Ian J . McNiven | Monash University (original) (raw)

Books by Ian J . McNiven

Rock art is one of the most visible and geographically widespread of cultural expressions, and it... more Rock art is one of the most visible and geographically widespread of cultural expressions, and it spans much of the period of our species’ existence. Rock art also provides rare and often unique insights into the minds and visually creative capacities of our ancestors and how selected rock outcrops with distinctive images were used to construct symbolic landscapes and shape worldviews. Equally important, rock art is often central to the expression of and engagement with spiritual entities and forces, and in all these dimensions it signals the diversity of cultural practices, across place and through time. Over the past 150 years, archaeologists have studied ancient arts on rock surfaces, both out in the open and within caves and rock shelters, and social anthropologists have revealed how people today use art in their daily lives. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art showcases examples of such research from around the world and across a broad range of cultural contexts, giving a sense of the art’s regional variability, its antiquity, and how it is meaningful to people in the recent past and today – including how we have ourselves tended to make sense of the art of others, replete with our own preconceptions. It reviews past, present, and emerging theoretical approaches to rock art investigation and presents new, cutting edge methods of rock art analysis for the student and professional researcher alike

Monograph dossier published by the Commonwealth of Australia for the nomination of the Budj Bim C... more Monograph dossier published by the Commonwealth of Australia for the nomination of the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape (Gunditjmara Counry) in SW Victoria for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
ISBN: 978-1-921069-08-6

Archaeology has been complicit in the appropriation of indigenous peoples' pasts worldwide. While... more Archaeology has been complicit in the appropriation of indigenous peoples' pasts worldwide. While tales of blatant archaeological colonialism abound from the era of empire, the process also took more subtle and insidious forms. Ian McNiven and Lynette Russell outline archaeology's "colonial culture" and how it has shaped archaeological practice over the past century. Using examples from their native Australia- and comparative material from North America, Africa, and elsewhere- the authors show how colonized peoples were objectified by research, had their needs subordinated to those of science, were disassociated from their accomplishments by theories of diffusion, watched their histories reshaped by western concepts of social evolution, and had their cultures appropriated toward nationalist ends. The authors conclude by offering a decolonized archaeological practice through collaborative partnership with native peoples in understanding their past.

Building on the foundational work of Harry Lourandos, the book critically examines and challenges... more Building on the foundational work of Harry Lourandos, the book critically examines and challenges traditional approaches which have presented Indigenous Australian pasts as static and tethered to ecological rationalism.

The book reveals the ancient past of Aboriginal Australians to be one of long-term changes in social relationships and traditions, as well as the active management and manipulation of the environment. It encourages a deeper appreciation of the ways Aboriginal peoples have engaged with, and constructed their worlds. It solicits a deeper understanding of the contemporary political and social context of research and the insidious impacts of colonialist philosophies. In short, it concerns people: both past and present.

Ultimately, The social archaeology of Australian Indigenous societies looks beyond the stereotype of Aboriginal peoples as ‘hunter-gatherers’ and charts new and challenging agendas for Australian Aboriginal archaeology.

This volume pulls together a broad range of 35 chapters on the Indigenous coastal archaeology of ... more This volume pulls together a broad range of 35 chapters on the Indigenous coastal archaeology of Australia and selected parts of the Southwest Pacific.

One of the most famous shipwreck sagas of the 19th century took place on the tropical coast of no... more One of the most famous shipwreck sagas of the 19th century took place on the tropical coast of north-east Australia. In 1836 the Stirling Castle was wrecked off the Queensland coast and many of the crew, together with the captain's wife, Eliza Fraser, were marooned on Fraser Island. Early sensationalized accounts represent Mrs Fraser as an innocent white victim of colonialism and her Aboriginal captors as barbarous savages. These "first contact" narratives of the white woman and her Aboriginal "captors" impacted significantly on England and the politics of Empire at an early stage in Australia's colonial history. The text critically examines the Eliza Fraser episode by bringing together an interdisciplinary team of authors, artists, members of the Fraser Island Aboriginal community and academics in the areas of cultural and women's studies, literature, history, anthropology, archaeology, the visual and creative arts. This book Essays include feminist analyses of the incident, investigations of textual and visual representations of Aboriginal people, and considerations of the role played by Elisa Fraser as creative inspiration for the arts. The text explores the constructions of Empire, colonialism, identity, femininity, savagery, otherness, captivity and survival.

Special Journal Issues by Ian J . McNiven

The Artefact: Special issue in Honour of Ron Vanderwal, 2010

This special issue of The Artefact is a presentation to Ron Vanderwal to honour and celebrate his... more This special issue of The Artefact is a presentation to Ron Vanderwal to honour and celebrate his contributions to anthropology, archaeology, and museum studies. We have decided to highlight one facet of Ron’s career by focusing on southern coastal New Guinea and Torres Strait. Over the past decade, both regions have witnessed a resurgence of archaeological research that is transforming our understandings of the history of human migrations, settlement, and social developments in this culturally dynamic region over the past 4000 years. It is fair to say that modern research agendas continue to seek answers to complex questions foreshadowed in Ron’s pioneering studies four decades ago. The volume brings together scholars old and new who all gratefully acknowledge Ron’s foundational research and its continuing relevance and inspiration. We have deliberately placed these celebratory papers in The Artefact in acknowledgement of Ron’s enduring support for the journal and the Archaeological & Anthropological Society of Victoria over many years.

Memoirs of the Queensland Museum / Culture, 2004

This special issue of the Memoirs of the Queensland Museum Cultural Heritage Series brings togeth... more This special issue of the Memoirs of the Queensland Museum Cultural Heritage Series brings together a wide range of scholarship on the archaeology and material culture of Torres Strait undertaken over the last 20 years. With renewed archaeological interest in the region, much of the earlier scholarship was in danger of being forgotten or even lost. Thus the volume benchmarks current archaeological understandings of Torres Strait to lay foundations for the next generation of archaeological research. While most papers concern Torres Strait Islander history Bepotaim (before the Coming of the Light), attention is also given to the archaeology of shipwrecks, the pearling industry and stone tool use across the adjacent Papuan lowlands. The papers show how fruitful research results occur when a synergy exists between material heritage (including archaeological and museum items), historical records and contemporary oral testimony. The secret to such synergies is meaningful collaborations between outsiders (mostly university researchers) and Torres Strait Islanders. Yet formal academic publications resulting from such collaborative research is only part of the story. Torres Strait Islanders only see value in the results of collaborative research if it complements existing Islander narratives and processes of history and identity construction. Thus, the papers in this volume – all authored by non-Islanders – represent only one dimension of the history building process. The end result of that process for Islanders resides within Torres Strait Islander communities beyond the gaze of outsiders. Outsiders will only ever come to understand and appreciate these end results when they are expressed through Islander worldviews in publications either co-authored by Torres Strait Islanders or written and researched by Islanders themselves.

To ensure that scholarship produces useful and complementary information, a number of Islander communities across the Torres Strait have begun hosting long-term archaeological research projects. While most research involves archaeologists from the Programme for Australian Indigenous Archaeology at Monash University in Melbourne, a range of other institutions such as James Cook University in Townsville have commitments to researching the region’s long-term history. But just as Torres Strait Islander communities have entered into research partnerships to better understand their past, commitment is required from government heritage agencies for ongoing protection and management of the region’s rich archaeological heritage. All of the papers in this volume are based upon research on material heritage that requires active management to be available to future generations of Torres Strait Islanders.

A key issue that pervades Torres Strait’s more than 2500 years of human history is the region’s dynamic role as a bridge and barrier to cultural and environmental processes between the Australian and Melanesian worlds. This dynamism reflects the fundamental fact that Torres Strait Islanders today, as in the past, are one of the world’s most specialised maritime peoples, weaving complex webs of social, political and economic ties between island communities and between island and nearby mainland communities. For thousands of years, material culture, food items, plants and animals were moved around the region to create the highly anthropomorphised land- and seascapes that we see today. In fact, the more we look into the long-term history of the region, the more we appreciate that Torres Strait Islanders modified and made their world. The history of this constructed world is both dynamic and complex owing to a mosaic of island, reef, and sea habitats coupled with myriad distinctive Islander communities and cultures. Papers in this volume reveal some of the ways archaeological research allows us to access some of the familiar and not so familiar historical dimensions of this constructed world.

In this volume, New Guinea refers to the large island comprising Papua New Guinea (PNG) in the east and Irian Jaya or West Papua (part of Indonesia) in the west. In the context of Torres Strait research, Papua refers to the lowlands region of southern central New Guinea and Papuans the indigenous peoples of this region.

Ian J. McNiven & Michael Quinnell
Issue Editors

MEMOIRS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM |CULTURE, 2015

The past 40 years has seen considerable research activity on Mabuyag sponsored by universities (e... more The past 40 years has seen considerable research activity on Mabuyag sponsored by universities (e.g. University College London, Monash University, James Cook University) and more recently environmental and anthropological research commissioned by the Torres Strait Regional Authority, an Australian Government statutory authority (Thursday Island). Much of this research has ended up in unpublished reports (‘grey literature’) and theses written by researchers who have either moved on to new research topics and places or have retired. As such, a rare window of opportunity existed to invite many of these researchers to formally write up research results into a single volume as a permanent record to catalogue and celebrate the broad range of scholarship focused on Mabuyag in recent years and to showcase the extraordinary cultural and environmental history of Mabuyag to a wider audience. Such was the response to our invitations that papers expanded to two volumes and over 400,000 words. Most importantly, this permanent record is an opportunity for researchers to say thank you to those Goemulgal, past and present, who have made this research possible, and for the people of Mabuyag to see some of the fruits of their research collaborations with outsiders.

MEMOIRS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM |CULTURE , 2015

The past 40 years has seen considerable research activity on Mabuyag sponsored by universities (e... more The past 40 years has seen considerable research activity on Mabuyag sponsored by universities (e.g. University College London, Monash University, James Cook University) and more recently environmental and anthropological research commissioned by the Torres Strait Regional Authority, an Australian Government statutory authority (Thursday Island). Much of this research has ended up in unpublished reports (‘grey literature’) and theses written by researchers who have either moved on to new research topics and places or have retired. As such, a rare window of opportunity existed to invite many of these researchers to formally write up research results into a single volume as a permanent record to catalogue and celebrate the broad range of scholarship focused on Mabuyag in recent years and to showcase the extraordinary cultural and environmental history of Mabuyag to a wider audience. Such was the response to our invitations that papers expanded to two volumes and over 400,000 words. Most importantly, this permanent record is an opportunity for researchers to say thank you to those Goemulgal, past and present, who have made this research possible, and for the people of Mabuyag to see some of the fruits of their research collaborations with outsiders.

In this review volume, we bring together researchers and institutions involved in Australian isla... more In this review volume, we bring together researchers and institutions involved in Australian island research to provide a contemporary synthesis and benchmark on archaeological and palaeoenvironmental research of Australian island environments. The last major overview of Australian islands archaeological research appeared 16 years ago in the volume Australian Coastal Archaeology (Hall and McNiven, 1999). At that time, the main geographical areas of dynamic islands research in Australia were northwest Western Australia, and central and southeast Queensland. Since 1999, Torres Strait has developed as the most dynamic region of islands research in Australia, and this new volume showcases the range of recent research from Torres Strait and the adjacent region of southern Papua New Guinea.

All five INQUA Commissions (Coastal and Marine Processes; Humans and the Biosphere; Palaeoclimates; Stratigraphy and Chronology; Terrestrial Processes, Deposits and History) are represented in the papers in the volume. Key environmental themes explored through the volume are geoarchaeology, taphonomy, impacts of sea-level rise and climate change, chronology of island formation and colonisation, anthropogenic environmental modifications, island terrestrial and marine resource management, and intra- and inter-island occupation, mobility, and exchange relationships. Key socio-cultural themes explored include ritual and ceremonial sites, mortuary practices, canoe voyaging, and responses to colonial impact. Site types discussed include shell deposits (cultural and natural), villages, long-houses, gardens, rock art, ritual shrines, artificial reefs, and ceremonial stone arrangements. The contributions represent diverse multidisciplinary approaches adopting coordinated methodologies to the task of understanding the diversity of human use and modification of islands in the Australian context. Culturally and chronologically, the volume surveys the depth and breadth of Australian island societies, including studies of late Pleistocene island use in northwest Australia, late Holocene deltaic island societies of Papuan lowland rainforests, early-to-mid-Holocene tropical island use of Torres Strait and the Great Barrier Reef, and Holocene selective occupation and abandonment of Bass Strait and other Southern Ocean islands. The volume's geographic coverage is thus broadscale, spread from the hot and humid tropical north to the cold temperate waters of the Southern Ocean. Uniquely, the papers in this volume reveal the diversity and complexity of cultural practices (e.g. subsistence, mobility, technology, socio-religious institutions, cosmology, resource manipulation and management) and historical contingencies that structure and mediate long-term human use, engagement, and modification of islands.

Papers by Ian J . McNiven

Terra Australis series, No. 57, 2024

The Marind-anim of the south-east corner of Papua, Indonesia, live in a stoneless world but vener... more The Marind-anim of the south-east corner of Papua, Indonesia, live in a stoneless world but venerate stone objects. As expected, stone objects of the Marind, such as axes, club heads and ‘spearthrower’ attachments, are exotic, with ethnographic information pointing to acquisition through a complex portfolio of trading and raiding (headhunting) relationships with multiple neighbours who had either direct or indirect access to tool stone. Ethnographic and geological information indicates that the two closest sources of tool stone to the Marind are located over 100 km away—the southern flanks of the Central Ranges (especially the Upper Digul River) to the north and Torres Strait to the south-east. These two source options are consistent with our petrographic assessment of a sample of three Marind stone club heads and three ‘spearthrower’ stones. Beyond ethnographically documented trading and raiding processes of stone implement provisioning, we hypothesise that the Marind may have manufactured their own stone implements by accessing igneous outcrops at Mabaduan on the northern mainland coast of Torres Strait during headhunting expeditions.

Journal of Pacific History, 2018

Passage through the Torres Strait during the late 18th and early 19th centuries was a dangerous e... more Passage through the Torres Strait during the late 18th and early 19th centuries was a dangerous exercise for European mariners. Apart from a maze of largely unmapped reefs, mariners had to negotiate passage through waters inhabited by resident Indigenous communities who had acquired a reputation for brutal attacks and cruel treatment of castaways. This paper explores circumstances behind the murder and mutilation of crew and passengers by Torres Strait Islanders from five ships attempting to transit the Strait-Shaw Hormuzear/Chesterfield (1793), Charles Eaton (1834), Thomas Lord (1846), and Sperwer (1869). Using anthropological recordings from the late 19th century, these mutilations are recast as acts of ritual processing explicable with reference to Torres Strait Islander ontology. The circumstances that coalesced to precipitate these mutilations were complex and rare and ultimately unrepresentative of the majority of frontier interactions between European mariners and Torres Strait Islanders, which were generally friendly and mutually beneficial.

Australian Archaeology, 2021

AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, 2024

The coasts, islands and waters of the Great Barrier Reef have been home for First Nations peoples... more The coasts, islands and waters of the Great Barrier Reef have been
home for First Nations peoples for thousands of years. Most of
the islands and coral cays of the Great Barrier Reef World
Heritage Area (GBRWHA) formed in the Holocene (last 11,700
years) following postglacial sea level rise. Continuous First
Nations coastal occupation occurred in the GBRWHA from at least
c.9000 years ago to the present with increasingly intensive coast
and island use evident by the Mid-Holocene (c.4000–6000 years
ago), with specialised maritime economies known historically and
ethnographically emerging throughout the Late Holocene (past
4000 years). Archaeological research in the GBRWHA has focused
on when islands were first used and/or seasonally or permanently
occupied; how people travelled to islands; Melanesian and Asian
connections; cultural responses to insularity and isolation; and
the effects of sea-level and climate change. GBRWHA
archaeological sites are unique archives of information on longterm
inter-relationships between environment and culture that
can inform current climate and sea level debates. Coastal and
island sites are impacted by many processes that differentially
alter or remove them from the archaeological record,
necessitating complex approaches to understanding their
formation, preservation, functions and management in
partnership with contemporary First Nations communities

Australian Archaeology, 2024

The Oxford Handbook of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 2024

The seascape world of Torres Strait Islanders takes in a 50,000 km2 archipelago between the mainl... more The seascape world of Torres Strait Islanders takes in a 50,000 km2 archipelago between the mainlands of Australia and New Guinea. The Torres Plain transitioned to Torres Strait 8000-9000 years ago with rising sea levels at the end of the last Ice Age. Torres Strait Islanders’ identification as a sea people and marine subsistence specialists matches ethnographic observations of the past 150 years. Collaborative research projects between archaeologists and a wide range of island communities over the past three decades have revealed occupation back to the time of strait formation and marine resource use at least 7000 years ago. The appearance of new sites 3000-4000 years ago is associated with population increase and diversification of marine resource use, including hunting of dugongs. Further increases in sites 2000-2600 years ago coincide with the appearance of pottery and agriculture linked to immigration of peoples from New Guinea. The past 1000 years sees expansion of shoreline villages and ritual sites linked to the sea and emergence of the full range of ethnographically known cultural practices.

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2020

Outrigger canoes used by Torres Strait Islanders are the largest and most complex watercraft ethn... more Outrigger canoes used by Torres Strait Islanders are the largest and most complex watercraft ethnographically documented for nineteenth century Indigenous Australians. Measuring up to 21 m in length, these vessels were central to the functioning of Torres Strait Islander society in terms of marine subsistence and the movement of people and goods between islands and the adjacent mainlands of New Guinea and Australia. Indirect archaeological evidence suggests that use of large outrigger canoes dates back at least 2,500 years ago in Torres Strait. This paper presents the first synthesis of Torres Strait canoes in nearly a century, building on the foundational research of Alfred Cort Haddon. Using previously unpublished archival records, photographs, paintings and material culture, particularly the Brierly collection of detailed watercolour paintings of canoes made during the HMS Rattlesnake expedition of 1848-49, this new synthesis expands technological understandings of canoe structure and function with developed insights into the social dimensions of canoe use. Colour images of canoes provide the first detailed published presentation of the elaborate decorative and aesthetic qualities of Torres Strait canoes. What emerges is a detailed picture of arguably the largest and most elaborate item of traditional material culture used by Indigenous Australians.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2016

Rock art is one of the most visible and geographically widespread of cultural expressions, and it... more Rock art is one of the most visible and geographically widespread of cultural expressions, and it spans much of the period of our species’ existence. Rock art also provides rare and often unique insights into the minds and visually creative capacities of our ancestors and how selected rock outcrops with distinctive images were used to construct symbolic landscapes and shape worldviews. Equally important, rock art is often central to the expression of and engagement with spiritual entities and forces, and in all these dimensions it signals the diversity of cultural practices, across place and through time. Over the past 150 years, archaeologists have studied ancient arts on rock surfaces, both out in the open and within caves and rock shelters, and social anthropologists have revealed how people today use art in their daily lives. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art showcases examples of such research from around the world and across a broad range of cultural contexts, giving a sense of the art’s regional variability, its antiquity, and how it is meaningful to people in the recent past and today – including how we have ourselves tended to make sense of the art of others, replete with our own preconceptions. It reviews past, present, and emerging theoretical approaches to rock art investigation and presents new, cutting edge methods of rock art analysis for the student and professional researcher alike

Monograph dossier published by the Commonwealth of Australia for the nomination of the Budj Bim C... more Monograph dossier published by the Commonwealth of Australia for the nomination of the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape (Gunditjmara Counry) in SW Victoria for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
ISBN: 978-1-921069-08-6

Archaeology has been complicit in the appropriation of indigenous peoples' pasts worldwide. While... more Archaeology has been complicit in the appropriation of indigenous peoples' pasts worldwide. While tales of blatant archaeological colonialism abound from the era of empire, the process also took more subtle and insidious forms. Ian McNiven and Lynette Russell outline archaeology's "colonial culture" and how it has shaped archaeological practice over the past century. Using examples from their native Australia- and comparative material from North America, Africa, and elsewhere- the authors show how colonized peoples were objectified by research, had their needs subordinated to those of science, were disassociated from their accomplishments by theories of diffusion, watched their histories reshaped by western concepts of social evolution, and had their cultures appropriated toward nationalist ends. The authors conclude by offering a decolonized archaeological practice through collaborative partnership with native peoples in understanding their past.

Building on the foundational work of Harry Lourandos, the book critically examines and challenges... more Building on the foundational work of Harry Lourandos, the book critically examines and challenges traditional approaches which have presented Indigenous Australian pasts as static and tethered to ecological rationalism.

The book reveals the ancient past of Aboriginal Australians to be one of long-term changes in social relationships and traditions, as well as the active management and manipulation of the environment. It encourages a deeper appreciation of the ways Aboriginal peoples have engaged with, and constructed their worlds. It solicits a deeper understanding of the contemporary political and social context of research and the insidious impacts of colonialist philosophies. In short, it concerns people: both past and present.

Ultimately, The social archaeology of Australian Indigenous societies looks beyond the stereotype of Aboriginal peoples as ‘hunter-gatherers’ and charts new and challenging agendas for Australian Aboriginal archaeology.

This volume pulls together a broad range of 35 chapters on the Indigenous coastal archaeology of ... more This volume pulls together a broad range of 35 chapters on the Indigenous coastal archaeology of Australia and selected parts of the Southwest Pacific.

One of the most famous shipwreck sagas of the 19th century took place on the tropical coast of no... more One of the most famous shipwreck sagas of the 19th century took place on the tropical coast of north-east Australia. In 1836 the Stirling Castle was wrecked off the Queensland coast and many of the crew, together with the captain's wife, Eliza Fraser, were marooned on Fraser Island. Early sensationalized accounts represent Mrs Fraser as an innocent white victim of colonialism and her Aboriginal captors as barbarous savages. These "first contact" narratives of the white woman and her Aboriginal "captors" impacted significantly on England and the politics of Empire at an early stage in Australia's colonial history. The text critically examines the Eliza Fraser episode by bringing together an interdisciplinary team of authors, artists, members of the Fraser Island Aboriginal community and academics in the areas of cultural and women's studies, literature, history, anthropology, archaeology, the visual and creative arts. This book Essays include feminist analyses of the incident, investigations of textual and visual representations of Aboriginal people, and considerations of the role played by Elisa Fraser as creative inspiration for the arts. The text explores the constructions of Empire, colonialism, identity, femininity, savagery, otherness, captivity and survival.

The Artefact: Special issue in Honour of Ron Vanderwal, 2010

This special issue of The Artefact is a presentation to Ron Vanderwal to honour and celebrate his... more This special issue of The Artefact is a presentation to Ron Vanderwal to honour and celebrate his contributions to anthropology, archaeology, and museum studies. We have decided to highlight one facet of Ron’s career by focusing on southern coastal New Guinea and Torres Strait. Over the past decade, both regions have witnessed a resurgence of archaeological research that is transforming our understandings of the history of human migrations, settlement, and social developments in this culturally dynamic region over the past 4000 years. It is fair to say that modern research agendas continue to seek answers to complex questions foreshadowed in Ron’s pioneering studies four decades ago. The volume brings together scholars old and new who all gratefully acknowledge Ron’s foundational research and its continuing relevance and inspiration. We have deliberately placed these celebratory papers in The Artefact in acknowledgement of Ron’s enduring support for the journal and the Archaeological & Anthropological Society of Victoria over many years.

Memoirs of the Queensland Museum / Culture, 2004

This special issue of the Memoirs of the Queensland Museum Cultural Heritage Series brings togeth... more This special issue of the Memoirs of the Queensland Museum Cultural Heritage Series brings together a wide range of scholarship on the archaeology and material culture of Torres Strait undertaken over the last 20 years. With renewed archaeological interest in the region, much of the earlier scholarship was in danger of being forgotten or even lost. Thus the volume benchmarks current archaeological understandings of Torres Strait to lay foundations for the next generation of archaeological research. While most papers concern Torres Strait Islander history Bepotaim (before the Coming of the Light), attention is also given to the archaeology of shipwrecks, the pearling industry and stone tool use across the adjacent Papuan lowlands. The papers show how fruitful research results occur when a synergy exists between material heritage (including archaeological and museum items), historical records and contemporary oral testimony. The secret to such synergies is meaningful collaborations between outsiders (mostly university researchers) and Torres Strait Islanders. Yet formal academic publications resulting from such collaborative research is only part of the story. Torres Strait Islanders only see value in the results of collaborative research if it complements existing Islander narratives and processes of history and identity construction. Thus, the papers in this volume – all authored by non-Islanders – represent only one dimension of the history building process. The end result of that process for Islanders resides within Torres Strait Islander communities beyond the gaze of outsiders. Outsiders will only ever come to understand and appreciate these end results when they are expressed through Islander worldviews in publications either co-authored by Torres Strait Islanders or written and researched by Islanders themselves.

To ensure that scholarship produces useful and complementary information, a number of Islander communities across the Torres Strait have begun hosting long-term archaeological research projects. While most research involves archaeologists from the Programme for Australian Indigenous Archaeology at Monash University in Melbourne, a range of other institutions such as James Cook University in Townsville have commitments to researching the region’s long-term history. But just as Torres Strait Islander communities have entered into research partnerships to better understand their past, commitment is required from government heritage agencies for ongoing protection and management of the region’s rich archaeological heritage. All of the papers in this volume are based upon research on material heritage that requires active management to be available to future generations of Torres Strait Islanders.

A key issue that pervades Torres Strait’s more than 2500 years of human history is the region’s dynamic role as a bridge and barrier to cultural and environmental processes between the Australian and Melanesian worlds. This dynamism reflects the fundamental fact that Torres Strait Islanders today, as in the past, are one of the world’s most specialised maritime peoples, weaving complex webs of social, political and economic ties between island communities and between island and nearby mainland communities. For thousands of years, material culture, food items, plants and animals were moved around the region to create the highly anthropomorphised land- and seascapes that we see today. In fact, the more we look into the long-term history of the region, the more we appreciate that Torres Strait Islanders modified and made their world. The history of this constructed world is both dynamic and complex owing to a mosaic of island, reef, and sea habitats coupled with myriad distinctive Islander communities and cultures. Papers in this volume reveal some of the ways archaeological research allows us to access some of the familiar and not so familiar historical dimensions of this constructed world.

In this volume, New Guinea refers to the large island comprising Papua New Guinea (PNG) in the east and Irian Jaya or West Papua (part of Indonesia) in the west. In the context of Torres Strait research, Papua refers to the lowlands region of southern central New Guinea and Papuans the indigenous peoples of this region.

Ian J. McNiven & Michael Quinnell
Issue Editors

MEMOIRS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM |CULTURE, 2015

The past 40 years has seen considerable research activity on Mabuyag sponsored by universities (e... more The past 40 years has seen considerable research activity on Mabuyag sponsored by universities (e.g. University College London, Monash University, James Cook University) and more recently environmental and anthropological research commissioned by the Torres Strait Regional Authority, an Australian Government statutory authority (Thursday Island). Much of this research has ended up in unpublished reports (‘grey literature’) and theses written by researchers who have either moved on to new research topics and places or have retired. As such, a rare window of opportunity existed to invite many of these researchers to formally write up research results into a single volume as a permanent record to catalogue and celebrate the broad range of scholarship focused on Mabuyag in recent years and to showcase the extraordinary cultural and environmental history of Mabuyag to a wider audience. Such was the response to our invitations that papers expanded to two volumes and over 400,000 words. Most importantly, this permanent record is an opportunity for researchers to say thank you to those Goemulgal, past and present, who have made this research possible, and for the people of Mabuyag to see some of the fruits of their research collaborations with outsiders.

MEMOIRS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM |CULTURE , 2015

The past 40 years has seen considerable research activity on Mabuyag sponsored by universities (e... more The past 40 years has seen considerable research activity on Mabuyag sponsored by universities (e.g. University College London, Monash University, James Cook University) and more recently environmental and anthropological research commissioned by the Torres Strait Regional Authority, an Australian Government statutory authority (Thursday Island). Much of this research has ended up in unpublished reports (‘grey literature’) and theses written by researchers who have either moved on to new research topics and places or have retired. As such, a rare window of opportunity existed to invite many of these researchers to formally write up research results into a single volume as a permanent record to catalogue and celebrate the broad range of scholarship focused on Mabuyag in recent years and to showcase the extraordinary cultural and environmental history of Mabuyag to a wider audience. Such was the response to our invitations that papers expanded to two volumes and over 400,000 words. Most importantly, this permanent record is an opportunity for researchers to say thank you to those Goemulgal, past and present, who have made this research possible, and for the people of Mabuyag to see some of the fruits of their research collaborations with outsiders.

In this review volume, we bring together researchers and institutions involved in Australian isla... more In this review volume, we bring together researchers and institutions involved in Australian island research to provide a contemporary synthesis and benchmark on archaeological and palaeoenvironmental research of Australian island environments. The last major overview of Australian islands archaeological research appeared 16 years ago in the volume Australian Coastal Archaeology (Hall and McNiven, 1999). At that time, the main geographical areas of dynamic islands research in Australia were northwest Western Australia, and central and southeast Queensland. Since 1999, Torres Strait has developed as the most dynamic region of islands research in Australia, and this new volume showcases the range of recent research from Torres Strait and the adjacent region of southern Papua New Guinea.

All five INQUA Commissions (Coastal and Marine Processes; Humans and the Biosphere; Palaeoclimates; Stratigraphy and Chronology; Terrestrial Processes, Deposits and History) are represented in the papers in the volume. Key environmental themes explored through the volume are geoarchaeology, taphonomy, impacts of sea-level rise and climate change, chronology of island formation and colonisation, anthropogenic environmental modifications, island terrestrial and marine resource management, and intra- and inter-island occupation, mobility, and exchange relationships. Key socio-cultural themes explored include ritual and ceremonial sites, mortuary practices, canoe voyaging, and responses to colonial impact. Site types discussed include shell deposits (cultural and natural), villages, long-houses, gardens, rock art, ritual shrines, artificial reefs, and ceremonial stone arrangements. The contributions represent diverse multidisciplinary approaches adopting coordinated methodologies to the task of understanding the diversity of human use and modification of islands in the Australian context. Culturally and chronologically, the volume surveys the depth and breadth of Australian island societies, including studies of late Pleistocene island use in northwest Australia, late Holocene deltaic island societies of Papuan lowland rainforests, early-to-mid-Holocene tropical island use of Torres Strait and the Great Barrier Reef, and Holocene selective occupation and abandonment of Bass Strait and other Southern Ocean islands. The volume's geographic coverage is thus broadscale, spread from the hot and humid tropical north to the cold temperate waters of the Southern Ocean. Uniquely, the papers in this volume reveal the diversity and complexity of cultural practices (e.g. subsistence, mobility, technology, socio-religious institutions, cosmology, resource manipulation and management) and historical contingencies that structure and mediate long-term human use, engagement, and modification of islands.

Terra Australis series, No. 57, 2024

The Marind-anim of the south-east corner of Papua, Indonesia, live in a stoneless world but vener... more The Marind-anim of the south-east corner of Papua, Indonesia, live in a stoneless world but venerate stone objects. As expected, stone objects of the Marind, such as axes, club heads and ‘spearthrower’ attachments, are exotic, with ethnographic information pointing to acquisition through a complex portfolio of trading and raiding (headhunting) relationships with multiple neighbours who had either direct or indirect access to tool stone. Ethnographic and geological information indicates that the two closest sources of tool stone to the Marind are located over 100 km away—the southern flanks of the Central Ranges (especially the Upper Digul River) to the north and Torres Strait to the south-east. These two source options are consistent with our petrographic assessment of a sample of three Marind stone club heads and three ‘spearthrower’ stones. Beyond ethnographically documented trading and raiding processes of stone implement provisioning, we hypothesise that the Marind may have manufactured their own stone implements by accessing igneous outcrops at Mabaduan on the northern mainland coast of Torres Strait during headhunting expeditions.

Journal of Pacific History, 2018

Passage through the Torres Strait during the late 18th and early 19th centuries was a dangerous e... more Passage through the Torres Strait during the late 18th and early 19th centuries was a dangerous exercise for European mariners. Apart from a maze of largely unmapped reefs, mariners had to negotiate passage through waters inhabited by resident Indigenous communities who had acquired a reputation for brutal attacks and cruel treatment of castaways. This paper explores circumstances behind the murder and mutilation of crew and passengers by Torres Strait Islanders from five ships attempting to transit the Strait-Shaw Hormuzear/Chesterfield (1793), Charles Eaton (1834), Thomas Lord (1846), and Sperwer (1869). Using anthropological recordings from the late 19th century, these mutilations are recast as acts of ritual processing explicable with reference to Torres Strait Islander ontology. The circumstances that coalesced to precipitate these mutilations were complex and rare and ultimately unrepresentative of the majority of frontier interactions between European mariners and Torres Strait Islanders, which were generally friendly and mutually beneficial.

Australian Archaeology, 2021

AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, 2024

The coasts, islands and waters of the Great Barrier Reef have been home for First Nations peoples... more The coasts, islands and waters of the Great Barrier Reef have been
home for First Nations peoples for thousands of years. Most of
the islands and coral cays of the Great Barrier Reef World
Heritage Area (GBRWHA) formed in the Holocene (last 11,700
years) following postglacial sea level rise. Continuous First
Nations coastal occupation occurred in the GBRWHA from at least
c.9000 years ago to the present with increasingly intensive coast
and island use evident by the Mid-Holocene (c.4000–6000 years
ago), with specialised maritime economies known historically and
ethnographically emerging throughout the Late Holocene (past
4000 years). Archaeological research in the GBRWHA has focused
on when islands were first used and/or seasonally or permanently
occupied; how people travelled to islands; Melanesian and Asian
connections; cultural responses to insularity and isolation; and
the effects of sea-level and climate change. GBRWHA
archaeological sites are unique archives of information on longterm
inter-relationships between environment and culture that
can inform current climate and sea level debates. Coastal and
island sites are impacted by many processes that differentially
alter or remove them from the archaeological record,
necessitating complex approaches to understanding their
formation, preservation, functions and management in
partnership with contemporary First Nations communities

Australian Archaeology, 2024

The Oxford Handbook of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 2024

The seascape world of Torres Strait Islanders takes in a 50,000 km2 archipelago between the mainl... more The seascape world of Torres Strait Islanders takes in a 50,000 km2 archipelago between the mainlands of Australia and New Guinea. The Torres Plain transitioned to Torres Strait 8000-9000 years ago with rising sea levels at the end of the last Ice Age. Torres Strait Islanders’ identification as a sea people and marine subsistence specialists matches ethnographic observations of the past 150 years. Collaborative research projects between archaeologists and a wide range of island communities over the past three decades have revealed occupation back to the time of strait formation and marine resource use at least 7000 years ago. The appearance of new sites 3000-4000 years ago is associated with population increase and diversification of marine resource use, including hunting of dugongs. Further increases in sites 2000-2600 years ago coincide with the appearance of pottery and agriculture linked to immigration of peoples from New Guinea. The past 1000 years sees expansion of shoreline villages and ritual sites linked to the sea and emergence of the full range of ethnographically known cultural practices.

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2020

Outrigger canoes used by Torres Strait Islanders are the largest and most complex watercraft ethn... more Outrigger canoes used by Torres Strait Islanders are the largest and most complex watercraft ethnographically documented for nineteenth century Indigenous Australians. Measuring up to 21 m in length, these vessels were central to the functioning of Torres Strait Islander society in terms of marine subsistence and the movement of people and goods between islands and the adjacent mainlands of New Guinea and Australia. Indirect archaeological evidence suggests that use of large outrigger canoes dates back at least 2,500 years ago in Torres Strait. This paper presents the first synthesis of Torres Strait canoes in nearly a century, building on the foundational research of Alfred Cort Haddon. Using previously unpublished archival records, photographs, paintings and material culture, particularly the Brierly collection of detailed watercolour paintings of canoes made during the HMS Rattlesnake expedition of 1848-49, this new synthesis expands technological understandings of canoe structure and function with developed insights into the social dimensions of canoe use. Colour images of canoes provide the first detailed published presentation of the elaborate decorative and aesthetic qualities of Torres Strait canoes. What emerges is a detailed picture of arguably the largest and most elaborate item of traditional material culture used by Indigenous Australians.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2016

Queensland Archaeological Research

For over 200 years, Western scholarship has presented Torres Strait variously as a bridge and bar... more 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 u...

Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2021

Studies into the presence and absence of post-European contact rock art within Indigenous communi... more Studies into the presence and absence of post-European contact rock art within Indigenous communities are particularly relevant to questions of colonial impact and influence. However, it is the presence of post-contact motifs and introduced subject matter that typically takes precedence in these studies. In this paper, we focus on the absence of post-contact paintings of European ships in Torres Strait (northeastern Australia) rock art. This absence is curious, given that Torres Strait peoples first encountered European ships over 400 years ago, yet the only paintings of watercraft are of their own double outrigger canoes. Furthermore, ethnographic information suggests many painted canoes were spirit canoes used by spirits of the dead, and European mariners were considered spirits of the dead who travelled in ‘ghost ships’. Despite apparent epistemological and ontological congruence between Islander and Kaurareg canoes and European ships, we argue the latter were conceptually and me...

The Port Moresby region of the south coast of mainland Papua New Guinea (PNG) is well known ethno... more The Port Moresby region of the south coast of mainland Papua New Guinea (PNG) is well known ethnographically as the source-area for the Motu hiri trade, a long-distance maritime enterprise involving shell valuables and the annual local manufacture of tens of thousands of clay pots sent westward in fleets of lagatoi (large Indigenous sailing ships) in exchange for large logs to make hulls and hundreds of tons of sago starch from trading partners in the Gulf of Papua swamplands up to 400km away. Local oral histories relating to the hiri come from the Motu and Koita of the Port Moresby area, two peoples who speak unrelated languages and who have lived in close proximity for an extended period. The Motu are the principal hiri traders and makers of pottery, and while Koita lived near and among them, they made relatively little pottery and did not participate in the hiri to the same extent as the Motu. Here we review ethnographic, oral historical, and linguistic information on hiri trade ...

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Indigenous Australia and New Guinea, 2021

Fishing was and remains an important subsistence activity of many coastal and inland Indigenous p... more Fishing was and remains an important subsistence activity of many coastal and inland Indigenous peoples of Australia and New Guinea. The range of ethnographically known fishing methods used to obtain freshwater and marine fishes is similar across the two regions. This ethnographic picture of diversity and complexity is not matched archaeologically, where stone-walled fish traps dominate. Archaeological research on stone-walled fish traps has focused on technical dimensions (e.g., mapping, classification, and dating) and social dimensions (e.g., gender, social complexity, and social organization). Stone-walled fish traps can transform the social and ecological landscape and, in an archaeological context, provide an opportunity to explore decision making and the sociocultural changes associated with the installation of these fixed-in-place facilities. Relevant social organizational changes with potential material correlates amenable to archaeological research include the restructuring...

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2020

Queensland Archaeological Research, 2020

Archaeological records documenting the timing and use of northern Great Barrier Reef offshore isl... more Archaeological records documenting the timing and use of northern Great Barrier Reef offshore islands by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples throughout the Holocene are limited when compared to the central and southern extents of the region. Excavations on Lizard Island, located 33 km from Cape Flattery on the mainland, provide high resolution evidence for periodic, yet sustained offshore island use over the past 4000 years, with focused exploitation of diverse marine resources and manufacture of quartz artefacts. An increase in island use occurs from around 2250 years ago, at a time when a hiatus or reduction in offshore island occupation has been documented for other Great Barrier Reef islands, but concurrent with demographic expansion across Torres Strait to the north. Archaeological evidence from Lizard Island provides a previously undocumented occupation pattern associated with Great Barrier Reef late Holocene island use. We suggest this trajectory of Lizard Island oc...