Ian Lilley

Archaeology of Oceania: Australia and the Pacific Islands

This book is a state-of-the-art introduction to the archaeology of Oceania, covering both Australia and the Pacific Islands. • The first text to provide integrated treatment of the archaeologies of Australia and the Pacific Islands • Enables readers to form a coherent overview of cultural developments across the region as a whole • Brings together contributions from some of the regions leading scholars • Focuses on new discoveries, conceptual innovations, and postcolonial realpolitik • Challenges conventional thinking on major regional and global issues in archaeology.

Archaeology, diaspora and decolonization

Archaeologists in settler societies need to find theoretically well-founded ways of understanding the sociopolitical milieux in which they work if they are to deal sensibly and sensitively with the colonizers as well as the colonized in their communities. This article explores one avenue that the author has found helpful in a number of contexts. He advances the proposition that, with certain qualifications, the social conditions of settler nations might usefully be approached as the products of a single social condition - diaspora - in a manifestation that is unique to such societies because it positions indigenous peoples as well as settlers as diasporic.

Pre-European coastal settlement and use of the sea: a view from Queensland

The authors draw attention to the fact that important omissions have been made in the chronology of Australian coastal occupation presented by Nicholson and Cane (1994) in their recent review of the subject. They opine that Nicolson and Cane have omitted crucial data concerning Aboriginal use of the Queensland coast though basic literature of the Queensland coast is easily available.

The Gooreng Gooreng Cultural Heritage Project: Some proposed directions and preliminary results of the archaeological program

The paper outlines the working hypotheses guiding exploratory archaeological surveys on the coast between Bundaberg and Gladstone in south-central Queensland. It reports some early results and their possible implications. The surveys reported are part of a multi-stage project on the sandstone caves and rock shelters.

The Road Forward? Alternative Assessment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students at the Tertiary Level

This report looked at the important, but contentious issue of alternative assessment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people studying at the tertiary level. Presented below, its findings give expression to the views of 47 respondents, chosen from Indigenous communities, Commonwealth and State Government departments, the tertiary education sector and business.

Understanding Isolation and Change in Island Human Populations through a study of Indigenous Cultural Patterns in the Gulf of Carpentaria

Abstract This paper presents a set of hypotheses to explain the cultural differences between Aboriginal people of the North and South Wellesley Islands, Gulf of Carpentaria and to characterise the relative degree and nature of their isolation and cultural change over a 10,000-year time-scale. This opportunity to study parallelisms and divergences in the cultural and demographic histories of fisher-hunter-gatherers arises from the comparison of three distinct cultural groupings: (a) the Ganggalida of the mainland, (b) the Lardil and Yangkaal of the North Wellesley Islands, and (c) the Kaiadilt of the South Wellesley Islands. Despite occupying similar island environments and despite their languages being as closely related as for example, the West Germanic languages, there are some major differences in cultural, economic and social organization as well as striking genetic differences between the North and South Wellesley populations. This paper synthesizes data from linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, genetics and environmental science to present hypotheses of how these intriguing differences were generated, and what we might learn about early processes of marine colonization and cultural change from the Wellesley situation.

Type X Pottery, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea: Petrography and Possible Micronesian Relationships

Type X is one of four Post-Lapita pottery styles reported from Huon Peninsula and the Siassi Islands of Papua New Guinea. Previous petrographic work was inconclusive about its likely area of origin but indicated a possible Huon Peninsula source. Renewed analysis of a larger sample supports this conclusion and confirms the use of grog temper. This kind of temper is otherwise not recorded in the New Guinea region, and its use in the production of Type X was probably culturally driven. Comparisons between Type X and grog-tempered pottery from Palau, Yap, and Pohnpei in Micronesia lead to the suggestion that Type X probably derived from an otherwise unrecorded contact between Huon Peninsula and Palau about 1000 years ago. The article reviews other evidence for interaction between the New Guinea-Bismarck Archipelago region and various parts of Micronesia and concludes that the proposed Type X connection with Palau is but one of several prehistoric contacts between different parts of the regions. Recognition of such contacts, which could have been unintentional and on a small scale, may contribute to explaining the complex ethnolinguistic situation of Huon Peninsula.

The Gooreng Gooreng Cultural Heritage Project: First radiocarbon determinations

The radiocarbon determinations from the 1995 test excavations in two shell midden complexes on the central Queensland coast are reported. The research is conducted as part of the Aboriginal cultural heritage study undertaken in collaboration with the Gurang Land Council and the results have confirmed Aboriginal occupation of the coast in this region before 3000 BP.

The fusion of law and ethics in cultural heritage management: The 21st century confronts archaeology

Abstract Archaeologists around the world face complex ethical dilemmas that defy easy solutions. Ethics and law entwine, yet jurisprudence endures as the global praxis for guidance and result. Global legal norms articulate ‘legal rights’ and obligations while codes of professional conduct articulate ‘ethical rights’ and obligations. This article underscores how a rights discourse has shaped the 20th century discipline and practice of archaeology across the globe, including in the design and execution of projects like those discussed in the Journal of Field Archaeology. It illustrates how both law and ethics have been, and still are, viewed as two distinct solution-driven approaches that, even when out of sync, are the predominant frameworks that affect archaeologists in the field and more generally. While both law and ethics are influenced by social mores, public policy, and political objectives, each too often in cultural heritage debates has been considered a separate remedy. For archaeology, there remains the tendency to turn to law for a definite response when ethical solutions prove elusive. As contemporary society becomes increasingly interconnected and the geo-political reality of the 21st century poses new threats to protecting archaeological sites and the integrity of the archaeological record during armed conflict and insurgency, law has fallen short or has lacked necessary enforcement mechanisms to address on-the-ground realities. A changing global order shaped by human rights, Indigenous heritage, legal pluralism, neo-colonialism, development, diplomacy, and emerging non-State actors directs the 21st century policies that shape laws and ethics. Archaeologists in the field today work within a nexus of domestic and international laws and regulations and must navigate increasingly complex ethical situations. Thus, a critical challenge is to realign approaches to current dilemmas facing archaeology in a way that unifies the ‘legal’ and the ‘ethical’ with a focus on human rights and principles of equity and justice. With examples from around the world, this article considers how law and ethics affect professional practice and demonstrates how engagement with law and awareness of ethics are pivotal to archaeologists in the field.

Beyond the Equator (Principles): A Forum on Community Benefit Sharing in Relation to Major Land Alteration Projects and Associated Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage Held at the Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Honolulu, 5 April 2013

Against the backdrop of intensifying international attention to the community benefits flowing—or not—from resource extraction and other land alteration projects, a forum was organized at the 2013 annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. We convened the forum specifically to engage archaeologists—invited discussants and conference attendees—working at or interested in the dynamic interface of archaeology, land and resource management, and intellectual property issues. Cultural resource management (CRM), most commonly known as cultural heritage management (CHM) outside North America, is generally thought of as archaeology’s commercial branch. It is rapidly assuming expanded roles in the much broader enterprise dedicated to assessing and carrying forward the most significant and useful elements of sociocultural heritage. This enterprise is poised at a critical juncture as CRM emerges from four decades of astonishing growth and diversification, especially in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Will CRM practitioners, the vast majority of whom were trained in anthropology and archaeology departments, continue to operate in the intellectual shadow of