These were bad times, doing anthropology under McCarthy … What happened with McCarthy in the U.S.... more These were bad times, doing anthropology under McCarthy … What happened with McCarthy in the U.S. happened everywhere in the 1950's. It was awful and we thought they were going to arrest all the Communists. I buried my C.P. [Communist Party] literature in the garden. (Worsley et al. 1989:00:50:51) Worsley feared that his academic career was in ruins 'because you couldn't become an anthropologist without doing fieldwork of course, it's the end …' (Worsley et al. 1989:59.07).
were entangled in ways that, although unexpected on first encounter, are perhaps not so surprisin... more were entangled in ways that, although unexpected on first encounter, are perhaps not so surprising on deeper reflection. All three men were born around the turn of the twentieth century, their lives and careers encompassed by the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century traditions of antiquarian curiosity and the museological imperative of universal description and classification, culminating in the mid-tolate twentieth-century transition to more scientific methods of inquiry and analysis. In the first half of the twentieth century, the three men were among a handful of museum professionals,
One hundred and fifty years ago, on a sandstone cliff high above Sydney Harbour, Australia, a num... more One hundred and fifty years ago, on a sandstone cliff high above Sydney Harbour, Australia, a number of individuals began carving the rocks and making their mark upon the land. The people who made these inscriptions were amongst Australia’s first migrants and free settlers who were put in quarantine. The Quarantine Station was established in 1828 to manage and control the spread of infectious diseases in the nascent colony of New South Wales. Who were these people and why were they compelled to mark their presence in stone here? In this paper we explore the words and images inscribed at the North Head Quarantine Station. They are, we suggest, an historical archive of passengers, ship’s names, and ports of origin as well as markers of passage and acts of memorialisation. An evocative testimony to lives held in suspension, we discuss also the profound effect of seeing these inscriptions and realising that for some of their makers the journey remained unfulfilled.
That Was Then, This Is Now is a compendium of innovative research into the ideas, experiences, an... more That Was Then, This Is Now is a compendium of innovative research into the ideas, experiences, and iconographies embodied in materialities of the recent past. Drawing upon a variety of disciplines, including archaeology, history, art, and cultural geography, authors examine themes of relevance to the contemporary world, such as the impacts of automobility, the invisible effects of radioactivity, and the scale of future cities. It serves as a reminder, moreover, that issues that confront us as global citizens – mass consumption, population growth, technological development, and the conditions of belonging – find expression in the everyday objects, images and vestiges encountered in our ordinary lives.
AsÅsa Ferrier notes at the very beginning of Chapter 1, historians have dominated research into i... more AsÅsa Ferrier notes at the very beginning of Chapter 1, historians have dominated research into interactions between Indigenous communities and European colonists during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (p. 3). Yet the fact that the majority of utilised historical documents are written by those with European colonial origins has meant that Indigenous ways of life have often been seen as "passive" entities that are moulded by external economic, political, and cultural forces. While "contact" or "post-colonial" archaeologies have been developed to combat this-for example, in Australia-they have also tended to ignore potential transformations in the culture and subsistence of Indigenous groups both prior to, and following, European arrival, or they have generalised developmental trajectories for an entire landmass (p. 4). This book, however, provides an exemplary case study of how to combine archaeology, oral history and history, in a cultural-and regional-specific approach to archaeological studies of Indigenous-colonial interactions on the Evelyn Tableland, North Queensland. Ferrier's book puts this region and tropical rainforests, which have often been neglected in archaeological studies, on the global map of "contact" archaeology. The specific nature and title of this text may put some readers off, and the apparent division of the main body of the book into three site reports echoes a dissertation-like format. However, as one becomes immersed in the detail Ferrier marshals together from oral histories of Jirrbal members, interviews with twentieth century loggers, historical documents of European explorers and existing archaeological datasets for this region, one realises that a culture-, locale-specific approach is the only way to address the complex topic of Indigenous-European interactions. Indeed, by the end, this book has provided an intimate, well-structured "journey" through long-term changes in Aboriginal land use, culture and subsistence in the Queensland rainforest. The intimacy is increased by the fact that Ferrier draws heavily on discussions with Jirrbal elders, with whom she clearly became close friends, whose
The illustrated short story presented in this volume dedicated to celebrating the ethnobotanical ... more The illustrated short story presented in this volume dedicated to celebrating the ethnobotanical work of Beth Gott is intended to do a number of things. For one thing, it is my attempt to break away from writing about community archaeology in the formal language of academia. Community archaeology started out as a way of breaking down the barriers of archaeological fieldwork to encompass different ways of knowing and different paths of practice. Inevitably, it has become an area for academic discourse and debate far removed from the interactions that shaped the everyday experiences of living and working in a community context. By writing a story around events that really happened I want to honour and remember all the people and families on Groote Eylandt who helped me, with endless patience, learn about country, learn about culture, learn about doing things 'just like us' as my friend Mary would say, and of course, learn about plants. This brings me back to the remarkable lif...
Perhaps the little stories and memorybites presented here will only mean something to those of us... more Perhaps the little stories and memorybites presented here will only mean something to those of us who worked on the Blue Mud Bay project, perhaps they are just a way of remembering for us alone. A few tales to conjure a smile, a memory, a wordscape of sense impressions, a compression of people and events all tied to a landscape, place and political process for a specific period of time. Yet stories about country, about belonging and attachment, are part of an increasingly common and familiar language of heritage and identity in contemporary Australia (for example Arthur 2003; Atkinson 2003; Baker 1999; Clarke and Johnston 2003; Read 1996, 2000; Rose 1996, 2002, Sinatra and Murphy 1999; Veale 2001; Watson 1998). In their introduction to ‘Listen to the People, Listen to the Land,’ a collection of stories told by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians about the ways they connect to land through local knowledge and cultural and personal experiences, Sinatra and Murphy (1999: 7–8...
International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2016
Quarantine was used by British colonial authorities and later by Australian governments to manage... more Quarantine was used by British colonial authorities and later by Australian governments to manage and control the introduction of infectious diseases. Facilities at North Head, Manly, New South Wales, were initially built as a specialist institution but as the need for mass quarantine declined over time, the site was used for other forms of social regulation and welfare. This paper explores an enduring tradition of memorialization, commemoration, and in some instances, resistance to the conditions of isolation and confinement found in the mark-making practices of people held at the Quarantine Station from the 1830s to the 1970s.
Abstract In this paper we present an analysis of the differences and similarities in the spatial ... more Abstract In this paper we present an analysis of the differences and similarities in the spatial distribution of graffiti in two Sydney suburbs: Newtown and Miranda. The research examines the extent to which factors of surveillance, location and legislation affect the range, production and spatial distribution of graffiti. Through the application of conventional archaeological field methods to the contemporary landscape this study has shown how an archaeological approach can test, and thereby validate or refute, general assumptions and proposals generated through other disciplinary frameworks. Results show that the amount of graffiti across the landscape does not follow the simple distinction whereby high visibility locations have low amounts of graffiti, while secluded locations have high amounts. Rather, within each landscape, the intricate interactions of human intention, graffiti policy and the characteristics of the built environment differentially shape graffiti distribution. Furthermore, this study shows that the influence of local community approaches to graffiti management on the typology and distribution of graffiti cannot be underestimated.
Memorialising lives, deaths, and events in landscapes can be authorised, official, and highly reg... more Memorialising lives, deaths, and events in landscapes can be authorised, official, and highly regulated, or spontaneous, unsanctioned, and anti-authoritarian. Interpreting and connecting two sites spanning the Pacific Ocean, this paper explores the inscribed and affective landscapes of Angel Island, San Francisco, and North Head, Sydney. Both sites encompass multivalent histories of defence, quarantine, immigration and leisure. Both also host a continuum of mark-making practices, from informal graffiti to monuments aspiring to direct national narratives. Elaborating the rich and complex layering of histories at each site, we trace the semiotic and emotive circuits traced by their endorsed and vernacular inscriptions. In particular, we question the work done when individual or even surreptitious texts are appropriated-or marketedwithin formal narratives of inclusiveness, reverence and homogeneous nationalism. Drawing upon scholarship from archaeology, history, geography and heritage studies, this analysis argues that formalised commemoration never escapes the potential for counter-readings-that authority and authorship never entirely coincide.
Archaeologists are synonymous with artifacts. With artifacts we construct stories concerning past... more Archaeologists are synonymous with artifacts. With artifacts we construct stories concerning past lives and livelihoods, yet we rarely write of deeply personal encounters or of the way the lives of objects and our lives become enmeshed. In this volume, 23 archaeologists each tell an intimate story of their experience and entanglement with an evocative artifact. Artifacts range from a New Britain obsidian tool to an abandoned Viking toy boat, the marble finger of a classical Greek statue and ordinary pottery fragments from Roman England and Polynesia. Other tales cover contemporary objects, including a toothpick, bell, door, and the blueprint for a 1970s motorcar. These creative stories are self-consciously personal; they derive from real world encounter viewed through the peculiarities and material intimacy of archaeological practice. This text can be used in undergraduate and graduate courses focused on archaeological interpretation and theory, as well as on material culture and st...
These were bad times, doing anthropology under McCarthy … What happened with McCarthy in the U.S.... more These were bad times, doing anthropology under McCarthy … What happened with McCarthy in the U.S. happened everywhere in the 1950's. It was awful and we thought they were going to arrest all the Communists. I buried my C.P. [Communist Party] literature in the garden. (Worsley et al. 1989:00:50:51) Worsley feared that his academic career was in ruins 'because you couldn't become an anthropologist without doing fieldwork of course, it's the end …' (Worsley et al. 1989:59.07).
were entangled in ways that, although unexpected on first encounter, are perhaps not so surprisin... more were entangled in ways that, although unexpected on first encounter, are perhaps not so surprising on deeper reflection. All three men were born around the turn of the twentieth century, their lives and careers encompassed by the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century traditions of antiquarian curiosity and the museological imperative of universal description and classification, culminating in the mid-tolate twentieth-century transition to more scientific methods of inquiry and analysis. In the first half of the twentieth century, the three men were among a handful of museum professionals,
One hundred and fifty years ago, on a sandstone cliff high above Sydney Harbour, Australia, a num... more One hundred and fifty years ago, on a sandstone cliff high above Sydney Harbour, Australia, a number of individuals began carving the rocks and making their mark upon the land. The people who made these inscriptions were amongst Australia’s first migrants and free settlers who were put in quarantine. The Quarantine Station was established in 1828 to manage and control the spread of infectious diseases in the nascent colony of New South Wales. Who were these people and why were they compelled to mark their presence in stone here? In this paper we explore the words and images inscribed at the North Head Quarantine Station. They are, we suggest, an historical archive of passengers, ship’s names, and ports of origin as well as markers of passage and acts of memorialisation. An evocative testimony to lives held in suspension, we discuss also the profound effect of seeing these inscriptions and realising that for some of their makers the journey remained unfulfilled.
That Was Then, This Is Now is a compendium of innovative research into the ideas, experiences, an... more That Was Then, This Is Now is a compendium of innovative research into the ideas, experiences, and iconographies embodied in materialities of the recent past. Drawing upon a variety of disciplines, including archaeology, history, art, and cultural geography, authors examine themes of relevance to the contemporary world, such as the impacts of automobility, the invisible effects of radioactivity, and the scale of future cities. It serves as a reminder, moreover, that issues that confront us as global citizens – mass consumption, population growth, technological development, and the conditions of belonging – find expression in the everyday objects, images and vestiges encountered in our ordinary lives.
AsÅsa Ferrier notes at the very beginning of Chapter 1, historians have dominated research into i... more AsÅsa Ferrier notes at the very beginning of Chapter 1, historians have dominated research into interactions between Indigenous communities and European colonists during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (p. 3). Yet the fact that the majority of utilised historical documents are written by those with European colonial origins has meant that Indigenous ways of life have often been seen as "passive" entities that are moulded by external economic, political, and cultural forces. While "contact" or "post-colonial" archaeologies have been developed to combat this-for example, in Australia-they have also tended to ignore potential transformations in the culture and subsistence of Indigenous groups both prior to, and following, European arrival, or they have generalised developmental trajectories for an entire landmass (p. 4). This book, however, provides an exemplary case study of how to combine archaeology, oral history and history, in a cultural-and regional-specific approach to archaeological studies of Indigenous-colonial interactions on the Evelyn Tableland, North Queensland. Ferrier's book puts this region and tropical rainforests, which have often been neglected in archaeological studies, on the global map of "contact" archaeology. The specific nature and title of this text may put some readers off, and the apparent division of the main body of the book into three site reports echoes a dissertation-like format. However, as one becomes immersed in the detail Ferrier marshals together from oral histories of Jirrbal members, interviews with twentieth century loggers, historical documents of European explorers and existing archaeological datasets for this region, one realises that a culture-, locale-specific approach is the only way to address the complex topic of Indigenous-European interactions. Indeed, by the end, this book has provided an intimate, well-structured "journey" through long-term changes in Aboriginal land use, culture and subsistence in the Queensland rainforest. The intimacy is increased by the fact that Ferrier draws heavily on discussions with Jirrbal elders, with whom she clearly became close friends, whose
The illustrated short story presented in this volume dedicated to celebrating the ethnobotanical ... more The illustrated short story presented in this volume dedicated to celebrating the ethnobotanical work of Beth Gott is intended to do a number of things. For one thing, it is my attempt to break away from writing about community archaeology in the formal language of academia. Community archaeology started out as a way of breaking down the barriers of archaeological fieldwork to encompass different ways of knowing and different paths of practice. Inevitably, it has become an area for academic discourse and debate far removed from the interactions that shaped the everyday experiences of living and working in a community context. By writing a story around events that really happened I want to honour and remember all the people and families on Groote Eylandt who helped me, with endless patience, learn about country, learn about culture, learn about doing things 'just like us' as my friend Mary would say, and of course, learn about plants. This brings me back to the remarkable lif...
Perhaps the little stories and memorybites presented here will only mean something to those of us... more Perhaps the little stories and memorybites presented here will only mean something to those of us who worked on the Blue Mud Bay project, perhaps they are just a way of remembering for us alone. A few tales to conjure a smile, a memory, a wordscape of sense impressions, a compression of people and events all tied to a landscape, place and political process for a specific period of time. Yet stories about country, about belonging and attachment, are part of an increasingly common and familiar language of heritage and identity in contemporary Australia (for example Arthur 2003; Atkinson 2003; Baker 1999; Clarke and Johnston 2003; Read 1996, 2000; Rose 1996, 2002, Sinatra and Murphy 1999; Veale 2001; Watson 1998). In their introduction to ‘Listen to the People, Listen to the Land,’ a collection of stories told by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians about the ways they connect to land through local knowledge and cultural and personal experiences, Sinatra and Murphy (1999: 7–8...
International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2016
Quarantine was used by British colonial authorities and later by Australian governments to manage... more Quarantine was used by British colonial authorities and later by Australian governments to manage and control the introduction of infectious diseases. Facilities at North Head, Manly, New South Wales, were initially built as a specialist institution but as the need for mass quarantine declined over time, the site was used for other forms of social regulation and welfare. This paper explores an enduring tradition of memorialization, commemoration, and in some instances, resistance to the conditions of isolation and confinement found in the mark-making practices of people held at the Quarantine Station from the 1830s to the 1970s.
Abstract In this paper we present an analysis of the differences and similarities in the spatial ... more Abstract In this paper we present an analysis of the differences and similarities in the spatial distribution of graffiti in two Sydney suburbs: Newtown and Miranda. The research examines the extent to which factors of surveillance, location and legislation affect the range, production and spatial distribution of graffiti. Through the application of conventional archaeological field methods to the contemporary landscape this study has shown how an archaeological approach can test, and thereby validate or refute, general assumptions and proposals generated through other disciplinary frameworks. Results show that the amount of graffiti across the landscape does not follow the simple distinction whereby high visibility locations have low amounts of graffiti, while secluded locations have high amounts. Rather, within each landscape, the intricate interactions of human intention, graffiti policy and the characteristics of the built environment differentially shape graffiti distribution. Furthermore, this study shows that the influence of local community approaches to graffiti management on the typology and distribution of graffiti cannot be underestimated.
Memorialising lives, deaths, and events in landscapes can be authorised, official, and highly reg... more Memorialising lives, deaths, and events in landscapes can be authorised, official, and highly regulated, or spontaneous, unsanctioned, and anti-authoritarian. Interpreting and connecting two sites spanning the Pacific Ocean, this paper explores the inscribed and affective landscapes of Angel Island, San Francisco, and North Head, Sydney. Both sites encompass multivalent histories of defence, quarantine, immigration and leisure. Both also host a continuum of mark-making practices, from informal graffiti to monuments aspiring to direct national narratives. Elaborating the rich and complex layering of histories at each site, we trace the semiotic and emotive circuits traced by their endorsed and vernacular inscriptions. In particular, we question the work done when individual or even surreptitious texts are appropriated-or marketedwithin formal narratives of inclusiveness, reverence and homogeneous nationalism. Drawing upon scholarship from archaeology, history, geography and heritage studies, this analysis argues that formalised commemoration never escapes the potential for counter-readings-that authority and authorship never entirely coincide.
Archaeologists are synonymous with artifacts. With artifacts we construct stories concerning past... more Archaeologists are synonymous with artifacts. With artifacts we construct stories concerning past lives and livelihoods, yet we rarely write of deeply personal encounters or of the way the lives of objects and our lives become enmeshed. In this volume, 23 archaeologists each tell an intimate story of their experience and entanglement with an evocative artifact. Artifacts range from a New Britain obsidian tool to an abandoned Viking toy boat, the marble finger of a classical Greek statue and ordinary pottery fragments from Roman England and Polynesia. Other tales cover contemporary objects, including a toothpick, bell, door, and the blueprint for a 1970s motorcar. These creative stories are self-consciously personal; they derive from real world encounter viewed through the peculiarities and material intimacy of archaeological practice. This text can be used in undergraduate and graduate courses focused on archaeological interpretation and theory, as well as on material culture and st...
Combining intensive archaeological investigation and historical research, Stories from the Sandst... more Combining intensive archaeological investigation and historical research, Stories from the Sandstone illuminates Australia’s past through the portal of these intriguing and often evocative inscriptions, as well as North Head’s numerous headstones. Drawing upon historical records, diaries and other writings, the book highlights the dramatic personal and social effects of diseases – such as bubonic plague, typhus fever, ‘Spanish’ flu and smallpox – that once terrified the community. We learn where the authors of the inscriptions came from, why they left their homeland and what became of them.
Uploads
Papers by Anne Clarke