Journal Article

Author

Spriggs, Matthew

Title

Everything you've been told about the history of Australian archaeology is wrong

In

Bulletin of the history of archaeology

Imprint

vol. 30, no. 1:3, 2020, pp. 1-16

Url

https://doi.org/10.5334/bha-626

Subject

Chronological Classification 1901- Human Sciences

Abstract

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.

Source

cohn 2021

Related entries

People

• Casey, Dermot Armstrong (1897 - 1977)
• Mulvaney, Derek John (John) (1925 - 2016)

See also

• Campbell, Thomas Draper (1893 - 1967)
• Davidson, Daniel Sutherland (1900 - 1952)
• Gill, Edmund Dwen (1908 - 1986)
• McCarthy, Frederick David (1905 - 1997)
• Tindale, Norman Barnett (1900 - 1993)

Related Published resources

isRelated

• Howes, Hilary, 'Aspects of the historiography of Australian archaeology', Historical Records of Australian Science, 32 (2) (2021), 125-40. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR20017. Details