book Hunters and Collectors: the antiquarian imagination in Australia was a landmark in our understanding of the early history of archaeology in Australia. Its only absence was a consideration of the wider regional and further connections of early archaeologists and antiquarians. Looking at the period between the Wars, 1918 to 1939/1941 I illustrate just how wide those connections were for ethnologists and early archaeologists whose primary research area was in Australia itself. Norman Tindale (1900-1993) and Frederick McCarthy (1905-1997) were important figures in this regard, and pioneer excavators. Apart from his anthropological studies, Tindale had New Guinea interests and went on an important tour of European and American museums to look at Australian collections in the late 1930s. Not only did McCarthy propose significant Melanesian and Southeast Asian influences upon indigenous Australian culture, he also joined pioneering excavations on Sulawesi in Indonesia led by the Dutch in the 1930s to get a handle on first settlement of Australia. Meanwhile Dermot Casey (1897-1977) was honing his excavation skills with Mortimer Wheeler at various sites in England to become Australia’s most highly trained field archaeologist of the interwar period, and studying collections of what is now identified as Lapita pottery sent by Father Meyer from Watom Island, off New Britain in the then Territory of New Guinea. Casey later dug with John Mulvaney at Fromm’s Landing in the 1950s, and Mulvaney himself had an Indonesian excursion in the late 1960s digging exactly the same sorts of sites as McCarthy had in South Sulawesi thirty-odd years before. It is time to get over the myth that serious archaeology in Australia and its accompanying international engagement began only in the Post WWII period.
Wednesday 21 February 2018, 6pm. National Museum of Australia. $5 entry fee; CAS & Friends Full members free. Bookings essential: https://friendscaslectures.eventbrite.com.au |
Moth Hunters of the ACT: Indigenous Traditional Life in the Canberra RegionThe story of Indigenous people’s survival skills in the harsh environment of the Australian Alps and unique exploitation of nutritious Bogong moths deserves to be more widely known and celebrated, hence this account focusing on the rich ethnographic accounts. Annual feasting on the Bogong moth took place every summer on the summits of the Australian Alps. From 1970 to 1973 Dr Josephine Flood did a doctorate at ANU on ‘The moth-hunters - investigations towards a prehistory of the south-eastern highlands of Australia’. She has published the results extensively and did further research in the 1980s with CAS including excavation of Birrigai rock-shelter. Human occupation at Birrigai is now dated to 25,000 years. In the 1980s CAS also helped in the production of a Schools Kit when Aboriginal Studies were introduced into ACT schools, culminating in a moth feast on the top of Mt Gingera! Other research has shed light on the value of insects as human food and has pushed back the antiquity of moth-hunting.
Wednesday 21 March 2018, 6pm. National Museum of Australia. $5 entry fee; CAS & Friends Full members free. Bookings essential: https://friendscaslectures.eventbrite.com.au |
Homo floresiensis: A Review of Research - The First 13 YearsThirteen years ago the discovery of a small partial skeleton and other comparable bones were attributed to a new hominid species, Homo floresiensis. This caused a sensation - headlines swept around the world, blog pages were crammed, controversy reigned. And no wonder. Nothing like it had been discovered in this part of the world. The species is tiny– around one meter tall, with a very small brain of 426 cubic centimeters, combined with a totally unexpected suite of characteristics. Debbie Argue will review this colourful history, explain the strange combination of characters, and present the latest research
Wednesday 18 April 2018, 6pm. National Museum of Australia. $5 entry fee; CAS & Friends Full members free. Bookings essential: .https://friendscaslectures.eventbrite.com.au |
Common Cores in the High Country - The Archaeology and Environmental History of the Namadgi RangesIn this seminar, Fenja Theden-Ringl presents and update of the archaeological and environmental histories of the southeastern Australian 'high country' from the terminal Pleistocene to the recent past. Combining archaeological excavations of rock shelter sites with environmental reconstructions from adjacent peatlands in the Namadgi Ranges, the project aims to reinvigorate discussion on when and how Aboriginal people were active in the mountains, and whether human activity was intrinsically linked to the environmental and landscape histories of the region. New AMS radiocarbon dates, sediment geochemistry, quantitative stone artefact analyses and other proxies contribute to characterising several broad phases of occupation and associated technological patterns in the high country and around its margins. A regional environmental context - informed by fire event reconstructions, stratigraphic clues in peat sediments, geochemical signatures of landscape productivity and instability, and a detailed faunal record from Wee Jasper - provides a backdrop of changing climates and landscape processes to which Aboriginal people adapted and responded over thousands of years.
Thursday 11 October 2018, 6pm. National Museum of Australia. $5 entry fee; CAS & Friends Full members free. Bookings essential: https://friendscaslectures.eventbrite.com.au |
One Place, Many Stories: Bringing Communities Together through Cultural HeritageHear how local farmers and Ngunawal and Ngambri custodians are working together through shared aspirations to 'care for country' while also discovering the many histories these places hold. This talk relays the story of an emerging social experiment taking place in the Canberra, Bungendore and the Sutton region. The Ngunawal and Ngambri Custodians of ACT and NSW have been working together with local Property Owners, the Vincent Family (from 'Gollion' near Sutton, NSW) and the Watson Family (from 'Millpost',near Bungendore, NSW), to identify Aboriginal sites present on their farms. This has resulted in discovery of the Gollion Ochre Quarry and the Millpost Axe Quarry, both important local heritage places. Protection, management and research into these special places, has allowed trust, respect and strong friendships to be built and has been beneficial for all those lucky enough to be involved.
This talk is presented by our community members who have come together in a spirit of reconciliation.
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New Research on the "Plain of Jars", Laos: Unravelling the mystery of the megalithsThe CAS AGM will be held immediately prior to Dougald's seminar at the NMA. Please join us from 5:00 to 5:45pm for the AGM - your involvement is required to meet quorum! All are welcome! This is also a great opportunity to meet the society, become a member, or renew your membership if you are a current member. Remember that memberships help CAS put on great events and supports our lecture series!
At 6:00pm, Dr Dougald O'Reilly will deliver the final CAS seminar of 2018. Please see the abstract below: The archaeological landscape of the Plain of Jars in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) constitutes one of the great prehistoric puzzles of Southeast Asia. Located in Xieng Khouang province in central-east Lao PDR, these enigmatic archaeological sites comprise giant stone jars scattered across the landscape, appearing alone or in clusters of up to several hundred. It is hypothesized that the jar sites represent the prehistoric mortuary remains of an elusive, powerful and expansive chiefdom that existed from the Iron Age (c.500 BCE-500 CE) into historic times. Little archaeological excavation has been undertaken at the jar sites since the first published survey and excavation in the 1930s due to the presence of unexploded ordnance (UXO). Recent archaeological excavations funded by the Australian Research Council in 2016 and 2017 reveal an extensive burial ground at Site 1 with jars, discs and other grave markers and the identification of 4 new quarry sites near Site 52. Our research aims to shed light on the function and geographic extent of the jar sites, identify occupation and quarry sites associated with the jars, to learn more about the culture that built the jar sites and to create an enduring digital record of the sites to assist in heritage management and conservation. Close parallels can also be found with jar sites located in the Cachar Hills in northeast India providing some indication of the extent of the culture and these sites will be explored in an upcoming field season. Wednesday 21 November 2018, 5-7pm. National Museum of Australia. $5 entry fee; CAS & Friends Full members free. Bookings essential: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/canberra-archaeological-society-lecture-the-plain-of-jars-laos-unravelling-the-mystery-of-the-tickets-52293570477 |
2018 Centre for Archaeological Research (CAR) Seminars
Fishing for Answers: Taphonomy, Zooarchaeology and Human Remains from Wallacean IslandsDr Sofia Samper Carro presents an assessment of past human adaptation and subsistence practices in Alor island during the late Pleistocene and Holocene. Her research focuses on analysing the bone accumulations documented in Alor, whole implementing traditional methodological practices for the analysis of icthyoarchaeological assemblages. Hence, new methodological considerations have been suggested, from a theoretical and practical point of view, including the implementation of geometric morphometric techniques to identify fish habitat and experiments on fish cooking. At the same time, the human remains from Alor were analysed, providing insights into human migration, ancestry and lifestyle during the late Pleistocene. The different aspects of her research will be related to those addressed in previous studies from different nearby islands, providing a general view of the human subsistence practices in the Wallacean islands.
ANU, Sir Roland Wilson Bldg, Theatre Room 2.02 Friday 16 February, 3:30-4:45pm Free Entry |
An Experimental Approach Towards Understanding the Chaîne Opératoire of House Construction: Implications for Microwear AnalysisAnnelou van Gijn is professor of Archaeological Material Culture and Artefact Studies at Leiden University and studied anthropology and archaeology at Washington State University in Pullman (US) and the University of Groningen (NL). She obtained her PhD at Leiden University in 1990. Her teaching and research focuses on prehistoric technology, ancient crafts, experimentation and the reconstruction of the cultural biography of objects. She is a specialist in microwear and residue analysis and is leading an extensive experimental house building project using only Stone Age tools. Annelou has established and is directing the Leiden Laboratory for Artefacts Studies (www.artefactstudies.com) http://leidenuniv.academia.edu/AnnelouVanGijn
ANU, Sir Roland Wilson Bldg, Theatre Room 2.02 Friday 16 March, 3:30-4:45pm Free Entry |
Using Isotopes to Track Past Human MigrationsIsotope analysis of human and animal bone and teeth can be used to determine their geographic origin, and how they moved over their lifetime. In contrast to DNA and linguistic analysis, which can determine origins and migrations over generations, isotope analysis has the promise of being able to identify movements of individuals at different points of their lives. The method has limitations, but can be used to address both larger archaeological questions of past population movements and also provide a glimpse into the life histories of individual skeletons. In this talk, Dr Michael Richards will introduce the methods we use for this analysis (strontium and sulphur isotope analysis) and then provide examples of how we have been able to apply this method to look for human
migration and movements in a variety of current and unpublished case studies. These will include Neanderthal mobility in Europe, identifying possible pilgrims at Roman and Byzantine sites in Turkey, and a recent application in the Pacific, at the site of Sigatoka, Fiji. ANU, Sir Roland Wilson Bldg, Theatre Room 2.02 Friday 27 April, 3:30-4:45pm Free Entry |
Studying Tropical Forest Resource Reliance in HomininsIn palaeoanthropology, tropical forests have traditionally been seen as being left behind as hominins developed tool use, bipedalism, and the utilization of small and medium game in 'savanna' settings. A similar perspective is also evident in archaeology, with these environments often being seen as barriers to the migration of human foragers and farmers, providing limited reliable protein and carbohydrate resources. While archaeological research over the past two decades has questioned these perspectives, it has remained difficult on the basis of zooarchaeology and archaeology alone to determine the degree to which hominin populations made use of tropical forests. This is, in part, a result of the limited preservation of organic remains in challenging taphonomic conditions. Here, Dr Patrick Roberts will discuss the benefits of stable carbon and oxygen isotope analysis of hominin, and associated faunal, tooth enamel as a means of directly determining the tropical forest reliance and palaeoenvironmental associated of homnin taxa, including different populations of our own species around the globe. This methodology has helped to reveal details insight into the adaptive context of the emergence of our genus in Africa, the expansion of Homo sapiens throughout Asia and Melanesia, and the development and movement of agricultural groups into tropical forest settings around the globe. Future application offers further promise to test the unique adaptive plasticity of our species as well as to further question the assumption that tropical agriculture required large-scale clearance and unilinear trajectories.
ANU, Sir Roland Wilson Bldg, Theatre Room 2.02 Friday 11 May, 3:30-5:00pm Free Entry |
Common Cores in the High Country - The Archaeology and Environmental History of the Namadgi RangesIn this seminar, Fenja Theden-Ringl presents and update of the archaeological and environmental histories of the southeastern Australian 'high country' from the terminal Pleistocene to the recent past. Combining archaeological excavations of rock shelter sites with environmental reconstructions from adjacent peatlands in the Namadgi Ranges, the project aims to reinvigorate discussion on when and how Aboriginal people were active in the mountains, and whether human activity was intrinsically linked to the environmental and landscape histories of the region. New AMS radiocarbon dates, sediment geochemistry, quantitative stone artefact analyses and other proxies contribute to characterising several broad phases of occupation and associated technological patterns in the high country and around its margins. A regional environmental context - informed by fire event reconstructions, stratigraphic clues in peat sediments, geochemical signatures of landscape productivity and instability, and a detailed faunal record from Wee Jasper - provides a backdrop of changing climates and landscape processes to which Aboriginal people adapted and responded over thousands of years.
ANU, Sir Roland Wilson Bldg, Theatre Room 2.02 Friday 18 May, 3:30-5:00pm Free Entry |
Three Thousand Year Old Place Names - Implications for the History and Structure of the Yolngu Social FormationIn the first part of the paper, Prof. Howard Morphy & Ass. Prof. Frances Morphy present an analysis of a set of Yolngu place names in northern Blue Mud Bay using archaeological, anthropological and linguistic data to suggest that these names have been in place for at least three thousand years. We then argue that, if this is the case, certain social practices and cultural mechanisms for the transmission of place names over time have probably existed in the area since the Holocene. Yolngu believe that enduring relations between people and place stem from the deep past.
Their oral histories also hint at a direction of movement of gurrutu (kin relations) and Wangarr (Ancestral connections) that suggest Blue Mud Bay was the origin point from which Yolngu dialect chains and forms of governance spread inland to the north, west, and south. Using linguistic and anthropological analysis of the contemporary Yolngu region we will argue that these historical processes were ongoing at the time of European colonisation. ANU, Sir Roland Wilson Bldg, Theatre Room 2.02 Friday 27 July, 3:30-5:00pm Free Entry |
Protecting Cultural Property in Conflict - Critical Responsability or unnecessary, impossible, distraction?Prof. Peter Stone will discuss how cultural property (not only archaeological sites but archives, library and museum collections, and art) is always damaged and destroyed during a conflict - it is what happens, and there is nothing that can be done about it. However, a proportion of such damage and destruction is frequently avoidable and has been regarded as bad practice by military theorists for over 2,000 years.
During both the First and Second World Wars military units were created to try to protect cultural property. These were largely broken up at the end of the Second World War and, despite the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its two Protocols of 1954 and 1999, the military - and heritage community - essentially forgot the importance of trying to protect cultural property during conflict. It was only following the disastrous destruction and looting that followed the war in the former Yugoslavia and the 2003 invasion of Iraq that the issue returned to the agenda. The Blue Shield organisation was created in 1996 in an attempt to raise the profile of cultural property protection. Since then it has worked with the military and other relevant organisations to flag the importance of this work. Progress has been slow but recently significant steps have been taken. ANU, Sir Roland Wilson Bldg, Theatre Room 2.02 Friday 10 August, 3:30-5:00pm Free Entry |
Prehistoric long-distance interaction or historic trade and exchange in Polynesia? Portable X-ray Fluorescence and historic analyses of old museum collectionsIn this presentation, Michelle Richards examines the role adzes have played in the history of Pacific archaeology from pioneering collectors in the eighteenth-century to twenty-first-century geo-archaeological advances, including basalt provenancing that has revolutionized exchange studies. Polynesian adzes are a common item in museum collections made before the Second World War, the majority of them surface collected.
This has always been recognized as a limiting factor for archaeologists wishing to use these adzes to investigate ancient Polynesians - except, perhaps, if a credible individual, a scholar, a notable anthropologist or archaeologist had collected the adzes. However, this is still a dangerous line of enquiry that relies on many assumptions. Significantly, the division of 'prehistoric' and 'historic' archaeologies in Polynesia is a serious concern when attempting to use museum objects as archaeological evidence. To address these issues, old museum collections were revisited with non-destructive portable X-ray fluorescence to obtain the elemental compositions of Polynesian basalt adzes for geochemical analysis. Adze typologies and the European colonial collecting culture were examined to historically situate the collections and the archaeological interpretations attached to the objects. Additionally, stone poi pounders - a more recent Polynesian object - were included in this study to compare and contrast the patterns of manufacture, trade and exchange of carved stone artefacts from prehistoric and historic periods. ANU, Sir Roland Wilson Bldg, Theatre Room 2.02 Friday 24 August, 3:30-5:00pm Free Entry |
Ancient microbial DNA in dental calculus: a promising tool for studying past human movementsA research seminar co-hosted by Biological Anthropology and CAR. Not to be missed!
Thirty years ago, Keith Dobney and Don Brothwell discovered that ancient dental calculus from humans and other animals contains calcified microorganisms. Today, technological and analytical improvements have given us an opportunity to investigate the DNA of these ancient microorganisms and harness this information to learn more about human prehistory. In this seminar, Dr Raphael Eisenhofer will explore the potential (and challenges) of applying ancient DNA techniques to human dental calculus and explain how the microbial DNA preserved within dental calculus may be well suited to inferring past human movements. Raphael will present the latest work on applying these techniques to ancient dental calculus from the Pacific, with the goal of reconstructing past human movements in Polynesia. ANU, Sir Roland Wilson Bldg, Seminar Room 3.03/3.04 Thursday 4 October, 4:00-5:00pm Free Entry |
A barrow by the sea: recent excavations at Hendersick barrow, CornwallDr. Catherine Frieman will discuss the preliminary results of the 2018 field season at Hendersick Barrow, Cornwall.
ANU, Sir Roland Wilson Bldg, Theatre 2.02 Friday 12 October, 3:30-5:00pm Free Entry |
To Be AnnouncedStay tuned!
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