DigItVolume 2, Issue 2

Journal of the Flinders Archaeological Society

December 2014Print: ISSN 1440-2475

Online: ISSN 2203-1898

ContentsOriginal research articles

A review of the palaeo-environment of Kangaroo Island, South Australia, through the Late Pleistocene and Holocene with notes on a recent study

Shaun Adams, Matthew McDowell and Gavin Prideaux

79

Moonta A’gas Dynnergh? The implications of Cornish language signage in the Moonta Mines State Heritage AreaElla Stewart-Peters

Virtual Archaeology and New Possibilities for Historic Site Interpretation: A case study from Point Puer, TasmaniaJohn Stephenson

84

89

Research essay

Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA): What is it and how is it useful for archaeological investigation?Catherine Bland

96

Field reports

From Village Mounds to Monuments: New survey in the Upper Mun River Valley, northeast ThailandCaitlin Evans

101

An Education in ItalySarah Hutchinson

104

Using Old Maps to Create New DataAndrew Frost

105

Dig It dialogue

Cross Boundaries and Remain Questoning: An interview with Ian HodderJana Rogasch

108

Book reviews

Archaeology, Anthropology and Interstellar Communication edited by Douglas A. Vakoch Kathleen Gorey

110

Iron Age Hillforts in Britain and Beyond by D.W. HardingCatriona Santilli

111

ArchSoc news 112

Journal profile: Anthropology: Bachelors to Doctorates (ABD) 115

Cover image: Digital recreation of what the Point Puer Boys’ Prison may have looked like in 1845, when the population of the prison peaked at approximately 800 juvenile inmates (created by John Stephenson, May 2013; see pages 89-94)

DigItEmail: dig.it@flindersarchsoc.orgWeb: flindersarchsoc.orgTwitter: @FlindersArchSocFacebook: /archsocdigitJoin our free mailing list: archsoc@flinders.edu.au

i

EditorialDig It is a community product. The total number of people involved in writing, editing, formatting, reviewing, layouting and printing this issue were 39 from 24 different institutions – and that does not even include the greater number of people who provide helpful comments and ideas along the way, or write and talk to us to let us know they appreciate our work – all of which are very important things to keep us going. Special thanks goes out to ArchSoc, who are always there in the background offering practical help at the most critical times.Compared to the 2014-1 issue, this second issue of 2014 has a more local touch, but still includes reports about archaeological work being done in places as far away as Thailand, Italy, the UK, and South America. We are proud to have encouraged a number of undergraduate and Masters students to publish their thoughts and research. We want to particularly develop this part of the journal by encouraging fresh new authors to share their ideas. One step towards this goal was a book review Master Class, held in November together with Dr Alice Gorman, book review editor of Australian Archaeology, that encouraged 16 students to write reviews for AA and Dig It – two of which readers can find in this issue.And since Dig It is a community product many editors and review panel members will stay on in 2015 when Jordan Ralph will take over editor-in-chief with new ideas and enthusiasm. During the last weeks, we have been preparing ideas for making Dig It even more successful in the future. The 2014 Dig It team would like to thank ArchSoc for giving us the opportunity to be part of a rewarding and creative experience. I personally would like to thank all authors, editors, and reviewers for the hard work and dedication that is needed to create one of only three peer-reviewed archaeology student journals in the world: Dig It!

Jana RogaschEditor, Dig It: The Journal of the Flinders Archaeological Society<jana.rogasch@flinders.edu.au>

President’s AddressThe second half of 2014 was a busy one for the Flinders Archaeological Society. During this period not only did the Society support University events such as O’week in late July and the Open Day in early August, it undertook a new direction. Under the guidance of a new look Executive Committee, ArchSoc organised a series of workshops in order to allow members the opportunity to further develop their professional skills. Participants came together in a relaxed atmosphere and in total three workshops have been held since July; two Total Station workshops (August and September), and a GPS workshop (October). Thanks is especially given to the two professionals, Rob Koch and Jordan Ralph, who gave their time pro bono to ArchSoc, and who also committed to undertaking further workshops in 2015. ArchSoc continued to support the Flinders University Department of Archaeology’s Thursday Seminars in 2014 and looks forward to continuing to do so in 2015. In November, ArchSoc also supported the Book Review Master Class with Dr. Alice Gorman.In October, ArchSoc was asked to take part in the Highercombe Museum Vintage Fair. This was a direct result of the involvement of ArchSoc members in the public archaeology event carried out during About Time: South Australia’s History Festival in May. As a result of its connection with Highercombe, ArchSoc went on to present a brief overview of the value of potential relationships with branches of the National Trust, at the State Conference of the National Trust of South Australia on 19th November. This presentation was undertaken with a view to setting up future opportunities of field work and research for ArchSoc members.Overall, however, membership was down for 2014 and this is something that needs to be addressed in 2015. Membership fees will, however, remain at $15, with no concessions, for the coming year. The ArchSoc 5-year-plan (a product of the Forum held in November) is exciting and offers future committees the benefit of an in-place strategy for the future direction of ArchSoc.In review, 2014 has been an innovative and productive year. To ensure that the vision for the future direction of ArchSoc materialises, continued energy and commitment from all ArchSoc members will be needed in 2015.

Dianne RileyPresident, Flinders Archaeological Society 2014<rile0066@flinders.edu.au>

Dianne Riley, Adeena Fowke and Aletta Fowke at the ArchSoc stall, Flinders University O’week (photograph by Susan Arthure, July 2014)

ArchSoc members during Total Station and GPS workshops (photographs by Dianne Riley, 2014)

79

Shaun Adams1, Matthew McDowell1 and Gavin Prideaux1

1 School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, <adam0245@flinders.edu.au> <matthew.mcdowell@flinders.ed.au> <gavin.prideaux@flinders.edu.au>

AbstractKangaroo Island, South Australia, is Australia’s third largest island and only 14 km from the mainland, however, it was uninhabited by people when Europeans arrived in the 19th century (Baudin 1800; Flinders 1814). Previous palaeontological and archaeological research on Kangaroo Island has emphasised raised levels of faunal extinctions following post glacial sea level rise and the subsequent isolation of Kangaroo Island from the Australian mainland (Hope et al. 1977). A recent study (Adams 2013) shows that although species richness drops during the early Holocene, the geographical size of Kangaroo Island is large enough to support a diverse community of Australian native mammals and did so up until the

arrival of Europeans. Changes in sediment composition and faunal community tell the story of post-glacial increase in precipitation and subsequent changes in vegetation structure and faunal species abundances which may have directly influenced subsitence stategies of local hunter gatherer populations.

Introduction Kangaroo Island, South Australia, is the only land-bridge island on Earth known to have late Quaternary vertebrate, vegetative and associated environmental records spanning >50 thousand years before present (BP) (McDowell et al. 2013c). This resource makes Kangaroo Island an ideal place for reconstructing the late Pleistocene and Holocene palaeoenvironment. For much of the last 100,000 years, Kangaroo Island was a prominent landmark on a vast continental shelf ~50 km from the coast and directly west of the Palaeo-River Murray (Gingele et al. 2007). Following the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) sea levels rose ~120 m isolating Kangaroo Island and its non-volant inhabitants from mainland Australia (Gingele et al. 2004).

A review of the palaeo-environment of Kangaroo Island, South Australia, through the Late Pleistocene and Holocene with notes on a recent study

Figure 1: Entrance to Kelly Hill Cave 1 via solution pipe (photograph: Shaun Adams, 2013)

80

Original research paper

In 2013 McDowell conducted a palaeontological excavation within limestone caves at Kelly Hill Conservation Park (K1-P1), on south west Kangaroo Island. The deposit dates to between ~55,000 and 6,600 BP and contains abundant vertebrate remains. McDowell concluded that the mammal community of Kangaroo Island was resilient to climate change exhibiting little drop in species richness compared to the marked impact of island isolation, conforming to predictions of the equilibrium theory of island biogeography (MacArthur 1967). The deposit reported on by McDowell et al. (2013b) ceased deposition 6,600 years ago, leading him to garner insight into the mid to late Holocene record of Kangaroo Island from a compilation of archaeological assemblage data. In 2013 a second excavation was conducted within Kelly Hill Cave 1 (K1-P2), close to the modern entrance, with the aim of seeking a more complete record of faunal change on Kangaroo Island through the Holocene (Adams 2013). AMS radiocarbon techniques were used to date depositional units while sedimentary, taphonomic and geochemical analyses were conducted to assess provenance of sediments and compare with previous results (McDowell et al. 2013b). Taxonomic identification and diversity analyses offer insights into the role of anthropogenic impact, climatic variability and habitat isolation on Australian mammal species.

Archaeology of Kangaroo IslandKangaroo Island was uninhabited by people when Europeans arrived in the 19th century (Baudin 1800; Flinders 1814). A century later hammerstones were recorded at Murrays Lagoon,

Hawks Nest Station (Howchin 1903), triggering interest into the fate of the original inhabitants. The following year Murrays Lagoon was visited by anthropologists from the South Australian Museum and stone tools were recorded (Tindale and Maegraith 1931). Tindale continued to work on Kangaroo Island naming a distinctive tool industry ‘The Kartan’ after the Ramindjeri name for the island Karta. Extensive surveying was completed by Cooper in the early to mid-twentieth century recording over 120 sites (Cooper 1960). The date of abandonment of Kangaroo Island has been postulated by several authorities, however, the latest dates were reported by Draper (1992) who conducted excavations at Rocky River arriving at ~1,200 years ago for the last evidence of people. Ron Lambert excavated Seton Rockshelter, 6 km from the south coast of Kangaroo Island, in the early 1970’s. This rockshelter contained a stratified deposit with lithics and abundant faunal remains dated between 16,000 and 10,000 years BP (Hope et al. 1977). Faunal analysis was subsequently carried out by Jeanette Hope who found that only seven of the 25 species recorded in the deposit survived up to present with extinct megafauna (Procoptodon gilli) dated at a tenuous 17,000 years BP. Hope was able to divide species recovered into three categories; preference for grassland or open vegetation, dense vegetation (heath, shrubland, woodland forest) and riparian/ swamp habitats (Hope et al. 1977). Using the niche characteristics of recorded species Hope postulated that during the terminal Pleistocene there were extensive areas of heath/woodland and open vegetation with a semi-arid climate (Hope et al. 1977). With a change to Holocene conditions the rockshelter became used more intensively and many of the previously recorded species

Figure 2: Study site (created by Shaun Adams)

81

Shaun Adams et al., A Review of the Palaeo-Environment of Kangaroo Island | Dig It 2(2):79-83, December 2014

disappear. Hope et al. (1977) states, ‘their extinction presumably reflects the development of dense vegetation over the island in the Holocene, in response to increasing rainfall, accompanied possibly by a reduction in burning’. Recent re-analysis of the Seton faunal material and stratigraphic integrity of the deposit was undertaken to assess the likelihood that 17,000 year old megafaunal remains in the deposit were reworked from older layers (McDowell et al. 2013a). This confirmed previously reported dates for Seton Rockshelter and could not discount the possibility of late-surviving megafauna on Kangaroo Island. Taphonomic and palaeoecological analyses showed that from 21,000 to 17,000 years BP Sarcophilus harrisii and owls were the main accumulators, with increasing human occupation after 17,000 years BP (McDowell et al. 2013a). McDowell et al. (2013a) concluded that changes in the faunal structure of the Seton assemblage coincided with the presence of stone tools and therefore interpreted changes in species richness to be due to a change in the mode of accumulation rather than, or coinciding with, a changing climate.In the 1980s Neale Draper conducted excavation at Cape Du Couedic Rockshelter on the south coast of Kangaroo Island (Draper 1992). This site was visited intermittently between 7,500 and 6,800 years BP and preserved faunal material and lithics. Draper identified bones of Grey Kangaroo (Macropus fuliginosus), Tamar Wallaby (Macropus eugenii) and seals (Neophoca cinerea) stating that 8% of bone had been burnt and 29% exhibited cut marks (Draper 1992). Draper observed a high proportion of broken bone from maintenance of the site and ruled out mammal carnivore accumulation. Langeluddecke (2001) reported on the small mammal fauna of Cape Du Couedic, noting that bandicoots (Isoodon obesulus) and potoroos (Potorous platyops) were the most numerous species, followed by Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii), quolls (Dasyurus maculatus) and dunnarts (Sminthopsis aitkeni). Eggshell of the Kangaroo Island emu Dromaius baudinianus was present and concentrations of rodents (Rattus fuscipes, Pseudomys occidentalis, Pseudomys shortridgei and Pseudomys auritus). Due to the frequency of rodents, it was suggested that the main mode of accumulation was owl deposit (Langeluddecke 2001). These deposits are commonly found in caves where owls roost, regurgitating small prey as pellets. He went on to state that these species can be used to reconstruct the palaeoenvironment of the mid Holocene suggesting an emphasis on open areas with ground cover compared to the modern mallee scrub.Bales Bay, a European fur trapper accumulation, has been dated to 200 years BP (McDowell et al. 2013c; Walshe 2014). McDowell et al. (2013c) used this data as a baseline for species presence at the time of European settlement. 12 species were recorded in the Bales Bay assemblage consisting of rodents, kangaroos, pygmy

possums, dunnarts, along with possums, echidnas and wombats.

Palynology of Kangaroo IslandHope et al. (1975) extracted pollen from sediment samples obtained through coring at Black Creek Swamp. He concluded that the LGM on Kangaroo Island was unusually wet and open vegetation of grasslands and scattered eucalypts were dominant up to 17,000 years BP. Around 15,000 years BP a more stable environment was formed with a change to wetter conditions within the past 2,000 years BP. In 1974 Hope surveyed pollen analysis sites identifying Lashmar’s Lagoon on eastern Kangaroo Island (Clark and Lampert 1981). Analysis involved retrieval of five cores to a depth of 12 m. Dates showed continuous sedimentation over a 10,000 years period with a 3,000 year gap from 7,000 to 10,000 years BP (Clark and Lampert 1981). Results showed that from 7,000 to 6,400 years BP, Kangaroo Island was more open than any time since with grasses (Poaceae), salt bush (Chenopodiaceae) and daisies (Asteraceae) dominant. Casuarina stricta then became the dominant vegetation up until 4,800 years BP (Clark and Lampert 1981). This change is indicative of a wetter environment than today between 7,000 and 4,800 years BP and was also recorded in a study on the adjacent mainland (Bickford and Gell 2005). From 4,800 years BP C. stricta and grasses are reduced and replaced with eucalypts and dry shrubs. This floral community indicates a drying landscape up to 1,300 years BP with an increase in daisies (Asteraceae). Carbonised particle content from Lashmar’s Lagoon indicates a distinct change in fire regime ~2,500 years BP (Clark and Lampert 1981). This change does not coincide with change in vegetation or climate and was interpreted as intermittent large fires with significant build-up of fuel. Before 2,500 years BP carbonised particles suggest low intensity frequent fires which return to the area with the onset of European settlement (Clark and Lampert 1981). Clark and Lampert (1981) suggested that this change in fire regime may signal the human abandonment of Kangaroo Island (Clark and Lampert 1981).

ResultsA new excavation completed in Kelly Hill Cave 1 (K1) (Adams 2013) illustrated layers preserving articulated skeletal remains, discernible stratigraphy and radiocarbon dates from Late Pleistocene to Holocene (K1-P2). The radiocarbon ages showed mostly continuous deposition over the past 20,000 years while layers consisting of laterite and reworked sediments were excluded from the study.Full results are to be published in an upcoming paper, however, it can be stated that K1-P2 yielded over 2,000 identifiable mammalian specimens representing 32 species. All species have been previously identified in archaeological and/or

Layer Measured Radiocarbon Age (BP) Calibrated Date (BP) Dating Institution1D 1160 ± 30 1040 - 980 Beta Labs Ltd5 3957 ± 25 4423- 4237 Waikato University 5 6190 ± 40 7170 - 6950 Beta Labs Ltd7A 7110 ± 30 7900 - 7870 Beta Labs Ltd7A 8070 ± 40 8830 - 8790 Beta Labs Ltd7D 12,220 ± 50 14,190 - 14,000 Beta Labs Ltd8 26,087 ± 130 31,078 - 30,466 Waikato University

Table 1: K1-P2 AMS radiocarbon dates

82

Original research paper

palaeontological deposits on Kangaroo Island. Of these, 20 species represented ‘small mammals’ (<1kg) and accounted for 90.78% of the identified specimen count. The most abundant small mammals identified were native mice and rats (Muridae) which contributed 81.26% of all identified specimens of which nine murid species were identified. Pygmy possums were also abundant.Large mammals (>1kg) consisted of 12 species and contributed 9.22% of the specimens identified and consisted primarily of saltatorial (hopping) species. Other large mammals consist mostly of isolated occurrences. However, carnivorous marsupials are notable, making up 29.15% of identified specimens.

Faunal analysisSpecies richness of the K1-P2 assemblage drops during the LGM and increases through the Deglacial and Holocene. Simpson Index and Shannon Index diversity measurements show a new view of species diversity on Kangaroo Island remaining relatively high and constant throughout the sequence. This sustained high diversity may have aided hunter gatherer populations remaining on Kangaroo Island after isolation from the mainland.

Sediment analysisK1-P2 sediments appear to be largely derived from similar local parent sources from which three sediment types have been recorded. Sediment characteristics are thought to be indicative of climatic fluctuations over the past 20,000 years showing a change in geochemical signature and particle size from the dry LGM and deglaciation to the isolation of Kangaroo Island and onset of the highly variable Holocene climate. With isolation of the island local sediments dominate.

Species guildsThe K1-P2 deposit illustrated that fauna with distinct habitat preferences change in relative abundance (Ri%) throughout the sequence. These preferences relate to their current and historical ecological preferences and contain a certain amount of plasticity. They illustrate a change in climate and ecology throughout the Holocene as precipitation varied.Three distinct faunal guilds can be seen in K1-P2 over the past 20,000 years:

• arid to semi-arid heath and grasslands; • closed woodland/forest with dense understorey; and • dry sclerophyll and mallee with sparse understorey.

TaphonomyThe taphonomic study illustrated that vertebrae and post cranial material were the most common element. As element abundances are consistent throughout all layers it suggests that similar formation processes were acting upon the K1-P2 deposit throughout time. This relatively consistent trend also suggests that hydrological activity has not had a lasting effect on element survivorship. Results of this taphonomic study suggest that owls were the main accumulator of faunal material excavated from the three K1-P2 layers studied. Pit fall entrapment is the second mode of accumulation with saltatorial species being most prone to trapping. Element survivorship is high suggesting that erosional events have not had a lasting impact on the faunal signal Relative abundance of size throughout the sequence and absence of cut or tooth marks suggests two modes of accumulation:

pitfall entrapment (via solution pipe) and owl accumulation. Previous studies have shown that pitfall entrapment produces a near random sample of the faunal community while frequencies of owl prey match the frequencies of prey in the surrounding community (Reed 2003; Avenant 2005). Therefore, the K1-P2 assemblage should offer an accurate representation of the faunal community at time of deposition.

DiscussionThis new study highlights some of the natural resources that local peoples may have exploited throughout late Pleistocene and after isolation of the island. Recorded changes in the climate and ecology would have affected subsistence strategies at some level perhaps altering seasonal movement. Archaeological assemblages studied over the past 40 years (Hope et al. 1977; Robinson et al. 1999; McDowell et al. 2013a, 2013c; Langeluddecke 2001) record a severe drop in species richness on Kangaroo Island through the Holocene, however, this new research shows high survivorship up until European arrival. Langeluddecke (2001) found that mid-sized macropodids were the most numerous species within the Cape Du Couedic archaeological assemblage suggesting that they were a prime food source. These species remain abundant up until European arrival suggesting that resource depletion may not have been a valid reason for the abandonment of Kangaroo Island. This new study draws a very different picture of the Kangaroo Island environment over the past 20,000 years. It shows that few mammals became extirpated while severe environmental change and isolation took place. Hunter gatherer occupation patterns would have had to adjust to rising sea levels and isolated fauna would have seen raised hunting pressures. Why then do species richness and diversity on Kangaroo Island remain high following isolation? Relative abundances do show some change and perhaps this indicates change in fire regime signalling abandonment of the island.

Species present at European settlementOnly 13 non-volant mammals were recorded on Kangaroo Island at the time of European settlement. In addition, a heath mouse (Pseudomys shortridgei) was captured on Kangaroo Island in 1907 and identified in 2000, adding one more species to the list (Kemper et al. 2010). Although the colony of South Australia was founded in 1836 sealers and whalers had inhabited Kangaroo Island for decades (Clarke 1996:52). A recently discovered fur trapper’s site from Bales Bay on the south coast of Kangaroo Island has been dated to 200 years BP and offers insights into species present at or just before settlement (Walshe 2014). Layer 1 (L1) is the uppermost layer of K1-P2 and it is actively accumulating. The presence of glass and iron within L1 suggests that species represent richness on Kangaroo Island within temporal proximity to European arrival and at least within the last 1,000 years. When the species from Bales Bay and L1 are grouped they greatly add to the species present on Kangaroo Island at European arrival. This new data changes the way we view species extirpation on Kangaroo Island. Previously it was postulated that the absence of species in the recorded fauna of Kangaroo Island meant that many species had gone extinct throughout the Holocene (Hope et al. 1977). Investigations had suspected climate change, changing fire regime and island isolation having a detrimental effect on Kangaroo Island’s fauna leading to a drop in species

83

Shaun Adams et al., A Review of the Palaeo-Environment of Kangaroo Island | Dig It 2(2):79-83, December 2014

richness of up to 45% before the arrival of Europeans (McDowell et al. 2013c). This new view of species richness, abundance and diversity attests to the resilience of Australia’s non-volant mammal fauna to climate change but also adaption rather than migration in light of those changes.

ConclusionK1-P2 offers a purely palaeontological assemblage from which changes in fauna, vegetation and sediment trends since the LGM can be analysed (Adams 2013). Although very scant data is reported here, the study suggests that the Pleistocene to early Holocene fauna of Kangaroo Island was resilient to anthropological pressure, climate change and isolation due to sea level rise. Analyses show that although some species are not recorded surviving up to present, species diversity remained stable and high up until European arrival. This suggests that the arrival of Europeans set in place an unprecedented series of island extinctions that were recorded in K1. With one in four Australian marsupial species currently threatened with extinction (MacPhee and Flemming 1999:333) it is essential that we use palaeoecological data to understand mammal tolerances and distributions in the past to advise on policy in the future. As Kangaroo Island is a large landmass void of foxes and rabbits it has potential for reintroduction of threatened Australian mammals like quolls (Dasyurus maculatus and Dasyurus viverrinus) which may see declines in introduced predators like cats (Felis catus). The K1-P2 faunal assemblage illustrates how resilient Australia’s mammal fauna are to climate change and how palaeoecology can play a vital role in understanding the past ecosystems hunter gatherer communities occupied.

ReferencesAdams, S. 2013 A terminal Pleistocene-Holocene palaeoecological

investigation from Kelly Hill Cave, Kangaroo Island. Unpublished B.Sci (Hons) Thesis, School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide.

Avenant, N. 2005 Barn owl pellets: a useful tool for monitoring small mammal communities. Belgian Journal of Zoology 135:39-43.

Baudin, N. 1803 The Journal of Post Captain Nicolas Baudin, 1803.Bickford, S. and P. Gell 2005 Holocene vegetation change, Aboriginal

wetland use and the impact of European settlement on the Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia. The Holocene 15:200-215.

Clark, R. and R. Lampert 1981 Past changes in burning regime as markers of man’s activity on Kangaroo Island, South Australia. Terra Australis 5:1-86.

Clarke, P. A. 1996 Early European interaction with Aboriginal hunters and gatherers on Kangaroo Island, South Australia. Aboriginal History 20:51.

Cooper, H. M. 1960 The archaeology of Kangaroo Island, South Australia. Adelaide: South Australian Museum.

Draper, N. 1992 Cape du Couedic rockshelter and the aboriginal archaeology of Kangaroo Island, South Australia. PhD Thesis: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

Flinders, M. 1814 A voyage to terra Australis; undertaken in the years 1801-1803. London: Bulmer.

Gingele, F. X., P. De Deckker and C. D. Hillenbrand 2004 Late Quaternary terrigenous sediments from the Murray Canyons area, offshore South Australia and their implications for sea level change, palaeoclimate and palaeodrainage of the Murray–Darling Basin. Marine Geology 212:183-197.

Gingele, F., P. De Deckker and M. Norman 2007 Late Pleistocene and Holocene climate of SE Australia reconstructed from dust and river loads deposited offshore the River Murray Mouth. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 255:257-272.

Hope, G. S. 1975 Report of an initial survey of potential pollen sites, Kangaroo Island, South Australia. Unpublished report for the South Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service, Adelaide.

Hope, J., R. Lampert, E. Edmondson, M. Smith and G. Van Tets 1977 Late Pleistocene faunal remains from Seton rock shelter, Kangaroo Island, South Australia. Journal of Biogeography 4:363-385.

Howchin, W. 1903 Aboriginal occupation of Kangaroo Island, Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 27:90.

Kemper, C., G. Medlin, and M. Bachmann 2010 The discovery and history of the heath mouse Pseudomys shortridgei (Thomas, 1907) in South Australia. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 134:125-138.

Langeluddecke, C. 2001 The small faunal taphonomy and zooarchaeology of Cape du Couedic Rockshelter, Kangaroo Island, South Australia. Unpublished B.Arch (Hons) Thesis, Department of Archaeology, Flinders University, Adelaide.

MacArthur, R. H. 1967 The theory of island biogeography. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

MacPhee, R. and C. Flemming 1999 Requiem aeternam: the last five hundred years of mammalian species extinctions. In R. MacPhee and H.-D. Sues (eds), Extinctions in near time: causes, contexts, and consequences, pp. 333-371. New York: Springer.

McDowell, M., G. Prideaux and K. Walshe 2013a Re-evaluating the Late Quaternary mammal fossil assemblage of Seton Rockshelter, Kangaroo Island, South Australia, including the evidence for late-surviving megafauna. Late Quaternary faunal responses to environmental change and isolation on a large Australian landbridge island. Unpublished B.Sci (PhD) thesis, School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide.

McDowell, M., E. A. Bestland, F. Bertuch, L. Ayliffe, K. Hellstrom, G. E. Jacobsen and G. Prideaux 2013b Chronology, stratigraphy and palaeoenvironmental interpretation of a Late Pleistocene to mid‐Holocene cave accumulation on Kangaroo Island, South Australia. Boreas 42:974-994.

McDowell, M., G. Prideaux, A. Baynes, L. Ayliffe, F. Bertuch, J. C. Hellstrom, and G. E. Jacobsen 2013c The effects of late Quaternary environmental change and isolation on the non-volant mammals of a large Australian land-bridge island. Late Quaternary faunal responses to environmental change and isolation on a large Australian landbridge island. Unpublished B.Sci (PhD) thesis, School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide.

Reed, E. H. 2003 Vertebrate taphonomy of large mammal bone deposits, Naracoorte Caves World Heritage Area. Unpublished PhD Thesis, School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide.

Robinson, A. C. and D. M. Armstrong 1999 A Biological Survey of Kangaroo Island South Australia in November 1989 and 1990. Unpublished report for the Department for Environment, Heritage and Aboriginal Affairs: Adelaide.

Tindale, N. B. and B. G. Maegraith 1931 Traces of an extinct Aboriginal population on Kangaroo Island. Adelaide: Hassell Press.

Walshe, K. 2014 Archaeological evidence for a sealer’s and wallaby hunter’s skinning site on Kangaroo Island, South Australia. The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 9(1):130-143.

84

Ella Stewart-PetersDiscipline of History, School of International Studies, Flinders University, <stew0231@flinders.edu.au>

AbstractIn 2010, the first steps were taken towards inscribing the Australian Cornish Mining Heritage Site (ACMHS) as part of a Transnational World Heritage Listing that incorporates sites with a history of Cornish mining influence from around the world with the Cornish World Heritage Site that was inscribed in 2006. The ACMHS is a combination of two South Australian State Heritage sites, Burra and Moonta Mines. With this process ongoing, a discussion of the measures taken to ensure the success of this application is essential. This paper focuses on the implications of making small alterations to a heritage site in order to successfully meet the criteria for a Transnational World Heritage Listing. A key concern with this process is the issue of erecting signage in the Cornish language within the Moonta Mines State Heritage Area, a seemingly innocuous act that, nevertheless, fundamentally alters the nature of the site. This is an issue as the population that inhabited this district, whilst overwhelmingly of Cornish extraction, did not utilise the Cornish language as it had almost entirely died out in the eighteenth century. As this is an issue of South Australian heritage, the Burra Charter was consulted to indicate the best practice framework that should be in place at this site. This paper, therefore, questions whether such changes to the nature of a heritage site can be accepted as occurring in the best interests of preserving said site.

Introduction‘Moonta agas dynnergh’ (‘welcome to Moonta’ in Kernewek, the revived Cornish language) is the sign that boldly welcomes visitors to ‘Australia’s Little Cornwall’. Across many of the heritage locations incorporated within the town, including the cemetery and the Moonta Mines State Heritage Area, Cornish language translations of heritage information appear frequently. Whilst the region does, historically, have strong cultural ties to Cornwall, as will be shown, the issue of Cornish language signage in these locations gives rise to questions of best practice amongst heritage professionals, both at a local South Australian level and at a broader international level. Initially, this inclusion of the Cornish language seems innocuous, especially given Moonta’s proclaimed status as ‘Australia’s Little Cornwall’. However, it becomes an issue when it is remembered that the language was not spoken amongst those migrants who flocked from the failing tin and copper mining industries of Cornwall in search of better opportunities around the globe during the Cornish diaspora of the nineteenth century. This paper will examine the implications of such heritage decisions in the context of a site that is undergoing a rigorous process to become part of a transnational World Heritage listing alongside other Cornish mining settlements around the world. Utilising the Burra Charter as a heritage framework, alongside historical investigation and analysis, it will be argued that altering a site in this way is not only harmful to the narrative being preserved, but is also entirely

unnecessary.

Historical contextIn 1861, copper was discovered on grazing land leased to Walter Watson Hughes at the northern end of South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula (Drew 1991:4). Hughes, already the owner of the Wallaroo Mines some 17 kilometres to the north of this new find and established just two years previously, wasted little time in exploiting the mineral resources of the area. Initially, just four men were brought overland from Wallaroo Mines to investigate the potential of the copper lode (Wallaroo and Moonta Mining and Smelting Company 1961:5). This was to become the site of the world-famous Moonta Mines, workings that would eclipse even the wealth generated by the Monster Mine at Burra. Despite its small beginnings, by the end of 1861 some 80 men were employed on the Moonta Mines; 263 by the end of 1862 (Wallaroo and Moonta Mining and Smelting Company 1961:5). Over the next decade, the population of the area grew rapidly. By 170, an illegal, but tolerated, settlement of some 6000 inhabitants had developed on the mineral leases, with the approval of the Moonta Mining Company (Drew 1991:12).The initial settlers in the region came overland from other established mining districts, chiefly from Burra and Wallaroo Mines (Drew 1991:4). As the mining operations in the region continued to expand, migrants began to make their way directly to the northern Yorke Peninsula following their arrival in the colony. What was so unique about this population was its ethnic homogeneity. As Payton (2005:279) has stated, ‘by 1875 it was estimated that there were some 20,000 to 25,000 people resident on northern Yorke Peninsula, mostly of Cornish birth or descent’. Why such a large population of almost exclusively identical ethnicity became clustered in the region demarcated by the three government townships of Moonta, Wallaroo, and Kadina, is a matter for interpretation. For the residents themselves, it was the

Moonta A’gas Dynnergh?The implications of Cornish language signage in the Moonta Mines State Heritage Area

Figure 1: Ruins of Richmans Enginehouse, in operation between 1869 and 1923 and now forming part of the Moonta Mines State Heritage Area (photograph by the author, July 2014)

85

Ella Stewart-Peters, Moonta A’gas Dynnergh? | Dig It 2(2):84-88, December 2014

direct result of their unique cultural identity that the northern Yorke Peninsula came to be so dominated by Cornish migrants and their descendants. This can be explained through the myth of ‘Cousin Jack’. White (2011:225) has presented an analysis of the ‘Cousin Jack’ myth, arguing that this identity was forged from a culture of ‘industrial prowess’, one which meant that, in the mid-nineteenth century, Cornish miners were able to find employment in all corners of the globe. That is, buoyed by the knowledge that their skills were in demand around the world, Cornish miners came to see themselves as the best hard-rock miners in the world.This self-belief was not simply limited to the industrial sphere. As White (2011:225-226) has argued, the ‘Cousin Jack’ myth also led Cornish migrants to believe that they were uniquely suited to life on the colonial frontier. ‘Cousin Jack’ was a tough, practical character who was able to adjust easily to the rigorous demands of frontier life, able to cope with any situation it could throw at him. This myth certainly held a dominant position in the psyche of the settlers in the Moonta Mines township. However, ‘Cousin Jack’ did not travel alone. Just as the population on the mineral leases consisted of individuals of both sexes, ‘Cousin Jack’s’ survival on the frontier was an experience that was shared with ‘Cousin Jenny’, his female counterpart. Payton (2007:28) provides an analysis of the mythical characteristics of ‘Cousin Jenny’, showing her to have been an individual who symbolised the belief that ‘Cornish women were somehow equipped above all others for the rigours of life on the frontiers of Australasia’. The characteristics of ‘Cousin Jenny’ and ‘Cousin Jack’ would have inspired the population in the Moonta Mines settlement to believe that the Cornish, and the Cornish alone, were the people most likely to succeed in such trying circumstances.The Cornish identity, as a result of the pervasiveness of the ‘Cousin Jack’ and ‘Cousin Jenny’ myths, was certainly dominant amongst the inhabitants of the settlement at Moonta Mines.

This is evidenced by the work of local historian Oswald Pryor, who focused his attention on disseminating this myth to a wider audience through books and cartoons (Pryor 1950, 1969). The extent to which this myth permeated the society within the Moonta Mines township and the role that it played within the community are discussed in detail by Payton (2005; 2007). The distinctly Cornish nature of the settlement is evident in the transplantation of many unique practices from Cornwall into the South Australian copper mining industry. ‘From mining methods, technology and terminology to the system of remuneration in the mines and the “cult” of the “captains” who managed every aspect of these activities’, the social and industrial environment of the Moonta Mines was fundamentally Cornish in nature (Payton 2007:4). Mines were known as ‘bals’, abandoned mines were ‘knacked bals’, a ‘captain’ was a mine officer, an individual mine working was a ‘wheal’, while a shift worked in a mine was a ‘coor’ (Faull 1983:19). Miners worked on ‘tribute’ or ‘tutwork’ schemes; ‘tributers’ being those paid according to the value of the ore won and ‘tutworkmen’ being those paid by the amount of ground they mined (Payton 2007:19). Cornish pasties were a staple of the workers’ diet and, outside of work, the residents of the Moonta Mines settlement took part in festivals, wrestling, athletics, and singing, pastimes synonymous with the Cornish identity (Faull 1983:19).Despite the fact that such a large proportion of the population in the Moonta Mines community identified either as Cornish migrants or as individuals of Cornish descent, it is crucial to understand that Moonta was not a carbon copy of Cornwall. Whilst there were many similarities, life on the Australian colonial frontier meant that many aspects of the Cornish identity were lost or altered. An integral part of this process had already begun long before South Australia was even established as a British colony. By the mid-eighteenth century, the process of Anglicisation had radically changed the cultural identity of the Cornish people.

Figure 2: Moonta Mines State Heritage Area from Ryan’s Tailings Heap, indicating the extent of heritage work conducted in this section of the Mines (photograph by the author, July 2014)

86

Original research paper

Payton (2005:13) has shown that Cornish settlers blended, almost seamlessly, with the ‘Englishness’ of colonies like South Australia. This often meant that Cornish settlers were actively sought after by colonial authorities. Thus, the Anglicisation of the Cornish culture could, in such circumstances, be interpreted as beneficial for impoverished Cornish miners seeking a better life on foreign shores.With regards to language, as a Celtic community, Cornwall did have its own distinct language; however, it had succumbed to the Anglicisation pressures of the Tudor monarchs following the English Protestant Reformation (Parry 1946:258). The last known speaker of Cornish as a first language was reported to have died in 1777, leaving behind just a few words and sentences that continued to be passed down amongst some within the broader population (Parry 1946:258). Beyond 1777, what remained of the Cornish language became part of tradition rather than functioning as a truly ‘living’ language. As a result, by the time copper was discovered on the Yorke Peninsula, the migrants arriving from Cornwall would have spoken English as their mother-tongue. This does not mean that, linguistically, the Cornish were entirely indistinct from their colonial counterparts, though. In places like Moonta where large numbers of Cornish people were concentrated in one area, the use of a unique English dialect set them apart from other ethnic groups. Although much of this dialect was directly related to the mining industry, it also permeated everyday life on the Yorke Peninsula. This dialect, whilst drawn from the original Cornish language, is not indicative of the language being spoken alongside English at Moonta during the nineteenth century.Although many aspects of life in the Moonta Mines settlement find their origins in Cornwall, these were altered over time as migrants adapted to their new environment and as subsequent generations grew up with no experience of life in Cornwall. For White (2011:226), this alteration in identity was an inevitable outcome of the ‘Cousin Jack’ myth. That is, the Cornish identity did not simply transplant itself into the new South Australian environment as it changed its nature in every part of the world that was inhabited by ‘Cousin Jacks’. This concept is also central to Payton’s (2007:169) understanding of the community that existed in the Moonta district: ‘from the first, Moonta and environs had been proudly “Cornish” but … the institutional life of the Peninsula had, while drawing on this reservoir of “Cornishness”, crafted a new identity that was overtly and unmistakeably “Moonta”’. White (2011:226-227) has argued that the fundamental difference between the Cornish identity and the Moonta identity was the fact that Moonta became central to the idea of place and belonging within the latter. Previously, Cornwall had been the geographic and symbolic centre of the identity of the Cornish miner in Australia. As time passed and Cornwall became an ever more distant memory, Moonta began to take precedence as the symbolic centre of the ‘Cousin Jack’ culture in Australia (White 2011:226-227).

Heritage contextThe issue of the Cornish language and its relationship to the identity of the migrants who inhabited the Moonta Mines settlement is of key concern with regards to the heritage status of the area. Designated as a South Australian State Heritage Area in May 1984, Moonta Mines has since been combined with the Burra State Heritage Area which was designated in

1993 (Department of the Environment 2014). Together, these two sites form an area known as the Australian Cornish Mining Heritage Sites (ACMHS). In 2008, the first steps were taken towards gaining global recognition for the unique heritage values represented by the ACMHS with the South Australian Heritage Council nominating both the Burra and the Moonta Mines sites for Australian World Heritage status (South Australian Heritage Council 2011:9). The ACMHS was also nominated for the Australian National Heritage List in 2009 with a decision on its inclusion initially anticipated in June 2013 (South Australian Heritage Council 2011:9). As of August 2014, the sites remain under consideration (Department of the Environment 2014), with the most recent version of the National Heritage List and Commonwealth Heritage List Assessment revealing that the anticipated decision date has now been pushed back to mid-2015 (Department of the Environment 2013).Beyond this, the next step for affording the ACMHS World Heritage status will be to link the sites with Cornish mining heritage areas in Spain, Mexico, and South Africa (South Australian Heritage Council 2011:9). This transnational listing will be connected to the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape that was granted World Heritage status in 2006 (UNESCO World Heritage Convention 2014). Each of these sites is intrinsically linked by the shared heritage of the Cornish mining diaspora which saw more than 250,000 Cornish people leave their home county and migrate to a wide range of mining locations across the globe between 1841 and 1901. These immigrants sought employment to escape the poverty compounded by the decline of the tin and copper industries in Cornwall (British Broadcasting Corporation 2004). Transnational listings are those properties that ‘include two or more component parts, spread over different State Parties’ (Vileikis et al 2013:319). By 2013, there were six inscribed transnational properties: the Jesuit Missions of the Guaranis, the Frontiers of the Roman Empire, the Struve Geodetric Arc, the Belfries of Belgium and France, the Stone Circles of Senegambia, and the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings surrounding the Alps (Vileikis et al 2013:319). In addition to this, other projects such as the expanse of the Viking World, the Qhapaq Nan, and the Silks Roads of China and Central Asia, remain in preparatory or evaluation stages (Vileikis et al 2013:319).Linking sites around the world, including the ACMHS, to the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape will ensure that the global reach of Cornish mining practices and the Cornish migrant culture will be recognised and protected at an international level. It is essential that the heritage being preserved within the ACMHS is as ‘authentic’ as is possible to achieve through heritage practices. Thus, it is necessary to address the issue of the Cornish language translations that feature on guiding signage in the Moonta Mines State Heritage Area. As Article 2 of the Burra Charter states, ‘the aim of conservation is to retain the cultural significance of a place’ (Australia ICOMOS 2013:3; italics in original). To achieve this, heritage practitioners are encouraged, under the ethical framework of the Charter, to ‘do as much as necessary to care for the place and to make it usable, but otherwise change it as little as possible so that its cultural significance is retained’ (Australia ICOMOS 2013:3). Through the example of the Burra Charter, it can be argued that the use of the Cornish language on signage at Moonta Mines is not in the interest of best practice for heritage professionals.

87

Ella Stewart-Peters, Moonta A’gas Dynnergh? | Dig It 2(2):84-88, December 2014

DiscussionAs has been shown, the intrinsic link between Cornwall and the settlement at Moonta Mines cannot be disregarded (National Trust SA Moonta Branch 2014). The utilisation of the Cornish heritage and identity for tourism purposes is, by no means, in question in this paper as the promotion of Moonta as ‘Australia’s Little Cornwall’ is extremely beneficial for ensuring the long-term preservation and survival of South Australia’s Cornish heritage. However, there are limitations to the amount of ‘Cornishness’ that can be proclaimed at the Moonta Mines. Payton’s (2007:169) assertion that the ‘Cousin Jack’ identity that existed on the northern Yorke Peninsula rapidly adopted Moonta as its geographic and symbolic centre supports this argument as it highlights the fluidity of cultural identity and the ability of this identity to change and attempt to new environments over time.The most significant limitation to the ‘Cornishness’ of the Moonta Mines settlement is the fact that the traditional language cannot be portrayed as part of Moonta’s heritage. As was previously discussed, the Cornish language was no longer in use by the time of the diaspora in the nineteenth century. Without a shared language to bind the sites across Spain, Mexico, South Africa, England and Australia, it is necessary to examine how these disparate outposts of the Cornish diaspora can be considered part of a single transnational World Heritage listing. As White (2011:255) has argued, the Cornish identity was fundamentally altered in Australia to create what Payton (2007:7) has described as the ‘Moontaite’ identity. If this was the case in Australia, it can be extrapolated that the ‘Cousin Jack’ identity was altered in different ways on the frontiers of other nations, such as Mexico and South Africa. Thus, in terms of identity, each of the sites being considered for transnational listing can be linked only by a shared point of origin. This is further complicated by the fact that Moonta was unique in its almost exclusive ethnic homogeneity. Even at Burra, the Cornish population, whilst undoubtedly predominate, had many neighbours of Welsh, Scottish, Irish, German, Chinese, and even Chilean origins that flocked to the district in search of work in the mines, the associated smelting industry, and the essential support services required to maintain a population that was over 5000-strong in 1851 (Lawrence and Davies 2010:174-175).How, then, can such disparate sites be connected to one another? The answer lies in the industrial aspects of the Cornish diaspora. Following the collapse of the tin and copper industries of Cornwall, large numbers of emigrants took not only themselves and their families to new and exotic frontiers, but also their unique mining practices and industrial construction methods. These practices and methods proved to be far more resistant to change than the Cornish identity, as is evidenced by the juxtaposition of distinctively Cornish engine houses in harsh environments including southern Australia and southern Spain (Palmer and Neaverson 1998:72). These engine houses are symbolic of resistance to change because, despite the widely varying climactic and environmental conditions, the construction methods remained the same as they had done in Cornwall. The statement of significance accompanying the nomination of the ACMHS for the National Heritage List supports this, noting that ACMHS demonstrates ‘the application of distinctive Cornish technology to the extraction and treatment of copper in Australian mining fields’ (Department of the Environment 2014). The ACMHS also encompasses five separate engine houses, all constructed in a uniquely Cornish fashion (Department of the Environment

2014). Thus, the shared mining practices and industrial construction methods found across the globe represent the link between populations with their own unique adaptations of their Cornish heritage as a result of their exposure to vastly different cultural environments.An industrial link that binds the sites of the transnational Cornish mining heritage listing means that the preservation of Moonta’s Cornish heritage need not work against the best practice principles of the Burra Charter. The Cornish language was not spoken by the inhabitants of the settlement; their linguistic distinctiveness was derived, not from an entirely different language, but from their unique English dialect. Including the Cornish language on signage at Moonta Mines is introducing a factor that simply was not a part of Moonta’s heritage. Acknowledging that the language was not in use at Moonta does not diminish the heritage of the area in any way. Instead, it strengthens it enormously. Showing that the identity of the Cornish in Australia was fundamentally altered by exposure to a vastly different environment is a crucial part of the story of the diaspora. White’s (2011:225) assertion that the ‘Cousin Jack’ identity varied greatly around the world only adds to this. The history of the Cornish in Australia is a very different story to that of the Cornish in South Africa, in Mexico, or even in Cornwall itself. Using the Cornish language as a means of creating an aspect of cultural homogeneity is disingenuous and entirely unnecessary. As the Burra Charter states, heritage professionals must seek to avoid making changes that ‘distort the physical or other evidence’ that a site provides (Australia ICOMOS 2013:3). Cornish language signage at Moonta Mines is an unnecessary distortion of the region’s cultural significance and heritage potential.

ConclusionThe Cornish heritage of the Moonta district cannot, and should not, be denied. Despite this, the inclusion of Cornish language signage at key heritage locations in the area, particularly in the cemetery and the Moonta Mines State Heritage Area, is an unnecessary and unethical distortion of the story of the Cornish in South Australia. In contradiction to the best practice guidelines of the Burra Charter, utilising this language on signage presents the visitor with the impression that the language was spoken amongst the large population of Cornish settlers in the region. As has been indicated by historical linguistic research, the Cornish language had largely died out by the mid-eighteenth century and, as a result the migrants flocking to the copper mines of Yorke Peninsula a century later would have spoken a unique English dialect but not an entirely separate Celtic language. Additionally, as has been shown, any attempt to use the Cornish language to create a sense of cultural homogeneity amongst the disparate sites proposed for the transnational World Heritage listing is entirely unnecessary. The connectivity between Cornish mining locations in Australia, South Africa, Mexico, Spain, and of course, in Cornwall itself is found in the industrial sphere. The exportation of distinctly Cornish mining techniques and industrial construction methodologies adequately represents the global reach of the Cornish during the diaspora. Identifying the socio-cultural and linguistic differences between these divergent populations does not detract from the story of Cornish global migration. Rather, it enriches it, showing how the ‘Cousin Jack’ identity was altered and developed over time in vastly different cultural and geographic environments. In this way, it is entirely unnecessary

88

Original research paper

to imply that the Cornish language was a significant feature of life for the migrants to the Moonta district. The ‘Cousin Jack’ identity, whilst having its basis amongst the identity of those in the home county, was essentially fluid, adapting readily to new environments and conditions across the globe. The settlement at Moonta Mines is a key aspect of the Cornish diaspora story of the nineteenth century and ensuring that the ACMHS remains as true as possible to the realities of life on the South Australian colonial frontier is important for ethical heritage practice at both a local and an international level.

ReferencesAustralia ICOMOS 2013 The Burra Charter: The Australia ICOMOS

Charter for Places of Cultural Significance, 2013. Retrieved 28 August 2014 from <http://australia.icomos.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Burra-Charter-2013-Adopted-31.10.2013.pdf>.

British Broadcasting Corporation 2004 Immigration and Emigration: I’m Alright Jack: The Cornish Diaspora. Retrieved 28 August 2014 from <http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/immig_emig/england/cornwall/article_1.shtml>.

Department of the Environment 2013 National Heritage List and Commonwealth Heritage List Assessments. Retrieved 28 August 2014 from <http://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/pages/8ac00639-6069-454e-a191-e6b8a3eed9a2/files/nhl-and-chl-list-assessments.pdf>.

Departmnt of the Environment 2014 Australian Heritage Database: Australian Cornish Mining Heritage Sites. Retrieved 28 August 2014 from <http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/ahdb/search.pl>.

Drew, G.J. 1991 Discovering Historic Moonta, South Australia. Adelaide: Department of Mines and Energy and the District Council of Northern Yorke Peninsula.

Faull, J. 1983 The Cornish in Australia. Croydon: AE Press. Lawrence, S. and P. Davies 2010 An Archaeology of Australia Since 1788.

New York: Springer Science & Business Media.Palmer, M. and P. Neaverson 1998 Industrial Archaeology: Principles and

Practice. New York: Routledge.Parry, J.J. 1946 The revival of Cornish: An dasserghyans Kernewek.

PLMA 61(1): 258-268.Payton, P.J. 2005 The Cornish Overseas: A History of Cornwall’s ‘Great

Emigration’. Fowey: Cornwall Editions.Payton, P.J. 2007 Making Moonta: The Invention of Australia’s Little

Cornwall. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.Pryor, O. 1950 Cornish Pasty: 60 Cartoons. Adelaide: Oswald Pryor.Pryor, O. 1969 Australia’s Little Cornwall. Adelaide: Seal Books.South Australian Heritage Council 2011 Sixth Annual Report, 1 July

2010 to 30 June 2011. Unpublished report prepared for Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Adelaide.

UNESCO World Heritage Convention 2014 Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape. Retrieved 28 August 2014 from <http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1215>.

Vileikis, O., B. Dumont, E. Serruys, K. Van Balen, V. Tigny and P. De Maeyer, Connecting World Heritage nominations and monitoring with the support of the Silk Roads Cultural Heritage Resource Information System. ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences 2(5):319-324.

Wallaroo and Moonta Mining and Smelting Company 1961 Moonta Copper Centenary Celebrations, 1861 – 1961. Moonta: Moonta Copper Mine.

White, C. 2011 Cousins Jack and Jenny in Phyllis Somerville’s Not Only in Stone. In P.J. Payton (ed.) Cornish Studies 19, pp. 225-234. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.

89

John StephensonHeritage Tasmania, <john.stephenson@dpipwe.tas.gov.au>

AbstractThe act of interpreting historic sites without compromising their integrity is an art which requires careful balancing. The use of digital technology to record, analyse and interpret historic sites has become widespread, although the Australian heritage sector is yet to fully embrace the opportunities. The Point Puer Boys’ Prison at Port Arthur, Tasmania, has been used as a case study to test the relevance of digital technology to the field of archaeological interpretation. A complete 3D digital reconstruction of Point Puer was created, which has then been used as a basis to demonstrate possible interpretation and education techniques. This project was aimed to be a technology demonstration for the Australian heritage sector, illustrating how digital technology can be used as a management tool at historic sites using free software that is accessible to the general public.

Virtual archaeologyVirtual archaeology is a continuation of traditional cultural heritage research utilising modern digital techniques (Koller et al. 2009). Digital technology allows historic sites that are no longer visible or accessible to be recreated in a virtual environment (Ch’ng 2009). Visual representations are a powerful tool for disseminating scholarly information, and are regularly used by the heritage sector (Frischer 2008). The first virtual recreations of historic sites were created in the 1990s when expensive 3D Imaging Centres were first constructed (Stone and Ojika 2000). Today the same technology is available on a personal computer using software programs such as Autodesk Maya and 3D Studio Max (Ch’ng 2009). Digital recreations have the advantage over physical reconstructions as they can be created at a scale of 1:1 and can be easily changed or improved when additional information comes to light (Guidi et al. 2005). The digital nature of a recreation also means it can be easily shared with other scholars (Zara and Slavik 2003). This is important as a comprehensive digital recreation of a site requires an interdisciplinary approach. It requires input from historians, archaeologist, architects and digital artists (Wells et al. 2010). Traditional surveying methods can be used to collect spatial data from extant buildings. Photogrammetric techniques are useful for recording buildings with simple shapes (planer polygons, cylinders, cones) while more complex shapes require laser scanning (Lerones et al. 2010). Where the object no longer exists it is essential to conduct extensive research into the location, size,

form and materials used to construct the original feature so as to create an accurate representation that will stand up to scholarly debate (Styliadas et al. 2009). Despite the best efforts of the researchers there will always be some features that cannot be confirmed or questions that cannot be answered. No recreation will ever be completely accurate. Winterbottom and Long (2006) believe it is important to acknowledge this uncertainty. Uncertainty in digital representations can be represented by different coloured buildings, semi-transparent buildings, or by identifying the level of confidence in supporting data (Dylla et al. 2010:62; Koller et al. 2009). Virtual archaeology is a growing component of the archaeological sector, acting as a tool for archaeologists to present their findings and conclusions to a wider audience, often to people who are not professionals in the field (Van Dyke 2006). Three dimensional representations and fly-throughs are common ways to present this information, and are often found at information kiosks or as video displays at historic sites (Ch’ng 2009; Vlahakis et al. 2002). The technology allows archaeologists to educate, not just to entertain the public, distributing information over the internet and through popular media (Frischer 2008; Van Dyke 2006).

Augmented realityKiosk-type information booths with touch screens and fly-through video displays are common interpretation methods at historic sites (Vlahakis et al. 2002). The latest developments in the field have included location based Augmented Reality (AR), where information from a virtual world is combined with information from the real world (Ivanova and Ivanov 2011). This information can be displayed using smartphone applications, static Computer Augmented Virtual Environment (CAVE) displays or location-based Head Mounted Displays (HMD) which can create a fully immersive experience (Haydar et al. 2010; Nassar and Meawad 2010). The release of the Google Glass project, which has been referred to as ‘wearable computing’, represents the emergence of immersive augmented reality technology that is available to the general public (Olmedo and Jorge 2013:63). Augmented Reality makes it possible to compete in sporting events at the ancient Olympic Games, to take a guided tour of Notre Dame Cathedral by a medieval monk (Ch’ng 2009), or to search an underwater shipwreck for artefacts without getting wet (Haydar et al. 2010). Many of the published examples have been developed as prototypes and technology demonstrations, and therefore do not always present practical setups that can be adopted by other heritage sites (Nassar and Meawad 2010). The immersive experience of HMD technology that allows a user to enter a virtual environment is impressive, however the few quantitative studies conducted in the field have found that users are more comfortable using smartphone or tablet devices compared to glasses or a full head set (Nassar and Meawad 2010; Olmedo and Augusto 2013). Ivanova and Ivanov (2011) have demonstrated that augmented

Virtual Archaeology and New Possibilities for Historic Site Interpretation:A case study from Point Puer, Tasmania

This article was adapted from the report Digital Recreation of Point Puer Boys’ Prison. For further reading please consult:<http://www.flinders.edu.au/ehl/fms/archaeology_files/dig_library/directed_studies/ARCH8404_JStephenson_Report.pdf>

90

Original research paper

reality technology can be used in the classroom by students to gain an increased understanding of spatial concepts, and that it supports the students with their own self-guided investigations of a subject. Unfortunately there have been few quantitative studies to support that the same technology can help students or visitors to gain a similar understanding of spatial relationships at an historic site. Nassar and Meawad (2010) believe that more quantitative research is needed in this field.

Australian contextDespite the above international studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of this technology, there are limited examples of the Australian heritage sector embracing its potential. The following projects have gone some way to addressing this gap in the sector. The AE2 Commander project presents an educational history experience in a gaming environment. It recreates the experience of commanding the Australian submarine that sailed through the Dardenelles during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 (Brogan and Masek 2011). Players are guided through the game by a historically accurate narrative which is based on information from diaries and reports from the National Archives Office of Australia and the Australian War Memorial (Brogan and Masek 2011). SahulTime is an Australian project that combines spatial and temporal data presenting it in a geographic web browser. In effect it represents a satellite view of the changing landscape over epochs of time and is accessible over the internet (Coller 2009). Critical Masses is a pilot project investigating the potential of smart-phone based augmented reality interpretations for Australia’s Cold War historic sites, including abandoned atomic test sites (Broderick et al. 2009). The above examples demonstrate that the use of digital technology is creeping into the Australian heritage sector, but the industry still has some way to catch the rest of the world. It is perplexing that this has not been introduced more widely in Australia. Perhaps this is because of the lack of quantitative data to support the benefits (Ch’ng 2009), a fear of prohibitive costs created by early examples (Olmedo and Augusto 2013), or the technology appears too complex (Nassar and Meawad 2010). The following project aims to dispel some of these common misconceptions.

Point PuerThe Point Puer Boys’ Prison was the first dedicated juvenile detention centre in the British Empire, operating between 1834 and 1848, during which it housed over 3,000 boys aged 10-17 (Tuffin 2007). There are currently no standing buildings at the prison, therefore, like many archaeological sites it can be difficult to picture how the prison looked and operated. The location is now part of the World Heritage listed Port Arthur Historic Sites, in Tasmania, and managed by the Port Arthur Historic Sites Management Authority. Guided tours of the archaeological remains are conducted at the site, these are restricted to the location of the Boys’ Barracks, Workshops and Administration buildings, which are referred to collectively as the Trades Area. Other parts of the Prison are now overgrown or simply too far to walk to in the allotted time for the tour.Point Puer is an ideal location to test the effectiveness of digital archaeology. The present site consists of stone retaining walls and building foundations, landscape features that include cuttings and depressions interspersed with areas of thick vegetation (Figure 1). The lack of extant buildings and the thick vegetation provide only a small insight into how the site looked and functioned while operating. Digital technology represents an opportunity to increase understanding and improve visitor experience to the site. It meets the best practice management principles suggested by the Burra Charter by minimising any irreversible physical impact on the site (Australia ICOMOS 2013).

Reconstructing Point PuerAn accurate reconstruction of the Point Puer Prison was enabled because of the large amount of archival information available. Maps, building plans, contemporary reports and archaeological surveys help us to build a picture of how Point Puer may have looked (Tuffin 2007). The convict architect Henry Laing completed a record of all the buildings on the Tasman Peninsula in 1836. Each building has a plan and elevation (Figure 2), some with additional internal layouts (TAHO 2014). Each feature in Laing’s plans (size of doors and windows, pitch of the roof, and overall building dimensions) were measured and recorded. These measurements were then used to create digital representation of all the buildings. Each feature was constructed out of a series of basic polygons using the 3D modelling software Sketchup. Sketchup was used as it is free to download, exports models that can be displayed directly in Google Earth, and is used widely as an education tool in

Figure 1: Surface remains at Point Puer, representing what is left of the Trades Area where hundreds of boys slept, ate, studied and were taught trades that would find them employment once released from prison (photograph by the author, October 2012)

Figure 2: Architectural plan and elevation of the Point Puer Workshops, drawn by the convict architect Henry Laing in 1836 (Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office CON87-1-59)

91

John Stephenson, Virtual Archaeology | Dig It 2(2):89-94, December 2014

schools (Wells et al. 2010). Textures were created using photos of existing buildings so that the collection of basic shapes was made to resemble weatherboard, brick or stone walls.A total of 23 buildings and features were reconstructed in this way. Each building or feature was constructed in a separate file, therefore if any changes or edits were needed, this could be done without affecting the rest of the models. These individual models represent the first time in over 160 years that the buildings drawn by Henry Laing could be seen in three dimensions. Allowing a user to view the buildings from different angles makes the buildings come to life on the screen. Location information was then required for each feature in order to place the buildings in the correct 2D space. Accurate spatial information is imperative for any successful recreation of an historic site, and a basic GIS is the starting point for all virtual recreations (Winterbottom and Long 2006). Location information was derived from two maps drawn in 1838 and 1845, which were georeferenced in using the GIS software ArcGIS, using spatial data from the Land Information System Tasmania (DPIPWE 2012). The georeferenced maps were used to identify the location of each building, and to extract measurements for buildings where detailed plans could not be found. In a similar fashion to the Rome Reborn project each feature was classified according to how much information was available, and the degree of confidence attributed to the reconstruction (Dylla et al. 2010). Where Laing’s plans were available and archaeological remains support these plans the building was given a Class I rating; indicating a high degree of confidence. If the archaeological remains differ in some way to the architectural plans (ie. the Bakery or Chapel) the building was given a Class II rating. Class III buildings have very limited information available but were identified in maps and reports (i.e. the officer’s barracks which were built post-1836 and therefore not recorded by Laing). Class III features were reconstructed using building plans from other convict sites in Tasmania, and therefore not

claimed to represent a highly accurate representation of these buildings. These represent buildings of similar use, at prisons in operation at the same time period, and in all likelihood, designed by the same engineers as that at Point Puer. Another option was to leave the buildings out, but this would be less accurate as buildings were clearly marked on maps, and recorded in reports. This classification system, stored in a separate database, identifies the limitations of the reconstruction as recommended by Winterbottom and Long (2006), and allows for edits to be made if additional information is discovered in the future.

Digital elevation modelA Digital Elevation Model (DEM) is a GIS representation of the Earth’s surface, usually derived from 2D contour information, and presented in a 3D digital format (Delaney 1999). The creation of DEMs for historic sites has proven difficult and time consuming for previous projects (Bailey and Schroader 2011; Wells et al. 2010). For this project it was initially planned to import a DEM directly from Google Earth, however it was found that this was not accurate enough for the purpose. Instead a contour map with 1m interval was created in ArcGIS by extracting height information from an airborne LiDAR dataset. LiDAR is a remote sensing technique that uses reflected light to create an image of an object, the use of this technology is becoming common in the archaeological sector (Challis et al. 2011).This accurate contour map was exported from ArcGIS as a KML (Keyhole Markup Language) file, which is the file format created for Google Earth containing spatial information, and imported into Sketchup where the 3D models of buildings were stored (Lyle and Eby 2010). These contour lines were used to create a wiremesh reconstruction of the terrain. The completed 23 buildings were then placed on the 3D terrain, at the locations identified on the georeferenced maps. Textures were added to this surface, creating the impression of grass fields and stone outcrops, and additional features were added including trees, paths, fences and people to create a final model (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Complete digital recreation of what the Point Puer Boys’ Prison may have looked like in 1845, when the population of the prison peaked at approximately 800 juvenile inmates (created by the author, May 2013)

92

Original research paper

AnalysisThe completed model can be viewed from any angle, including the eye level of a person, allowing for visual analysis to be conducted. Traditional viewshed analysis in a GIS environment has limits (Winterbottom and Long 2006) but in a real-time 3D world it is possible to look at the same scene as a person at the prison 160 years ago. In the case of the Point Puer reconstruction this has created some interesting findings. Commandant Booth, who oversaw the construction of the prison, was criticised for the placement of some buildings, especially the large distance between the Trades Area where the well-behaved boys were accommodated and the Gaol, where misbehaving boys were sent to be punished (Horne 1843). When we stand in the gateway of the virtual Gaol (Figure 4), the same doorway which the boys would have walked through each day on their way to perform hard menial labour, we can see the Chapel directly in front and the Workshops behind. This was not a coincidence, boys would only be released from Point Puer when they were proficient at reading and writing which was taught at the Chapel, and had mastered a trade which they learned at the Workshops, separating the miss-behaving boys was itself a form of psychological punishment that was common in the convict system (Horne 1843). Every time a prisoner walked out of the gates of the prison he was reminded of his transgressions, and of the opportunities that he was missing out on compared to his better behaved colleagues. It is not possible to obtain this same view at the site today as the Gaol area is now overgrown with vegetation, nor would a binary viewshed analysis in GIS identify such hidden details (Ogburn 2005). As the reconstruction is created in a digital environment, it is

easy to create copies, to make changes, and to compare different versions. Different models were created of the site at five year intervals, illustrating how the site developed over time. This was achieved by simply copying the original model and turning the layers on or off according to the year that a building was built. Some of these changes represent the evolution of ideas pertaining to juvenile detention in the post-enlightenment world, while others demonstrate how the staff adapted to external pressures such as directions from London and Hobart, and an influx of boys sent directly from England in the mid-1840s (Tuffin 2007). This is a major benefit offered by a digital model over a physical reconstruction, which can only capture one time period (Frischer 2008).

InterpretationThe completed 3D model represents a tool that can be used to help interpret Point Puer. Currently interpretation at the site consists of a guided tour which takes about 1 hour and stops at the remains of several buildings, all in the Trades Area of the prison. A map and one set of buildings plans are presented as visual aids. As discussed in Section 1.2 it is possible to construct a fully immersive AR environment using Head Mounted Display (HMD) technology to interpret the site but this is not practical, and it is not certain that is what the clients want (Nassar and Meawad 2010). Instead a smart-phone based AR option was investigated for Point Puer which represents a significant advance over the current interpretation, while not taking visitors out of their comfort zones. It is not anticipated that the Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority will alter the current guided tour setup in the near future. This simplifies the setup of an AR interpretation because the location component, which is often the most complex to set up (Nassar and Meawad 2010), is not required. Instead a visitor can view an AR image at each stop while the tour guide is explaining the significance of that feature (Figure 5).

Figure 4: Reconstructed view from the entrance gate of the Gaol, looking directly at the Chapel and Trades Area beyond (created by the author, May 2013)

Figure 5: Stone foundations of the Chapel at Point Puer, and the same view as seen using a smartphone which combines the digital reconstruction (created by the author, October 2012)

93

John Stephenson, Virtual Archaeology | Dig It 2(2):89-94, December 2014

At Point Puer the ability to combine information from the virtual world with that of the real world is very important as half the site is covered in thick vegetation. The guided tour is restricted to well-defined tracks in the Trades Area, but the smart-phones can be used to visualise the view from this area towards the Chapel and the Gaol area, which had previously been very hard to visualise. A smartphone-based AR interpretation does not just benefit visitors at the site. It can also help those with restricted mobility, who cannot take part in the guided tour due to the rough terrain and steps, but can still gain an understanding by seeing an AR display from either the Port Arthur side of Carnarvon Bay or from the comfort of a boat tour.

EducationAustralian History is now taught as part of the Australian Curriculum, and school teachers are seeking interesting and entertaining ways to present this information to their students (Australian Curriculum 2012). A series of still shots has been collated as a mockup of a tablet-based application where students can pick a historic character from Point Puer and join them for a day in the life of a convict prison. They can experience life as a First Class Convict, a Third Class Convict (a boy who had reoffended and was sent to the Gaol area), a Soldier or the Superintendent (Figure 6). During this virtual tour a student learns what was on the menu for breakfast at a convict prison, what clothes the boys wore, what farm tools were used in the paddocks, and what the boys did for entertainment. This information is based on diary entries and official reports (Horne 1843; Humphrey 1997).The Sketchup file of this digital recreation can be imported directly into Google Earth and viewed as a complete model in a format in which many students are already familiar (Wells et al. 2010). No longer are digital recreations only accessible by academics or seen on television documentaries. The model can be accessed in a classroom, where students can take control of their own experience, viewing the site from different angles and zooming in on areas of interest. Figure 7 shows a screen shot of the model displayed as a Google Earth layer, complete with flags above buildings that can be clicked for additional information.

ConclusionsThis project is a technology demonstration for the heritage sector. It illustrates how digital technology can be used as a management tool at historic sites while using free software that is accessible to the general public. It is hoped that this project has demonstrated that the cost of this technology is not prohibitive and that 3D modelling does not require any skills beyond the

reach of a current GIS user.It is clear that more quantitative research into the experience and expectations of visitors at historic sites is required. This is especially important as the use of technology is advancing rapidly and people are becoming more familiar with the use of mobile phones and tablets to access information. Interpretation platforms should be based around client expectations and requirements. It is difficult to confidently develop such technologies until this initial research is done. This project has gained unexpected interest from many sources in the

Figure 6: Screenshots from a mockup for an interactive tablet based lesson about life in a convict prison (created by the author, May 2013)

Figure 7: Digital Reconstruction displayed as a layer in Google Earth (created by John Stephenson, October 2012)

94

Original research paper

cartographic, heritage and education sectors. It is hoped that this growing interest in the field will inspire others to experiment with interpretation technologies that can be used by the archaeology and heritage sectors.

ReferencesAustralia ICOMOS 2013 The Burra Charter: The Australia ICOMOS

Charter for Places of Cultural Significance. Australia ICOMOS, Burwood, Vic.

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) 2012 The Australian Curriculum: History. Retrieved 1 November 2012 from <http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/History/Curriculum/F-10>.

Bailey, D., and L. Schroader 2011 Visualizing early Washington DC. The Portolan 80:33-41.

Broderick, M., M. Cypher and J. Macbeth 2009 Critical Masses: Augmented Virtual Experiences and the Xenoplastic at Australia’s Cold War and Nuclear Heritage Sites. Archaeologies 5(2):323-343.

Brogan, M. and M. Masek 2011 AE2 Commander: simulation and serious games in the online cultural heritage space. Archives and Manuscripts 39(1):85-106.

Challis, K., P. Forlin and M. Kincey 2011 A Generic Toolkit for the Visualization of Archaeological Features on Airborne LiDAR Elevation Data. Archaeological Prospection 18:279-289.

Ch’ng, E. 2009 Experimental archaeology: Is virtual time travel possible? Journal of Cultural Heritage 10:458-470.

Coller, M. 2009 SahulTime: Rethinking Archaeological Representation in the Digital Age. Archaeologies 5(1):110-123.

Delaney, D. 1999 Geographical Information Systems: An Introduction. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

DPIPWE (Division of Information and Land Services) 2012 Land Information System Tasmania. Retrieved July 2012 from <https://www.thelist.tas.gov.au/app/content/home>.

Dylla, K., B. Frischer, P. Mueller, A. Ulmer and S. Haegler 2010 Rome Reborn 2.0: A Case Study of Virtual City Reconstruction Using Procedural Modeling Techniques. In B. Frischer, J. Webb Crawford and D. Koller (eds.), Making History Interactive. Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA). Proceedings of the 37th International Conference, Williamsburg, Virginia, United States of America, March 22-26, pp. 62-66. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Frischer, B. 2008 The Rome Reborn Project: How Technology is helping us to study history. Retrieved 2 October 2012 from < http://www.romereborn.virginia.edu/rome_reborn_2_documents/papers/Frischer_OpEd_final2.pdf>.

Guidi, G., B. Frischer, M. De Simone, A. Cioci, A. Spinetti, L. Carosso, L.L. Micoli and T. Grasso 2005 Virtualizing Ancient Rome: 3D acquisition and modelling of a large plaster-of-Paris model of imperial Rome. Videometrics 8:119-133.

Haydar, M., D. Roussel, M. Maidi, S. Otmane and M. Mallem 2010 Virtual and augmented reality for cultural computing and heritage: a case study of virtual exploration of underwater archaeological sites. Virtual Reality 15:311-327.

Horne, B.J. 1843 Report on Point Puer Boys’ Prison, to His Excellency Sir John Franklin K.C.H. and K.R. Lieut. Governor of Van Diemen’s Land, Point Puer, March 7 1843. Unpublished letter, Archives Office of Tasmania (CO280/157/520).

Humphrey, K. 1997 Point Puer: Images and Practices of Juvenile Imprisonment in Convict Australia. Unpublished report commissioned by the Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority.

Ivanova, M. and G. Ivanov 2011 Enhancement of Learning and Teaching in Computer Graphics Through Marker Augmented Reality Technology. International Journal of New Computer Architectures and Their Applications 1(1):176-184.

Koller, D., B. Frischer and G. Humphreys 2009 Research Challenges for Digital Archives of 3D Cultural Heritage Models. Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage 2-3(7):1-17.

Lerones, P.M., J.L. Fernandez, A.M. Gil, J. Gomez-Garcia-Bermejo and E.Z. Casanova 2010 A practical approach to making accurate 3D layouts of interesting cultural heritage sites through digital models. Journal of Cultural Heritage 11:1-9.

Lyle, S.D. and N. Eby 2010 Conversation of Cadastral Data to KML File Type for Use in Google Earth and Google Maps for Mobile as a Land Information System. Computing for Geospatial Research & Appliation: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference and Exhibition 2010:1-4.

Nassar, M.A. and F. Meawad 2010 An Augmented Reality Exhibition Guide for the iPhone. International Conference on User Science Engineering 2010:157-162.

Ogburn, D.E. 2005 Assessing the level of visibility of cultural objects in past landscapes. Journal of Archaeological Science 22:405-413.

Olmedo, H. and J. Augusto 2013 Towards the Commodification of Augmented Reality: Tools and Platforms. In V. Penichet, A. Penalver and J. Gallud (eds.), New Trends in Interaction, Virtual Reality and Modeling, pp.63-72. London: Springer-Verlag.

Stone, R.J. and T. Ojika 2000 Virtual Heritage: What Next? IEEE Multimedia 7(2):73-73.

Styliadis, A.D., I.I. Akbaylar, D.A. Papadopoulou, N. D. Hasanagas, S.A. Roussa and L.A. Sexidis 2009 Metadata-based heritage sites modeling with e-learning functionality. Journal of Cultural Heritage 10:296-312.

Tasmanian Heritage and Archives Office (TAHO) 2014 Workshops Point Puer - section and elevation. Unpublished plan prepared by H. Laing, Public Works Division CON87/59, Hobart.

Tuffin, R. 2007 Point Puer Overview History. Unpublished report commissioned by the Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority, Tasmania.

Van Dyke R.M. 2006 Seeing the Past: Visual Media in Archaeology, American Anthropologist 108(2):370-384.

Vlahakis, V., N. Ioannidis, J. Karigiannis, M. Tsotros, M. Gounaris, D. Stricker, T. Gleue, P. Daehne, and L. Almeida 2002 Archeoguide: An Augmented Reality Guide for Archaeological Sites. Computer Graphics in Art History and Archaeology 22(5):52-50.

Wells, S., B. Frischer, D. Ross and C. Keller 2010 Rome Reborn in Google Earth. In B. Frischer, J. Webb Crawford and D. Koller (eds.), Making History Interactive. Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA). Proceedings of the 37th International Conference, Williamsburg, Virginia, United States of America, March 22-26, pp. 365-371. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Winterbottom, S.J. and D. Long 2006 From abstract digital models to rich virtual environments: landscape contexts in Kilmartin Glen, Scotland. Journal of Archaeological Science 33:1356-1367.

Zara, J. and P. Slavik 2003 Cultural Heritage Presentation in Virtual Environment: Czech Experience. Proceedings of the 14th International Workshop on Database and Expert Systems Applications 2003:92-96.

96

Catherine BlandDepartment of Archaeology, Flinders University, <catherine.bland@flinders.edu.au>

AbstractNeutron activation analysis (NAA) is a powerful quantitative analytical technique with applications in a range of fields including archaeology. Due to its outstanding sensitivity, accuracy, precision, and versatility the technique is a suitable method for analysing many different types of archaeological material. Archaeologists have utilised neutron activation analysis for the purpose of characterising archaeological materials such as ceramics, lithics and glass with the goal of determining their provenance. This paper provides a brief introduction to the technique and its history in archaeological investigation and provides examples of how NAA has been used for addressing archaeological questions.

Introduction Archaeological chemistry is an interdisciplinary field of archaeological research in which techniques and approaches from the chemical, biological, physical, geological, and statistical sciences are employed to extract information from the material record. Archaeological chemistry is also called ‘archaeometry’ which was coined by Christopher Hawkes in the 1950s to describe the increased emphasis on dating, quantification, and physic-chemical analysis of archaeological material (Pollard et al. 2007:9). The application of chemical analytical methods to archaeological materials in support of provenance research has grown rapidly over the past few decades (Glascock and Neff 2003:1516). Provenance research involves the use of compositional profiles of artefacts and source materials to trace individual artefacts from their find spot to their place of origin (Glascock and Neff 2003:1516; Wilson and Pollard 2001:507). The information gathered is used to investigate archaeological questions including identification of prehistoric production areas, the identification of trade and exchange routes of raw materials and artefacts as well as the mobility patterns of prehistoric peoples (Glascock and Neff 2003:1516). Although a number of techniques have been employed to characterise archaeological materials, the analytical method with one of the longest and most successful histories of application for provenance research has been neutron activation analysis (NAA) (Glascock and Neff 2003:1516).

A history of neutron activation analysisAs early as the 1840s and 1850s, pioneering work by European chemists led to the scientific acceptance that some chemical properties of an archaeological artefact could be considered characteristic of the raw material source of that object – the ‘chemical fingerprint’ was born (Pollard and Heron 1996; Whitbread 2001; Wilson and Pollard 2001:507). From the 1960s onwards, a ‘golden age’ of archaeological chemistry was established. This period saw an increasing number of archaeological artefacts being subjected to chemical provenancing; these included ceramics, non-ferrous metals, lithics, glasses and faience, and a selection of organic raw

materials including amber and jet (Wilson and Pollard 2001:507). In order to accommodate the need to analyse large numbers of samples, and a large number of characteristics on each sample, focus shifted during the 1970s to statistical manipulation of multivariate data (Baxter 2008; Wilson and Pollard 2001). Mathematical treatment of data sets rapidly became an integral feature of provenance work and systematic methodologies were advocated (Wilson and Pollard 2001:507). The mathematical treatment of the data is explored in more detail later in this paper. By the 1990s NAA was regarded as the technique of choice for provenance research (Glascock and Neff 2003). Now NAA is most frequently used in collaboration with mineral approaches since mineral and elemental approaches each provide unique but primarily complementary results (see Alden et al. 2006; Bertolino and Fabra 2003; Bishop and Blackman 2002; Bray et al. 2005; D’Altroy and Bishop 1990; Falabella et al. 2013; Glascock and Neff 2003; Sziágyi et al. 2012).

Neutron activation analysisNeutron activation analysis is a sensitive technique useful for qualitative and quantitative multi-element analysis of major, minor and trace elements present in many sample matrices (Glascock and Neff 2003:1516). This technique has been applied to the study of archaeological material since the 1960s. Since the mid-1970s it has been the preferred analytical technique for archaeologists in addressing questions relating to the procurement and use of raw materials and the trade or exchange of finished goods (Bishop and Blackman 2002). In general, the analytical technique is based on the interaction of neutrons with the nucleus of atoms to produce radioactive isotopes, the quantity of which can be used to determine the elemental concentration of the sample (see Alden et al. 2006:577; Bishop and Blackman 2002:603; Glascock and Neff 2003:1516). When neutrons interact with the nuclei of atoms, radioactive isotopes may be formed through neutron capture (see figure 1), the type of interaction depends upon the energy of the neutron (see Alden et al. 2006:577; Bishop and Blackman 2002:603; Glascock and Neff 2003:1516). The newly formed isotope release energy through several means, including the emission of electromagnetic energy in the form of gamma-rays (see Alden et al. 2006:577; Bishop and Blackman 2002:603; Glascock and Neff 2003:1516). Gamma-ray energies are characteristic of the radioactive nucleus undergoing decay. There are two methods to quantify the gamma-ray counts through 1) the use of standards of certified NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology)

Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA): What is it and how is it useful for archaeological investigation?

Figure 1: Demonstrating neutron capture (Glascock and Neff 2003:1518)

97

Catherine Bland, Neutron Activation Analysis | Dig It 2(2):96-100, December 2014

reference materials or 2) the k0 method. Both methods result in the compositional certification of the material being analysed (see Bennett et al. 2012; Bishop and Blackman 2002; Popelka-Filcoff et al. 2012 for more detail about these methods).Essentially the process results in the chemical composition of a sample being identified, which can either be clustered together to understand which samples were made locally and which were traded in or it can be compared to samples of known sources and possibly traced back to the original source location (see Figure 2 for the two possible approaches of source determination).

Statistical analysisOnce the elemental composition has been collected the next step in any compositional analysis is to determine if there are any distinct groups present in the data set that support a meaningful archaeological interpretation (Glascock et al. 2004). The amount of data that is generated in NAA research is often substantial, consisting of up to 75-92 elements measured depending on the sample (see Rice 2005:397; Bishop et al. 1982:292). Due to the large quantity of data, multivariate statistical analysis is often required to identify and quantify the similarities and differences between specimens and groups of specimens (Glascock et al. 2004). Groups defined by compositional data can be viewed as “centers of mass” in the compositional hyperspace described by the measured element concentrations. An individual group is characterised by the location of its centroid and the unique correlations of element concentrations to one another (Glascock et al. 2004; Popelka-Filcoff 2006). Pattern recognition methods such as cluster analysis, plots of the original data in two and/or three dimensions, and principle components analysis (PCA) are customary approaches to data handling (Glascock and Neff 2003; Popelka-Filcoff et al. 2007). These methods have been described extensively elsewhere (see Baxter 2008) and will only be described briefly here.

Cluster analysisCluster analysis is a general term that applies to a variety of specific techniques but the essential components are a measure of the similarity-dissimilarity between specimens (i.e. distance) and an algorithm that groups specimens on the basis of the defined measure (Baxter 2001:688; Glascock and Neff 2003:1522). The results of cluster analysis are generally presented in the form of dendrograms that show the order and level of specimen clustering. Because interpretation of dendrograms is highly subjective, it is normally only used to identify possible groups after which other techniques are employed for group refinement and classification (Glascock and Neff 2003:1522).

Bivariate and trivariate plotsBivariate and trivariate plots are used to examine the correlations between variables, identify obvious groups and detect outlier specimens. Confidence ellipses (e.g. probability intervals) are usually drawn around groups to emphasize the differences between groups or to show the associations between individual specimens and known groups (Glascock and Neff 2003:1522).

Principle component analysisPrinciple component analysis (PCA) involves a transformation of the dataset on the basis of eigenvector methods to determine the magnitude and direction of maximum variance in the dataset distribution in hyperspace (Baxter 2001:688; Glascock and Neff 2003:1522). The PCA transformation provides a new basis for

viewing the entire data distribution to reveal structure not readily observed when plotting the original variables (see Baxter 2001:688; Glascock and Neff 2003:1522 for more information).

Provenance postulateThe basic proposition underlying chemistry-based provenance determination was understood by the early 1970s (see Glascock and Neff 2003:1521; Harbottle 1976). But it was Weigand et al. (1977) who first stated plainly that the effort to link artefacts to sources through compositional analysis depends on the postulate ‘that there exists a difference in chemical composition between different natural sources that exceed, in some recognizable way, the differences observed within a given source’ (also see Glascock and Neff 2003:1521; Harbottle 1976; Neff 2000; Wilson and Pollard 2001:507-508). This statement is known as the ‘provenance postulate’ and the major assumptions underlying every provenance study can be summarised as followed (adapted from Wilson and Pollard 2001:507-508):1. The prime requirement is that some chemical characteristic

of the geological raw material(s) is carried through (unchanged, or predictably relatable) into the finished object.

2. That this ‘fingerprint’ varies between potential geological sources available in the past, and that this variation can be related to the geographical (as opposed to perhaps a broad depositional environment) occurrence of the raw material. Inter-source variation must be greater than intra-source variation for successful source discrimination.

3. That such characteristic ‘fingerprints’ can be measured with sufficient precision in the finished artefact to enable discrimination between competing potential sources.

4. That no ‘mixing’ of raw materials occurs (either before or during processing, or as a result of recycling of material), or that any such mixing can be adequately accounted for.

5. That post-depositional processes either have negligible effect on the characteristic fingerprint, or that such alteration can either be detected (and the altered elements or sample be discounted), or that some satisfactory allowance can be made.

6. That any observed patterns of trade or exchange of finished materials are interpretable in terms of human behaviour. This pre-supposes that the outcome of a scientific provenance study can be interfaced with an existing appropriate socio-economic model, so that such results do not exist in vacuo.

These major assumptions underlie all provenance studies. While some of them appear to be commonsense these assumptions must always be acknowledged when undertaking provenance-based research. These assumptions are particularly important when using techniques such as NAA as any modification to the studied material before it was deposited in the archaeological record can alter its elemental composition. This issue of chemical composition alteration is discussed in more detail later in this paper.

Provenance DeterminationSource determination efforts based on the provenance postulate can follow one of two separate paths (see figure 2) as explained by Glascock and Neff (2003:1521):

98

Research essay

If the sources are localized and relatively easy to identify, as in the case of volcanic obsidian flows, raw materials from the known sources are usually characterized and then artefacts of unknown provenance can be compared to the range of variation of the known source groups. On the other hand, if sources are widespread, as is especially true in the case of ceramic raw materials, the prospect of sampling and characterizing most or all of the possible sources are impractical. As a result, ceramic provenance research generally involves an alternative approach by which reference groups are created from the unknown ceramic samples. In this more common approach to ceramic sourcing, individual raw material samples are compared to the range of variation between ceramic reference groups.

Using NAA on different archaeological materialThe application of NAA on archaeological material is well established in the literature. Some materials such as obsidian, ochre, ceramic and clay have been studied more exhaustively than others. Other materials such as steatite, pipestone, turquoise, limestone, marble, basalt, ancient glass, native copper, coins and other archaeological material have been analysed by NAA with various degrees of success for archaeological interpretation (see Harbottle 1976; Glascock and Neff 2003:1522; Truncer et al. 1998; Wilson and Pollard 2001:512-514). Below is a summary of some of the issues and concerns associated with the three main materials followed by examples that illustrate the potential of these analyses in addressing archaeological questions.

Ceramics and claysCeramics and clays constitute the vast majority of provenance studies undertaken (see Neff 1992 for a review). Ceramics provide a challenge as there is a great degree of anthropogenic manipulation of the raw material in processing the clay into ceramics (see Rice 2005:113-166 for a full discussion). Clays are very ubiquitous and their geological histories are so varied that the reliability of distinguishing between natural sources varies widely (Glascock and Neff 2003:1522). Unfortunately, geological

processes of clay formation often do not create discrete, chemically homogenous sources but instead produce extensive deposits that vary in composition (Glascock and Neff 2003:1522). The chemical composition of clay deposits is a complex product of the mineralogy of the rocks from which the clay is derived, the weathering and transport processes responsible for producing the clay deposit and the chemical environment in which the clay is deposited and matured (Wilson and Pollard 2001:511). Clays are processed, e.g., washing, weathering, levigating, mixing clays from more than one deposit and adding temper before the final vessel is made (Wilson and Pollard 2001:511). Ceramics are then fired at temperatures possibly between 700 ̊C and 800 ̊C in a simple bonfire. Finally, post-depositional geochemical and mineralogical alteration can also affect the chemical composition of a ceramic sherd and vessel (Wilson and Pollard 2001:511). All of these factors need to be considered when undertaking NAA on ceramic and clay samples. Below are two examples of how researchers have used NAA to analyse the composition of ceramic and clay samples in order to address archaeological questions. NAA research can provide new insights into traditional archaeological approaches to ceramic analyses as a study conducted by Bray et al. in 2005 demonstrates. Bray et al. (2005) illustrates the potential issues with the use of traditional classification schemes of Inka ceramics (e.g., provincial, imperial and local), which are prevalent in the literature, as they are based on simple, visual and subjective observations based on style (Bray et al. 2005:98). Bray et al. (2005) analysed ceramics from sites in southern Peru and northwest Argentina which were associated with an Inkan ceremony known as capacocha. This ceremony, which served to link the capital Cusco to its peripheries, included the sacrifice of precious objects (e.g., imperial ceramics) as well as human sacrifices (Bray et al. 2005). Traditionally it was assumed that the ceramics were traded in from the capital Cuzco to all areas of the empire for these ceremonies; however, after elemental analysis was conducted it was clear that the imperial ceramics were made using local clay and that local potters

had adopted the stylistic appearance of imperial Inka ceramics (Bray et al. 2005). While this study was small (29 samples), it illustrates the issues associated with an over-reliance on stylistic analysis and the potential for analytical techniques to provide new independent information.NAA can be used to investigate long distance trade routes and interregional interaction. However it can also be used to investigate localised trade and interactions. Alden et al. (2006) conducted NAA on 157 ceramic and clay samples from two sites in northern Chile during the Inka period. This investigation revealed two

Figure 2: Two approaches to provenance determination (from Glascock and Neff 2003:1521)

99

Catherine Bland, Neutron Activation Analysis | Dig It 2(2):96-100, December 2014

major and three minor compositional groups of ceramics. The major groups are linked to local clay sources found in northern Chile while one of the minor groups is made up of ceramics imported from northwestern Argentina. The distribution of the compositional groups indicates that, in this region, patterns of ceramic production differed for different vessel types: jars were made from clay and temper acquired near the sites where jars were used, while bowls were made of material coming from more distant sources. Additionally, the study also demonstrated that Inka-style ceramics were being locally produced at sites in the region during the Inka period, which also draws on the conclusions of the previous example about the issues of using stylistic features to identify interregional interactions.

OchreOchre is a significant material in Aboriginal Australian cultural expression from ceremonial uses to its application on many types of artefacts. Across the Australian continent, ochre with associated cultural meaning and particular physical qualities was used and traded between cultural groups (Popelka-Filcoff et al. 2011). Ochre is not only important in Aboriginal Australian culture but also for cultures all around the world (Popelka-Filcoff et al. 2011).NAA on ochre (iron oxide pigment) has been done on archaeological artefacts in South America and is now being conducted in Australia (Popelka-Filcoff 2006; Popelka-Filcoff et al. 2007; Popelka-Filcoff et al. 2011; Popelka-Filcoff et al. 2012). NAA is sensitive enough to determine compositional difference between major sources of ochre. A paper by Popelka-Filcoff et al. 2012 illustrates the potential of NAA research on Australian ochre quarries as a tool to determine provenance. This study considered 128 ochre samples from 13 South Australian ochre quarry sites. The results show that distinct compositional groups can be identified. This research has demonstrated not only that NAA is a sufficiently sensitive technique to differentiate between ochre quarries but also has illustrated the archaeological potential for NAA research on ochre as a way to aid in our understanding of trade routes in the past (Popelka-Filcoff et al. 2012). As this study included ochre quarries it can act as a database where ochre on artefacts or ochre found in excavations can be compared to and an understanding of where that ochre may have originated can potentially be inferred. The application of NAA to Australian ochre is only beginning and the possibilities for addressing archaeological questions about trade and exchange are great.

LithicsChert and flint are sedimentary rocks high in quartz that were commonly used in tool making and for which source determination by chemical characterisation is often challenging. There have been some studies that report success in differentiating source locations for chert (see Hoard et al. 1992, 1993 and Selivanova et al. 1998). However other studies that have tried to distinguish chert outcrops have failed (see Cackler et al. 1999) to produce reliable source distinctions. Clearly the geographical extent and geological context of chert sources are crucial to determining whether chert provenance analysis will yield answers to archaeological questions (Glascock and Neff 2003:1521). Obsidian artefacts are comparatively easy to source by chemical analysis. Most obsidian sources are extremely homogenous and the volcanic sources are geographically limited to certain regions

(Glascock and Neff 2003:1521). Obsidian is high in silica, but the trace and minor element ingredients sometimes differ between sources (Glascock and Neff 2003:1521). If all possible sources have been sufficiently characterised, the reliability of matching an obsidian artefact to its proper source is excellent and the number of elements required to identify the source may in fact be very small (Glascock and Neff 2003:1521). However, the reliability of obsidian sourcing is sometimes challenged by weathering sand erosion which may displace obsidian cobbles far from their source. Finally, a study conducted by Craig et al. 2010 used NAA to determine the elemental composition of obsidian artefacts from Peru. Obsidian artefacts have been identified in archaeological sites along the northern Lake Titicaca Basin. The use of NAA on these artefacts was able to determine distinct chemical grouping (see Craig et al. 2010:573). The research was able to determine that some obsidian artefacts were found more than 120km from the source, and that one-third of the obsidian artefacts found at a site called Macusani were from non-local sources 215km to the southwest. This study illustrates the potential of NAA in identifying long distance trade and exchange. Additionally this study demonstrates the impact that NAA results can have on current understandings and theories related to trade or exchange.

SummaryThe potential of NAA as a provenancing tool is already well established in the literature (see Alden et al. 2006; Anderson et al. 2011; Bray et al. 2005; Craig et al. 2010; Glascock et al. 2004; Popelka-Filcoff et al. 2007). This elemental technique has been used on a range of archaeological material to determine the elemental composition and as a result has been used to make interpretations about the past. Archaeological questions that can be addressed with the use of NAA include: identification of prehistoric production areas, the identification of trade and exchange routes of raw materials and artefacts as well as the mobility patterns of prehistoric peoples (Glascock and Neff 2003:1516). It is important that archaeologists are not only aware of these analytical techniques but are able to interpret the data that is produced with a full understanding of both the technique’s potential and also its limitations.

ReferencesAlden, J.R., L. Minc and T.F. Lynch 2006 Identifying the sources of

Inka period ceramics from northern Chile: results of a neutron activation study. Journal of Archaeological Science 33(4):575-594.

Anderson, S.L., M.T. Boulanger and M.D. Glascock 2011 A new perspective on Late Holocene social interaction in Northwest Alaska: results of a preliminary ceramic sourcing study. Journal of Archaeological Science 38(5):943-955.

Baxter, M.J. 2001 Multivariate Analysis in Archaeology. In D.R. Brothwell and A.M. Pollard (eds), Handbook of Archaeological Sciences, pp.685-694. Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Baxter, M.J. 2008 Mathematics, statistics and archaeometry: the past 50 years or so. Archaeometry 50(6):968-982.

Bertolino, S., and M. Fabra 2003 Provenance and ceramic technology of pot sherds from ancient Andean cultures at the Ambato valley, Argentina. Applied Clay Science 24:21-34.

Bennett, J.W. 2008 Commissioning of NAA at the new OPAL reactor in Australia. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry 278(3):671-673.

Bennett, J.W., P. Grave and A. Stopic 2012 Establishing a basis for nuclear archaeometry in Australia using the 20 MW OPAL research reactor.

100

Research essay

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry 291:13-17.Bishop, R.L., R.L. Rands, G.R. Holley 1982 Ceramic compositional

analysis in archaeological perspective. In M.B. Schiffer (ed.) Advances in archaeological method and theory, pp.275-330. New York: Academic Press.

Bishop, R.L. and M.J. Blackman 2002 Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis of Archaeological Ceramics: Scale and Interpretation. Accounts of Chemical Research 35(8):603-610.

Bray, T.L., L.D. Minc, M.C. Ceruti, J.A. Chávez, R. Perea and J. Reinhard 2005 A compositional analysis of pottery vessels associated with the Inca ritual of capacocha. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 24(1):82-100.

Crackler, P.R., M.D Glascock, H. Neff, H. Iceland, K.A. Pyburn, D. Hudler, T.R. Hester 1999 Chipped stone artefacts, source areas, and provenance studies of the northern Belize chert-bearing zone. Journal of Archaeological Science 26:389-397.

Craig, N., R.J. Speakman, R.S. Popelka-Filcoff, M.S. Aldenderfer, L.F. Blanco, M.B. Vega, M.D. Glascock and C. Stanish 2010 Macusani obsidian from southern Peru: A characterisation of its elemental composition with a demonstration of its ancient use. Journal of Archaeological Science 37:569-576.

D’Altroy, T., and R.L Bishop 1990 The provincial organization of Inka ceramic production. American Antiquity 55:120-138.

Falabella, F., L. Sanhueza, I. Correa, M.D. Glascock, T.J. Ferguson and E. Fonseca 2013 Studying Technological Practices at a Local Level: Neutron Activation and Petrographic Analyses of Early Ceramic Period Pottery in Central Chile*. Archaeometry 55(1):33-53.

Glascock, M.D. and H. Neff 2003 Neutron activation analysis and provenance research in archaeology. Measure Science Technology 14:1516-1526.

Glascock, M.D., H. Neff and K.J. Vaughn 2004 Instrumental Neutron Activation Anlysis and Multivariate Statistics for Pottery Provenance. Hyperfine Interactions 154:96-105.

Harbottle, G. 1976 Activation analysis in archaeology. Radiochemistry 3(33-72).

Hoard, R.J., J.R. Bozell, S.R. Holen M.D. Glascock, H. Neff and J.M. Elam 1993 Source determination of White River group silicated from two archaeological site in the Great Plains. American Antiquity 58:698-710.

Hoard, R.J., S.R. Holen, M.D., Glascock, H. Neff, J.M. Elam 1992 Neutron activation analysis of stone from the Chardon formation and a Clovis site on the Great Plains. Journal of Archaeological Science 19:655-665.

Malyk-Selivanova, N., G.M. Ashley, R. Gal, M.D. Glascock and H. Neff 1998 Geological-geochemical approach to sourcing of prehistoric chert artifacts, northwest Alaska. Geoarchaeology 13:673-708.

Neff, H. 1992 Chemical Characterization of Ceramic Pastes in Archaeology. Monographs in World Archaeology. Wisconsin: Prehistory Press.

Neff, H. 2000 Neutron Activation Analysis for provenance determination in archaeology. In E. Ciliberto and S. Giuseppe (eds), Modern Analytical Methods in Art and Archaeology, Chemical Analysis Series, pp.81-134. Canada: Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Pollard, M., C. Batt, B. Stern and S.M.M. Young 2007 Analytical Chemistry In Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pollard, M.A. and C. Heron 1996 Archaeological Chemistry. Cambridge: The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Popelka-Filcoff, R.S. 2006 Applications of Elemental Analysis for Archaeometric Studies: Analytical and Statistical Methods for Understanding Geochemical Trends in Ceramics, Ochre and Obsidian. Unpublished PhD thesis, Graduate School, University of Missouri, Columbia.

Popelka-Filcoff, R.S., N. Craig, M.D. Glascock, J.D. Robertson, M.S. Aldenderfer and R.J. Speakman 2007 Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis of Ochre Artifacts from Jiskairumoko, Peru. In M.D. Glascock, R.J. Speakman and R.S. Popelka-Filcoff (eds),

Archaeological Chemistry: Analytical Techniques and Archaeological Interpretation, pp.480-505. United States of America: Oxford University Press.

Popelka-Filcoff, R.S., C.E. Lenehan, M.D. Glascock, J.W. Bennett, A. Stopic, J.S. Quinton, A. Pring and K. Walshe 2011 Evaluation of relative comparator and k 0-NAA for characterisation of Aboriginal Australian ochre. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry 291(1):19-24.

Popelka-Filcoff, R.S., C.E. Lenehan, K. Walshe, J.W. Bennett, A. Stopic, P. Jones, A. Pring, J.S. Quinton and A. Durham 2012 Characterisation of Ochre Sources in South Australia by Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA). Journal of the Anthropological Society of South Australia 35:81-90.

Rice, P.M. 2005 Pottery Analysis: A Source Book. United States of America: The University of Chicago Press.

Szilágyi, V., J. Gyarmati, M. Tóth, H. Taubald, M. Balla, Z. Kasztovszky and G. Szakmány 2012 Petro-mineralogy and geochemistry as tools of provenance analysis on archaeological pottery: Study of Inka Period ceramics from Paria, Bolivia. Journal of South American Earth Sciences 36:1-17.

Truncer, J., M.D. Glascock and H. Neff 1998 Steatite source characterization in eastern North America: new results using instrumental neutron activation analysis. Archaeometry 40:23-44.

Vaughn, K.J., C.A. Conlee, H. Neff and K. Schreiber 2006 Ceramic production in ancient Nasca: provenance analysis of pottery from the Early Nasca and Tiza cultures through INAA. Journal of Archaeological Science 33(5):681-689.

Weigand, P.C, G. Harbottle, E.V. Sayre 1977 Turquoise source and source analysis: Mesoamerica and the Southwestern USA. In T.K. Earle (ed.), Exchnage Systems in Prehistory, pp.15-34. New York: Academic.

Whitbread, I.K. 2001 Ceramic Petrology, Clay Geochemistry and Ceramic Production - from Technology to the Mind of the Potter. In D.R. Brothwell and A.M. Pollard (eds), Handbook of Archaeological Sciences, pp.449-459. Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons, LTD.

Wilson, L. and A.M. Pollard 2001 The Provenance Hypothesis In D.R. Brothwell and A.M. Pollard (eds), Handbook of Archaeological Sciences, pp.507-517. Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

101

Caitlin EvansCollege of Arts, Society, and Education, James Cook University, <caitlin.evans@my.jcu.edu.au>

Over twenty years of excavations by the Origins of Angkor (OA), Fine Arts Department of Thailand (FAD), and the Society and Environment Before Angkor (SEBA) projects, have revealed 4,000 years of continuous occupation in the Upper Mun River Valley of northeast Thailand. Located upon a major tributary of the Mekong river highway, the archaeological significance of this region is readily apparent. The Upper Mun River Valley contains some of the earliest evidence of sedentary occupation in Mainland Southeast Asia, with Neolithic middens and burial mounds dated to at least the 18th century BCE. Furthermore, the complexity in mortuary ritual and vast water management projects hint at the development of local hierarchies, pan-regional trade networks, and perhaps polity(s) to rival its neighbours: the Angkor Empire to the southwest (modern-day Cambodia) and the Dvaravati polity(s) to the west (modern-day central Thailand). However, excavations to date within the Upper Mun River Valley are somewhat isolated and lack contextualisation within inter-site and/or community settlement patterns. Members of the SEBA team together with independent Thai archaeologist Jitlada Innanchai instigated a new round of surveys to the northwest of Phimai to build upon earlier reconnaissance work by the Khorat Basin Archaeological Project (KBAP) team (Welch 1985:Figure 1). The aim was to provide greater detail on occupation patterns over time, with a focus on Upper Mun River Valley human-landscape interaction models (Boyd and Chang 2010). There were, however, challenges to survey. Upwards of 85% of the Upper Mun River Valley has been deforested, and in most cases heavily ploughed, causing the destruction of many archaeological mounds (FAO 2009:Figure 2). Systematic, intensive survey, often described as ‘full-coverage survey’, seemed the most appropriate method to reconstruct settlement patterns given this disturbance. Such an approach had been successfully applied in large swaths across Southwest China (Peterson and Drennan 2005) and Mesopotamia (Wilkinson 2000).Systematic, intensive pedestrian surveys of surface artifacts were conducted over three successive field seasons, covering a total of 50km2. The initial survey area (b) in the low-mid terraces (160-180 metres above mean sea level MAMSL) was completed mid-January 2012. Following consultation with local authorities an area some 6.5 km north of the well-documented Ban Non Wat site (Higham and Kijngam 2009) was chosen, where the author and 10 volunteers surveyed 18.9km2 over a 16 day period. Method consisted of four groups of field walkers spaced 50m apart walking parallel transects west-to-east across the survey area. Each group contained a local Thai guide, a fluent English speaker, and someone trained in recognising and recording artifacts. Intensive pedestrian survey in the Upper Mun River Valley presented many physical challenges for team members (Figure 3). There were no passable roads within this section of the sub-district, forcing teams to walk for up to an hour to reach the survey starting point. From late-January to early-February the rice paddy fields were between harvesting and replanting for the new season, so the ground surface consisted of baked clay mud, dry brush/long grass, and freshly ploughed earth. The heat and constantly uneven terrain made survey particularly difficult for volunteers (Figure 4). The many agricultural canals and

From Village Mounds to Monuments:New survey in the Upper Mun River Valley, northeast Thailand

Figure 1: Location of the study area, highlighted in red (created by author)

Figure 2: Modern landscape of the Upper Mun River Valley, with wet-rice agriculture (photograph by the author, March 2013)

Figure 3: Field team 2013 (photograph by Gordon Stenhouse, February 2013)

102

Field report

tributaries feeding into the Mun River had to be navigated, with teams forced to wade across shallow rivers as a group and then reform into transects. Despite challenges the preliminary survey revealed an unprecedented number of surface artifact clusters or ‘sites’ within a relatively short period, and was deemed successful.Subsequently, in the 2013 January/February season a second pedestrian survey (survey area c) was completed within the upper alluvial floodplains (142-160 MAMSL) of the Upper Mun River Valley. Over 21 days a further 16.5 km2 were surveyed, reaching from the southern banks of the Huay Yai River to the northern edge of Noen-U-Loke. Finally in March 2014 a third survey area was completed, consisting of a 15 km2 section of uplands (200-260 MAMSL), located within Sa Chaeng sub-district, Kham Sakaesaeng district, Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand (survey area a). Artifacts recovered varied considerably, but included a large collection of stone tools (Figure 5), many examples of historic glazed stoneware (Figure 6), and vast amounts of early prehistoric cord-marked earthenware jars (Figure 7).The 2012-2014 pedestrian surveys allow us to reconstruct in greater detail settlement organisation of the Upper Mun River Valley and plan for future field seasons. Four large Neolithic (ca. 1650-1000 BCE) surface artifact concentrations (hereafter referred to as sites) indicate that early settlement within the region consisted of low density settlements located on naturally raised plateaus of old alluvium and regolith formation, beside major river channels of the late Holocene. The proceeding millennia of occupation followed a similar settlement pattern, but with expansion into a greater range of landscapes, including more occupation in the low-mid terraces, directly upon the original late Holocene river channels. This likely reflects the gradual infilling of swamps and single-string rivers, creating a highly fertile valley for Bronze Age (ca. 1000-500 BCE) and early Iron Age (ca. 500-0 BCE) settlements. During the late Iron Age (ca. 0 BCE-500 CE) a rise in population levels can be seen as sites expanded deeper into the alluvial floodplains including strings of new, small sites associated with emerging anatomising channel network. Many of these sites were only occupied for brief periods, with constant localised movement. Half of all alluvial floodplain sites were reused into the pre-Angkorian period (ca. 500-802 CE), when population levels peaked, and expansion continued into higher elevations. It is during the pre-Angkorian period, not the Angkor period (ca. 802-1431 CE) as previously reported, that the first settlements appear in the uplands of the Upper Mun River Valley and a regional shift in settlement distributions occurs, from a northeast-south west direction to a northwest-southeast direction. This shift, combined with a collection of 6th-8th century CE monasteries, brick temples, and monuments displayed near major riverine trade routes, suggests a developing relationship with southwestern Mekong Basin polities (modern day Cambodia) predating to the absorption of the area in the Angkorian Empire during the 9th century CE. One of the most remarkable and well-documented trends is the longevity of settlement within the Upper Mun River Valley (Figure 8). It appears there was more localised movement of individual sites then previously documented (sometimes within individual ‘site’ boundaries). As a whole, communities have occupied particular locales, and a small number of significantly sized sites, for over four millennia. Such longevity implies community strength, organisation, and resilience, particularly given the changing climate of the Upper Mun River Valley.

Figure 4: Recording artefacts in the salt flats of survey area b (photograph by Wilbert Yee, February 2013)

Figure 5: Stone adze recovered from survey area b (photograph by the author, January 2012)

Figure 6: Angkor period stoneware sherd, with wave design and stamped circle pattern (photograph by Jitlada Innanchai, January 2012)

103

Caitlin Evans, From Village Mounds to Monuments | Dig It 2(2):101-103, December 2014

The next season is scheduled for January 2015 when we will look to expand existing survey areas and incorporate remote sensing and satellite survey into our investigations. We are also currently integrating our results into a model of settlement patterns in the Upper Mun River Valley that emphasises linear, kin-based community structures.

ReferencesBoyd, B. and N. Chang 2010 Integrating social and environmental

change in prehistory: a discussion of the role of landscape as a heuristic in defining prehistoric possibilities in NE Thailand. In S. Haberie, J. Stevenson and M. Prebble (eds), Terra Australia, Vol 21, Altered ecologies – fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes, pp.273-297. Canberra: ANU E-Press.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [FAO] 2010 Global forest resources assessment: Country report, Thailand. Retrieved 28th August 2014 from <www.fao.org/forestry/fra>.

Higham, C. and A. Kijngam 2009 The origins of the civilization of Angkor. Volume III: The excavation of Ban Non Wat. Bangkok: Fine Arts Department of Thailand.

Peterson, C. E. and R. D. Drennan 2005 Communities, settlements, sites, and surveys: regional-scale analysis of prehistoric human interaction. American Antiquity 70(1):5-30.

Welch, D. 1985 Adaptation to environmental unpredictability: Intensive agriculture and regional exchange at late prehistoric centers in the Phimai region, Thailand. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Hawaii, Hawaii.

Wilkinson, T. J. 2000 Regional approaches to Mesopotamian archaeology: the contribution of archaeological surveys. Journal of Archaeological Research 8(3):219-267.

Figure 7: Examples of early prehistoric cord-marked, earthenware sherds (photograph by the author, January 2012)

Figure 8: Modern village built on an ancient occupation mound in survey area c (photograph by the author, January 2013)

104

Sarah HutchinsonDepartment of Archaeology, Flinders University,<lawr0096@flinders.edu.au>

Over the course of the Flinders University semester break I was fortunate enough to attend a summer school program in Osteoarchaeology and Paleopathology. The course was held at the University of Pisa’s Division of Paleopathology and run by the Institute for Research and Learning in Archaeology and Bioarchaeology (IRLAB). The course was a 3 week intensive (23rd June-11th July, 2014) that provided theoretical knowledge and practical experience on the methodologies utilised to clean, restore and analyse human remains. While no assumed knowledge is required, it is beneficial to have some anatomical background.In total there were 6 students representing the USA, Italy and Australia. The student’s backgrounds were in archaeology and physical anthropology.The course was facilitated by Dr Valentina Giuffra and Dr Simona Minozzi and overseen by Professor Gino Fornaciari. All are current researchers active in the field of osteoarchaeology and paleopathology.As part of providing students with tangible experience in analysing human remains, we were each assigned a skeleton of an adult and sub-adult. We were responsible for the cleaning and restoration of these remains throughout the course. The remains were excavated from a nearby Middle Ages church in Vecchiano, 8km north of Pisa. They were found in a supine position under the road that was located in front of the church. The site has been dated between the 7th and 8th century.

Summary of Adult 251The remains of Adult 251 were found to be in a supine position, west to east facing. They were well preserved with some fragmentation. There are a number of variables that can be used to determine age at death. Based on an approximate average of those variables, the remains were determined to be that of a male whose age at death was approximately 40 years. Using the Fully (1956) method, the height of this specimen was determined to be 144cm tall.

A number of pathological and stress indicators were identified. This man suffered from early stages of osteoarthritis, porotic hyperostosis, enamel hypoplasia and enthesopaties. Non-metric traits were also observed. Schmorl nodes were present in the vertebrae indicating that he carried a heavy load during his youth. Cribra orbitalia was also evident indicating he had suffered from anaemia at some point. Evidence of hyperplasia on his teeth indicates at least two childhood periods of physical stress.One of the most interesting finds was the discovery of what appears to be cut marks on some of the bones. The distal and proximal ends of the right femur were quite prominent. They were also found on the calcaneous bilaterally as well as the left patella. It was not possible to determine if these were ante or post mortem and they require further analysis. Two other sets of remains also showed evidence of similar markings. No markings were found on the remains of the sub-adults. Needless to say there was a bit of interest in these marks. As there are approximately 100 sets of remains from this location they will be examined for similar markings. There is no known evidence of any particular conflict in this area; however villages are known to have been attacked by marauders. Further investigation is warranted and will be conducted in due course.I found the course valuable in extending my knowledge in osteoarchaeology and paleopathology. The practical experience gained is unique and the small group facilitates learning. If you have an interest in this area, I highly recommend the course (which is taught in English). Not only will you gain hands on experience, an Italian summer is something to be experienced. Summer school opportunities through IRLAB also include field schools. We were fortunate enough to visit the Pozzeveri 2014 field school. It is a very professional outfit and students are offered opportunities to partake in all aspects of the excavation. We also went on a field excursion of our own to observe CT examinations of some existing projects, with the most notable being the CT examination of the preserved anus of King Ferrente I of Aragon (1431-1494).For further information on schools run by IRLAB visit <http://irlabnp.org/>

An Education in Italy

Figure 1: Author examining the remains of a sub-adult (photograph by Ari Brin, 8th July 2014)

Figure 2: Author examining the remains of Adult 251 (photograph by Valentina Giuffra, 25th June 2014)

105

Andrew FrostDepartment of Archaeology, Flinders University,<fros0074@flinders.edu.au>

The use of historic maps and images within a modern Information System are well documented and well supported (ArcGIS Content Team 2014). These maps can be used to glean new information, transpose old data into modern digital storage formats, or to compare what was to what is. Quite often this integration of the old into the new is quite straight forward, but occasionally there are issues, especially with much older material that may lack a high level of cartographic accuracy or detail. This is a brief account of such a time when things did not go quite to plan, what went wrong, and how the day was saved.In 2010, a collaboration between the University of Adelaide and three regional councils (Adelaide Hills Council, The Barossa Council, District Council of Mount Barker and the City of Onkaparinga) resulted in the decision to launch a bid to place parts of the Mount Lofty Ranges on UNESCO’s World Heritage

List. This bid is based on the region’s working agrarian landscape, as many of the agricultural areas of the Mt Lofty Ranges have been producing high quality produce for South Australia since settlement, and will be a well-deserved recognition of the world class beauty and heritage values that lie on our doorstep.The settlement of Adelaide is unique in Australian history as it is the first fully planned state capital city. In order for the British Parliament of the time to allow the settlement of the new colony, the sale of land was required to be fully subscribed. Colonel Light was ordered to undertake the surveying of the new colony and he divided the lands from Outer Harbour to Cape Jervis into five regions, which were to be surveyed first. Other land holders who were moving to South Australia to start agricultural pursuits quickly moved to stake out the prime areas for agriculture. These areas became known as the Special Surveys (Flinders Ranges Research 2014), and are the base for the world heritage bid as they form part of the areas that have been in continuous production. Names associated with these Special Surveys like Dutton, Morphett, Eyre, Gilbert and Angas are well known and respected in South Australia, as these men went on to become pioneers

and wealthy landholders. It should also be noted that the South Australian Company was named as the principal of five of these surveys, most notably the Lyndoch Valley and areas along the upper reaches of the River Torrens.In 1847 a surveyor by the name of Arrowsmith produced a map (Figure 1) of the new colony to help show progress to the government of the day back in London. This is the first recorded definition of these Special Surveys. Little hard evidence is known as to the specifics of origin of these survey areas. From investigation and personal communications (pers. comm. from various staff, Surveyor-General’s Office 2014; Rob Koch, pers. comm. 11 October 2014) it is believed that the areas were first drawn roughly on a map, and then survey crews went and surveyed each area according to the practices of the day, in that each area was required to have a surveyed town within the boundary. It is my humble, but whimsical opinion, that these survey boundaries were first drawn on a map in the back room of a hotel somewhere in the new colony. Sadly detailed

Using Old Maps to Create New Data

Figure 1: Details of 1847 Arrowsmith map (courtesy of State Library of South Australia, file identifying number C381)

106

Field report

knowledge of the true origins of these surveys could not be reliably found. As these Special Surveys would form the foundation of the World Heritage Bid, the plan was for Arrowsmith’s map to be incorporated into a modern Geographic Information System (GIS), to form the basis of any future research to support the World Heritage Bid, and to save the boundaries in a modern spatial format. A high quality scanned copy was obtained from the State Library and the aim was to georeference this scanned map. A scanned map or image has no information that the GIS could process to determine where in the world the image or map refers to. Georeferencing is the process that can supply this information to the GIS, and simply put, is a process of using the coordinate system within the GIS to relate the map or image to real world features. The Arrowsmith map had several natural and artificial features that could potentially be used for this purpose, namely the coast line, roads, a rudimentary latitude and longitude grid, and rivers.Under normal circumstances this process is quite straight forward, requiring only a few hours to be competently completed. However, despite Mr Arrowsmith creating a fully functional and quite attractive map, the quality and accuracy of the cartography was lacking. Several attempts were made to georeference the image of the map, using all the experience and skill of the author, but due to the inherent discrepancies in the underlying cartography, the image was distorted so badly that it was quite unusable (Figure 2). As is quite often the case when seemingly insurmountable problems are faced, this work was put to one side. A casual conversation with the manager of the Land Services Group section of the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure brought forward an invitation to research their store of digital maps, which to my excitement proved to be a digital archive of a very large number of scanned historical maps produced since settlement. I discussed the Special Surveys with staff from the Surveyor-General’s Office, who were quite interested in the project I was undertaking, and agreed that the original boundaries could have been drawn in a pub one night. After looking through dozens of scanned maps from

the early days of the colony, a pattern began to appear. Many of the maps were of areas within the Special Surveys, and contained well laid out surveyed blocks, with faint boundaries of the Special Surveys. After discussion with the surveyors (pers. comm. from various staff, Surveyor-General’s Office 2014), it was agreed that the boundaries were in fact roughly drawn, then the land within was ‘properly’ surveyed at a later date, a fact that was confirmed by Rob Koch in conversation later. Once this was realised, the search for the boundaries of the Special Surveys did change focus, as it was realised that finding a complete, quality set from the late 1840s would be quite difficult. After further digging, and with great joy, a more modern map of the survey areas with Hundred Boundaries was uncovered. Hundred Boundaries date from 1846 (Primary Industries and Regions 2014), and were the first recognised land divisions in South Australia. Fortunately still current today, they were drawn to contain approximately one hundred square miles each and were slowly surveyed and drawn to cover much of the state. Georeferencing this map was a straightforward exercise, as was

Figure 2: Distortion from georeferencing original map. This map appears to be bent or slightly crumpled. Note inaccuracy around Cape Jervis (created by the author)

107

Andrew Frost, Using Old Maps to Create New Data | Dig It 2(2):105-107, December 2014

creating the Special Survey boundaries in a modern context. The survey areas did contain a few minor differences, and there were three more than on the 1847 Arrowsmith original, but having the Hundred Boundaries made the task of georeferencing much easier (Figure 3). Having these Special Survey boundaries saved in a modern spatial format allows the Mount Lofty Ranges World Heritage Bid team to incorporate them easily in any further activities, research or analysis, and in fact a map showing them was displayed at a recent UNESCO conference!

ReferencesArcGIS content team 2014 175,000 U.S. Historical Maps – Now Online.

Retrieved 29 November 2014 from <http://blogs.esri.com/esri/arcgis/2014/06/11/175000-historical-maps-now-online/>.

Flinders Ranges Research 2014 Special Surveys. Retrieved 29 November 2014 from <http://www.southaustralianhistory.com.au/surveys.htm>.

Mount Lofty Ranges World Heritage Bid 2013 The Mount Lofty Ranges Agrarian Landscape World Heritage Bid. Retrieved 17 October 2014 from <http://www.mountloftyranges.org/>.

Primary Industries and Regions South Australia 2014 The Measure of the Land. Retrieved 17 October 2014 from <http://www.pir.sa.gov.au/aghistory/left_nav/land_settlement_in_sa/the_measure_of_land>

State Library of South Australia 2014 Mapping Sources. Retrieved 17 October 2014 from <http://www.samemory.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=61&c=4460>.

Figure 3: Details of the finished map with Special Surveys in blue, Hundred Boundaries in red (map data: ESRI 2013 and Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources 2014; map produced by the author for Mount Lofty World Heritage Bid)

108

This is an interview between Dig It editor, Jana Rogasch, and Professor Ian Hodder from Stanford University in California.

Jana: Dig It is a journal by and for early career archaeologists. The contributors and readers are all (hopefully) preparing for a long career in archaeology. We are eager to hear from you, who already had a long research career, how it might feel to look back on 40 or more years of archaeological practice.When I read my coursework essays or my Bachelor thesis that I wrote only 4 years ago, I regularly flinch and never want to look at them again. Reading your own publication from 30 or so years ago – how does that feel?

Ian: Well actually my first two publications were in 1971, which is 43 years ago. Blimey, is that right? Scarily long period of time. I guess it is not surprising that one’s feelings about what one wrote ages ago change. But in fact I have found two stages of dismay. In the first phase, similar to what you experience, I feel embarrassed soon after writing. I don’t like reading what I have recently written – it always seems very naïve and inadequate, and I can see all the flaws and short-cuts that I took. My ideas move on quickly and so looking back at recent writing it seems provisional and incomplete. Then gradually over time one looks back with a better perspective and I can see that what I wrote, incomplete and inadequate as it was, at least had a place in its own time. With hindsight one can see that some article or book fit into its period and had its place, even if flawed. But then the second stage of dismay cuts in when I realise that the whole perspective that I was fitting into was rather a dead end. For example, in ‘The Domestication of Europe’ I followed approaches influenced by structuralism. In the end that wider approach has not had much impact in archaeology and it was perhaps a failing of mine to take it so seriously. But then, or so my internal dialogue goes, perhaps it was necessary for someone to experiment with structuralism, so that the discipline could move on beyond it. So maybe there was a value in the book after all. (So maybe after the first two stages of dismay there is a kind of grudging acceptance!)As you can see, one can go round and round on these issues. In the end I think the most important point is that to be critical of and flinch at one’s earlier writings is a good thing. It shows you are being thoughtful, critical and continuing to grow. This is also relevant to my next answer.

Jana: One’s opinion and approach towards things of course changes over the years and decades. But as an active researcher, this is all displayed publically through publications. How do you yourself feel about ‘changing your mind’ and what reactions to it did you get over the years from people reading your work?

Ian: As I have just said, I think it is important to keep asking questions, challenging yourself and moving on. What is the earthly point of being an academic if one doesn’t keep questioning, exploring, finding new answers, pushing the boundaries of knowledge (and all those other clichés of an intellectual life)? It has always angered me when people have criticised me for changing my mind. I would hate to be sitting here, writing this, with the same ideas I had 43 years ago! That does not give the impression of a searching, enquiring mind. Of course, there is

the danger that one moves on too quickly, after only superficial engagement with the issues. And I suppose criticisms of my changing my mind were suggesting that I was too superficial, not dealing with things in their complexity and depth.That is not the way I experienced things. When I was doing quantitative spatial analysis in the 1970s, I explored that in great depth and in many ways and from many angles. But through that process I felt that I came to see clearly the limitations of that approach and those techniques. So I moved on because I couldn’t, using those techniques and approaches, answer the questions that interested me. And generally through my career I have tried, however inadequately, to do things deeply and with substance. I think that my long commitment to a large-scale field project at Çatalhöyük in Turkey is another example of that. So I do think that changing one’s mind is a positive thing, but I also advise students that they need to engage in projects, data, ideas, philosophies deeply and in a sustained way.

Jana: Has teaching archaeological theory influenced your thinking about theory? Is it difficult to teach theory? At what level in their studies do you think students should be exposed to archaeological theory?

Ian: I’m all for teaching theory at all levels. I take the view that the process by which archaeologists make sense of the past is very complex, and ridden with theory, even if we say or pretend that it isn’t. Even a simple statement that ‘this ditch is defensive’ is drenched in theory, as Collingwood showed. Even descriptive statements such as ‘this pit is 1.56 m deep’ depends on theoretical understanding and on theoretical claims (about the term ‘pit’ for example). It seems important to me that students are exposed to these issues very early on. I remember as a second year undergraduate I participated in a training excavation in the Outer Hebrides. There were mounds of shells with very complex stratigraphies. I recall vividly spending hours standing with my professor before one section (profile) talking through all the different ways one could draw and interpret the section. That exercise showed me very clearly that even the descriptive drawing of a section involves constructing a narrative interpretation. The theoretical underpinnings of everything we do as archaeologists should be part of education at all levels.I have always, probably every year for the last 40 years, taught theory. Initially in the UK this was to undergrads and Masters students, and now in the States I teach it at both undergrad and postgrad levels. All this has certainly influenced my thinking about theory, and my books like ‘Reading the Past’, ‘The Archaeological Process’ and ‘Entangled’ have been very much influenced by these teaching experiences. Indeed, the teaching allowed me to try out the ideas in class so that I could better explain them in the books. I owe a great debt to many generations of students for being such willing and critical guinea pigs. You soon realise how ill-formed your ideas are when faced by a group of engaged, thoughtful, questioning students!The way I try to teach theory is I suppose Socratic in that I try to lead people through the issues by asking them questions and getting them to (re)discover the ideas themselves, from first principles. This is obviously easier in a graduate seminar context,

Dig It DialogueCross Boundaries and Remain Questioning: An interview with Ian Hodder

109

Dig It Dialogue: An interview with Ian Hodder

and it is such seminars that I have always enjoyed most. I think there is some value in all theoretical perspectives in archaeology, and the trick is to get students to see the different perspectives from the inside and to discover the value that lurks there. Even if you strongly disagree with a perspective, there is great educational value in coming to an understanding of why those who think differently from you believe in what they believe.

Jana: Many colleagues feel a clash or tension between ‘doing’ archaeological theory and doing field work. You have a lot of experience with both. How has the one influenced the other for you?

Ian: Again, my experience is rather different in that I never could see the gap between theory and doing. I decided to become an archaeologist while still a teenager, and this was mainly because it was a way of meeting people and traveling. But in addition to this I found the actual process of digging an engaging intellectual exercise. Faced with a few traces in the ground, how could one build a story of what had happened there? I guess this is the same reason that detective stories are so popular on television; here too the problem is how to go from a few clues to whodunit. I found the intellectual effort of putting all the pieces together, working out what this patch of darker soil might mean, and realising that you had to keep changing your interpretation as more evidence was collected, fascinating. It was, and is, such a complex, non-linear process. You really have to think hard. And that is really all that theory is; thinking hard. So when later I wrote of interpretation ‘at the trowel’s edge’, I was referring to the ways in which field archaeologists use theory all the time as they dig, deciding which change in texture to follow and which to excavate out, and which change in colour to pursue.

Jana: What aspects of being an archaeologist do you enjoy the most?

Ian: I think I partly answered this in response to the last question. Initially, it was the social life, and being outdoors rather than behind a desk. And it was the intellectual puzzle. In later years, however, especially at Çatalhöyük, I rarely get anywhere near a trowel or a trench. The project has become large enough that all I do is raise money, manage and direct. I miss the digging, but on the other hand I enjoy enormously the challenges of managing a large international, inter-disciplinary team. The job certainly has its daily crises, but I have very much enjoyed working with first-rate excavators and researchers in 33 (I counted them recently!) different specialisms or sub-disciplines. The site itself is so interesting that it has attracted the very best researchers and excavators and we have all found a way of working together. It is for me fascinating, bringing people from different backgrounds and different interests to collaborate and ask questions of each other, brainstorming to solve problems. Real inter-disciplinarity, as opposed to multi-disciplinarity, is hard but I find myself very engaged by the challenge and I think the pay-offs are huge.I have also enjoyed very much the way being an archaeologist at Çatalhöyük takes me into other worlds, very non-archaeological. I have never really liked the idea of archaeology as a distanced world separated from public spheres. At Çatalhöyük I often feel thrown into a maelstrom of commercial companies and their advertising agencies, art shows, exhibits, fashion shows, media and entertainment. I have been very engaged by the ways in which people of all sorts get absorbed and fascinated by the site. I have been taken into places and met people that I would never have met otherwise. Çatalhöyük has opened doors for me and I

have had great fun dealing with this public aspect of archaeology.

Jana: What is your advice for the up-and-coming archaeologists – what will be important things to do for us and future archaeologists in the next decades?

Ian: So I guess my answer to this, given all that I have said above, is to remain questioning, but do good in-depth work, cross boundaries and be inter-disciplinary, and raise your heads above the trench and look outside the lab in order to engage archaeology in the outer world. Archaeology, like all the sciences, is becoming increasingly specialised. But in all the sciences you hear that the best work is done by people who learn from other disciplines and who are open to new ideas. You can become hyper-specialised. These days you probably need to. But at the same time you can seek ways to work with other researchers in other domains, and find ways to make your research engaging to wider audiences.

110

Archaeology, Anthropology and Interstellar Communication edited by Douglas A. Vakoch

2014. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Washington, xi+300 pp. ISBN 978-1-62683-013-4.

Reviewed by Kathleen Gorey

Department of Archaeology, Flinders University, <gore0036@flinders.edu.au>

This volume consists of 15 chapters, plus an introduction and an epilogue, which explore the themes of technology, culture, and intelligence as they apply to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). While ‘astronomers, physicists, engineers, and computer scientists’ have historically dominated this field (p.xxx), the contributors of this volume explore it from the social sciences:

as suggested by the title, they examine the interplay between archaeology, anthropology, and interstellar communication. As part of NASA’s history series, the volume is freely downloadable as an e-book at <http://www.nasa.gov/ebooks>.Douglas Vakoch, the Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute, introduces the themes and purposes of the book in a comprehensive introductory chapter. He suggests that understanding the lessons learned by those who face similar challenges on Earth can breach the line between the detection and comprehension of extraterrestrial intelligence. By this, Vakoch is referring to core similarity between archaeology, anthropology, and SETI research: the idea of reconstructing past civilisations using potentially fragmented evidence. This volume seeks to explore this similarity, among others, to demonstrate the interdisciplinary approach of current SETI research.In Part 2 there are three chapters that examine the historical and political perspectives on SETI. The first two chapters focus on the story of SETI at NASA (1969 - 1994), detailing the scientific reasons for the development of the program and the political reasons for its termination. These chapters are by no means comprehensive accounts of these events—their focus is on providing historical context—but both of the authors direct readers to other sources should they require more information. The third chapter introduces the engagement of the social sciences with SETI projects and explores the historical role of anthropology accordingly. In this chapter, Steven Dick notes that the relationship between SETI and the social sciences has evolved from sporadic contributions to systematic involvement (p.55). This facilitated the notion that understanding the cultural aspects of SETI is necessary for its success, a theme that is revisited constantly throughout this volume.

Part 3 consists of four papers that focus on archaeological analogues. As summarised by Kathryn Denning (p.98):

SETI discussions rely heavily on Earth analogues for prediction of the effects of contact and the challenges of understanding radically different kinds of communication. Specialists in Earth cultures, past and present, can contribute meaningfully to these discussions by unpacking those analogies and considering how best to use them.

It is therefore about using archaeological analogues appropriately to strengthen our thinking about extraterrestrial intelligence. The common theme used by the authors to demonstrate this is that of deciphering ancient texts (e.g. Egyptian hieroglyphs). This discussion benefits refreshingly from the diverse nature of its contributors, with anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, and a literary theorist exploring the challenges faced and applying them to the context of extraterrestrial intelligence. Accordingly, the primary argument throughout Part 3 is the necessity of an interdisciplinary approach to SETI research. As Paul Wason notes, we are limited in our understanding by our intellectual context, something that needs to be overcome for SETI research to be successful. In Part 4, John Traphagan provides the first chapter on ‘Anthropology, Culture, and Communication’, focussing on the practice of anthropology at a distance—that is, the reliance on data gathered by others—to explore its limitations and associated cultural inventions. By analysing Western efforts to understand Japanese culture, he argues that we need to be cautious about our initial evaluations of extraterrestrials based on the intelligence we receive. Douglas Raybeck continues this section by offering a cross-cultural perspective governed by a colonial contact analogue. He demonstrates the commonality of inaccurate cultural interpretations throughout colonial history and considers how this may translate to extraterrestrial contact. Albert Harrison concludes this section with a consideration of ‘Active SETI’, or the attempt to make extraterrestrial civilisations aware of our own. Whether or not our messages are received, Harrison argues, ‘we can learn much about human interests and values by examining what we hope to convey across the depths about time and space’ (p.xxvi). Perhaps the greatest contribution that SETI can make to archaeology, therefore, is a greater understanding of us.‘The Evolution and Embodiment of Extraterrestrials’ constitutes the final part of this volume’s body. By taking into account the themes examined previously, this section focuses on human perceptions of extraterrestrials by considering intelligence, culture, and technology. The authors make speculations about the intelligence necessary for advanced technology (Garry Chick), communicating with biologically different organisms (Dominique Lestel), and the limits of symbolic communication (William Edmondson) in an attempt to understand the impact that receiving extraterrestrial intelligence would have on Earth. Personally, Lestel’s prediction of an existential crisis seems the most likely.In the final paper of this volume, Vakoch warns against ‘imposing our own presuppositions on extraterrestrial intelligence’, a problem that early anthropologists faced in their reconstructions of Neanderthals (p.252). Should this occur, it would ‘[make] our images of extraterrestrials not so much reflections of their true

Book Reviews

111

Book reviews

nature but rather mirrors of our assumptions (p.252, emphasis in original). For SETI research to be beneficial to all interested parties, therefore, it cannot limit itself to one understanding or research pathway, and that is what this volume demonstrates in its exploration of the interplay between archaeology, anthropology, and interstellar communication.Overall, this volume is a good introductory text to the work of SETI and the role of the social sciences accordingly. One of its major strengths is its accessibility: the e-book is freely available, the contents page is conveniently linked, and the chapters are easy to read while all contributing to the overall purpose of the volume. Similarly, the cross-referencing between the chapters demonstrates the commitment of the authors, all of who provided guides to further reading throughout their papers. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the diverse applications of archaeological research, how humans may react to the detection of extraterrestrial life, or the work and implications of SETI research more specifically.

Iron Age Hillforts in Britain and Beyond by D.W. Harding

2012. Oxford University Press, Oxford, x+334 pp. ISBN 987-0-19-969524-9

Reviewed by Catriona Santilli

Department of Archaeology, Flinders University, <sant0038@flinders.edu.au>

As an undergraduate student on exchange to the University of Leicester over a decade ago, I remember touring around the southern English countryside. Some of the most memorable and fascinating aspects of the landscape of ancient Britain were the mysterious Iron Age hillforts, such as the impressive Maiden Castle in Dorset. Having climbed to the top of Maiden Castle and fancying myself looking down upon the ages, I asked my companion, “So what

exactly is a hillfort”? Much to my chagrin, the local guide had about as much idea of what a hillfort really was as I did. Yet because hillforts are highly visible monuments in the landscape, they have been the subject of investigation by some of the great names of early archaeological study; one in particular was Sir Mortimer Wheeler’s excavations at Maiden Castle. Former Abercromby Professor Emeritus of Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, D. W. Harding, in his book Iron Age Hillforts in Britain and Beyond, has produced a critical and thorough review of British archaeology and the role hillfort research had in developing the discipline. Harding systematically examines the state of hillfort study in Britain and Ireland, from its earliest days to the latest modern available research, and

interrogates the archaeological evidence and interpretation of a multitude of hillforts within prehistoric landscapes – from the wider Bronze Age of Europe to the presence of hillforts in the post-Roman Iron Age of Britain and Ireland. Much of what we know about Iron Age Britain and Ireland is what Harding notes as text lead or aided archaeology in which historical records and textual sources span the same periods as Iron Age hillforts were in use (p.227-228). As I continued my tour of southern England, I was to visit a museum that housed the famous ‘Amesbury Archer’, a man who had lived in Bronze Age Britain and had derived his nickname from the many arrowheads that were found among his burial goods in his grave, close to Stonehenge.Classical sources such as Caesar (during his campaign of Britain), Suetonius and later Tacitus wrote of ancient Britain and Ireland as the ‘barbarian west’, presenting British prehistory as brutal with inter-tribal violence and the age of the warrior, as the Amesbury archer was (inaccurately) explained to me by eager local historians. The seemingly natural explanation for hillforts in the landscape was that they were primarily defensive in nature or as regional centres, controlled by the elite. As a foreigner looking across the English landscape from a hillfort, it was easy to imagine stories of Boudicca and the Iceni, warring with the Romans, and the Irish medieval legends. Harding has a chapter that is devoted to examining the documentary sources against the archaeological record, and while it strips the romance of hillfort mythology such as the search for Camelot and the Celts away, the archaeological evidence Harding presents in his succinct and concise style is far more interesting. Harding is not content, in his own words, to leave it at that, saying ‘archaeology may have been the handmaiden of history, but archaeology as a discipline has moved on a long way since then’ (p.228). Harding challenges the long held convention of hillforts as being terrain oppida in the ‘Celtic paradigm’ and in the opening chapters of the book defines the reality of what we actually mean when we say ‘hillfort. ‘Fort’ implies purely a defensive function and that may not have been the case at all (p.18-20). Harding explains that ‘hillfort is actually a term of convenience’ that describes various different enclosed spaces in the landscape and time, rather than a specific monument type (p.1). He devotes several chapters to considering the technical aspects of hillfort archaeology including the anatomy of hillfort enclosures, the inside and outside features of hillforts, their place in the landscape and chronology. However, Harding goes one step further than that and he also considers the archaeological record alongside what he terms the ‘empathy approach’ of archaeology, the theoretical movement that has seen a cognitive element become popular in recent research and considers other interpretations of prehistoric monuments and enclosed spaces in the landscape. While Harding discusses hillforts as possible defensive monuments and considers in depth the archaeological evidence of enclosures appearing to be the sites of violence, additionally he also explores the enclosed areas as spaces that had social, economic and ritual functions which follows a theoretic trend in British prehistoric archaeology that ascribe significant meaning to places like hillforts. Harding, however, constantly warns against imposing our cultural sensitivities on prehistoric enclosed spaces and prioritises Iron Age necessity in his interpretations in the archaeological context of hillforts. Harding also looks at the

We are always looking for new contributors. Regardless of where you are in the world, the level of study you have attained, and your specific research focus, we want you to publish in Dig It!Dig It is published twice a year and considers a range of contributions, including:• research articles;• personal accounts/opinion pieces on recent field work

or current issues; and• news and reviews.If you are interested in being a part of Dig It, please take a look at our ‘guidelines for contributors’ by scanning the QR code then send us an email!Email: dig.it@flindersarchsoc.org

Book reviews

112

meaning of the enclosed space itself, comparing the Iron Age hillforts to ethnographic models found in New Zealand, North American indigenous settlements and West African fortified towns as he notes the diversity of Iron Age hillforts in ancient Britain and Ireland. He emphasises an even and evidenced based approach to prehistoric archaeology that is balanced by the theoretical considerations of the past and present archaeologists. Harding’s book does not only answer my question “what is a hillfort”? It does so much more. This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand British archaeology and how archaeological theory evolves as new evidence is uncovered in the archaeological record. Several highlights of the text include the high quality illustrations and wide variety of photographs that accompany the clear and precise text. The writing clearly articulates the issues of hillfort archaeology and presents the problems faced by archaeologists in a balanced way. Harding does not assume his readers have prior knowledge of British archaeology or prehistory, making this book great reading for anyone, from undergraduate student to professor. The story of the Iron Age hillfort is also the story of British archaeology itself.

ArchSoc NewsOutcomes of the Annual General MeetingSubmitted by Jordan RalphThanks to those members who attended the Flinders ArchSoc AGM on November 27, 2014. It was a succinct, productive meeting and fortunately we were able to achieve quorum this year. During the meeting, we elected the 2015 committee, elected two new Honorary Life Members and made very minor changes to the constitution (including renaming the ‘risk adviser’ position to ‘field work coordinator’).Congratulations to those members who were elected to the ArchSoc committee in 2015 (see table below). We hope that your term is successful and effective. Please be aware that we are yet to elect a vice-president. We will be looking for someone who is energetic, passionate, dedicated and organised to become the new vice-president early in 2015 and help Dianne and the rest of the committee during the year.

President Dianne RileyVice-president Unelected; to be elected in

2015Treasurer Chelsea WisemanSecretary Marie AmyotPublications editor Jordan RalphField work coordinator Jana RogaschSocial coordinator Drew JacksonPublic relations officer Emma DaveyMembership officer Owen HemsGeneral representatives Adeena Fowke

Virginia WardRhiannon AgutterMatthew HornsbyCeleste Jordan

Honorary Life MembersSubmitted by Jordan RalphDuring the Annual General Meeting, the Society elected two Honorary Life Members. Congratulations to Andrew Wilkinson and Professor Claire Smith. We thank Andrew and Claire for their commitment to ArchSoc in the past and look forward to working with them in the future.

Andrew WilkinsonAndrew became a member of ArchSoc when he commenced the Bachelor of Archaeology in 2007, and has been among the most active members of the Society during that period. He has played an active role in running the Society by going above and beyond the responsibilities of his role as both a member of the committee and as a member of the Society.During the last eight years, Andrew has held various positions on the ArchSoc committee, including President (2013), Vice-President (2008-2010), webmaster (2007), risk adviser (2012) and general representative (2012). Through these roles, Andrew was able to create and provide opportunities for other ArchSoc members, which helped them in their personal and professional development. Some of these opportunities include field trips to Lake Mungo World Heritage Site, Burra, and the Flinders Ranges. Each of these field trips gave several ArchSoc members the opportunity to visit a number of archaeological sites they would not normally have been able to visit. Andrew also took a group of students to Port Arthur World Heritage Site in Tasmania where ArchSoc members were involved in a salvage excavation and artefact cleaning and cataloguing.Andrew has represented ArchSoc at national and international levels as a volunteer at different conferences, including the AAA (2009), WAC (2013) and NASC (2014), which boosted the profile of the Society. He has also represented the Society at public lectures and Flinders University open days, where he

Want to write for Dig It?

113

ArchSoc news

helped recruit new students to the Department of Archaeology and new members to the Society.Andrew is always happy to lend a hand to any event that the Society or the Department is organising, including organising, setting up and/or packing up fundraising events, University O’ Week and other events.While he is very much a quiet, modest achiever, it is without doubt that Andrew’s involvement in ArchSoc has greatly benefited the Society and its members. He is always available to provide informed, constructive advice about any Society initiatives and is always happy to lend an ear to anyone who goes to him with a question or problem.

Professor Claire SmithClaire has been both an Associate member and a Fee-paying member of ArchSoc for well over ten years, since she first took up a lecturing position at Flinders University in 1998/9.Claire has supported ArchSoc throughout her membership both directly, by attending events and AGMs, offering advice and guidance, contributing to Dig It, and creating various opportunities (detailed below) for members; and indirectly, by supporting and nurturing the professional networking and development of Flinders Archaeology students, most of who are ArchSoc members.In January 2013, Claire took a large number of Flinders students (~20) – all members of ArchSoc – to the Seventh World Archaeological Congress in Jordan. Many of the students’ costs were offset by WAC and a grant from ACHM, both of which were negotiated by Claire on behalf of the students. Having such a large presence at WAC-7 meant that ArchSoc was put on the world stage. ArchSoc was the volunteer base that ran the conference. As a result of this, the Society gained a lot of interest and was credited with the success of the conference by many people. The individual members in attendance were also praised and were able to network with many well-known archaeologists from around the world. Another benefit is that many archaeologists from around the world now own a bright red, Flinders ArchSoc/WAC-7 t-shirt. Claire’s involvement in WAC allowed ArchSoc to be involved in a crowdfunding appeal to stream WAC-7 online, for which ArchSoc made a short film. This film alone gave ArchSoc and its members much exposure, and their attendance at the conference added to this. In addition to WAC-7 in Jordan, Claire did a similar thing in 2005 when she took several Flinders students, and ArchSoc members to Washington DC for WAC-5.Moreover, Claire brought ArchSoc in as volunteers for the Australian Rock Art Research Association’s Inter-congress at Flinders in 2012, for which ArchSoc received a $500 donation and gained a new level of exposure. Again, ArchSoc was praised for its professionalism and ability to organise and support functions.Claire often has ArchSoc members assist her in many of her projects, such as the Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, to which many ArchSoc members contributed articles, and were able to get some editing experience. We thank Claire for the time she has invested in ArchSoc and its members.

Updates from the AAA/ASHA Conference, Cairns, December 1-3 2014Submitted by Adrian MollenmansFor those who were not able to attend this years’ joint AAA/ASHA 2014 conference in Cairns, the following is to highlight conference award recipients from Flinders University as well as provide a brief update on Flinders University’s representation at the conference. It was a very pleasing aspect of the conference this year that Flinders University academic staff member Dr Amy Roberts and Flinders University student Susan Arthure were both recipients of conference awards.Dr Amy Roberts was jointly awarded ‘The Bruce Veitch Award for Excellence in Indigenous Engagement’ in recognition of her long standing efforts and sensitivity working collaboratively with Aboriginal communities on archaeological projects in South Australia. This is a great recognition for Amy who has devoted her academic and working life working for and with Aboriginal communities in areas spanning Native Title, anthropology and archaeology. Amy’s nomination included testimonials from work colleagues, students and most importantly, members of the Aboriginal communities with whom she works. In particular, Tauto Sansbury – Chairperson of the Narungga Aboriginal Corporation Regional Authority/Chairperson Narungga Nation Aboriginal Corporation – and Isobelle Campbell – Chairperson of the Mannum Aboriginal Community Association Inc – both provided kind words of support for Amy’s nomination. Amy was a joint recipient of this award with Associate Professor Sean Ulm from James Cook University.Susan Arthure received the ‘Best Student Poster’ award for her poster: ‘The occupation of Bakers Flat: A study of Irishness and power in a South Australian community’. This poster outlined research undertaken for Susan’s Master of Archaeology thesis. Susan also presented a paper (with Cherie De Leiuen) at the conference entitled: ‘Historical Archaeology in Kapunda: Giving Voices to Past and Present Communities. Both poster and paper presentation provided engaging accounts of Susan’s research. Susan’s poster can be viewed at the following link: http://australianarchaeology.com/gallery/the-occupation-of-bakers-flat-a-study-of-irishness-and-power-in-a-south-australian-community/.The conference was well attended by Flinders University staff and students and associates, a number of whom also presented papers or posters including: Alice Gorman, Mick Morrison, Cherie De Leiuen, Isabel Wheeler, Cassandra Schill, Amy Della-Sale, Isobelle Campbell, David Tutchener, Amy Roberts and Adrian Mollenmans. Apologies if I have missed anyone! All presentations were of a high standard and it was pleasing to see the Flinders University participants at the conference supporting each other in their respective endeavours and as mentioned above it was very pleasing to see Amy and Susan be recognised with their respective awards. Congratulations to both Amy and Susan.N.B. Adrian was also elected as South Australian State Representative to the Australian Archaeological Association during the conference.

114

ArchSoc news

ArchSoc AwardsSubmitted by Jordan RalphArchSoc announced the recipients of the 2013 awards at the Department of Archaeology’s award ceremony earlier in the year. The recipients of the awards are as follows:

The ArchSoc Andrew Allen-Farr Award 2013The Andrew Allen-Farr Award is presented annually to the ArchSoc member who made the most outstanding contribution to ArchSoc in the award year and demonstrated the qualities that distinguished Andrew Allen-Farr, namely:• A positive commitment to archaeology;• The ability to further the public awareness of archaeology in this state in a friendly and forthright manner• An outstanding amount of time and effort freely contributed to the Archaeological Society as well as archaeology in general; and• A commitment to improving the university experience of fellow students.The recipient of the Andrew Allen-Farr Award for 2013 is Dianne Riley.Dianne has shown an active interest in ArchSoc since 2011 when she first inquired about membership with the Society. She has since proven herself to be an extremely supportive and valuable member of ArchSoc, and more recently as a committee member. She is arguably one of the Society’s most active members; willingly volunteering for different events at times when an active work body is needed (which is almost always the case). Consequently, this has made her one of the Society’s most reliable members.Dianne volunteered her time at most, if not all, Archaeology Department seminars by organising the catering, ensuring everyone has something to eat or drink and hanging around to clean up afterwards. This in itself is no mean feat. As mentioned, Dianne has volunteered her time to help others organise a great deal of things in 2013, including (but not limited to): the policy and constitution subcommittee; organising seminar catering; NAW events; a field trip to Belair National Park; ArchSoc’s 21st Birthday Party; many of ArchSoc’s fundraising events; O’ Weeks; Open Days; and Club Fair Days.In archaeology in general, she constantly volunteers and gets involved with field work and research opportunities related to the discipline, including travelling overseas earlier in 2013 for an ongoing project being conducted in Italy. All the while, she constantly considers ArchSoc and tries to promote the Society positively to colleagues and passers-by.Dianne also did a tremendous job as ArchSoc’s membership officer in 2013 in maintaining the Society’s membership database. ArchSoc’s large, and constantly growing member base requires a large amount of time and effort in ensuring that the records are kept updated and all necessary details are available – these records are not only important for the Society to retain for references (Dig It mailout, statistics, etc.), but also as a requirement for the Flinders University Student Association, with which the Society is affiliated.Dianne is a caring, positive, proactive, generous and thoughtful person who has given so much of her time and energy to the Society this year. All of the events Dianne has been involved with in 2013 has been in an effort to improve the Society and the university experience of its members.

The ArchSoc Members Award for Service to the Society 2013This award is presented to up to three ArchSoc members who demonstrated the greatest contribution to the Society in terms of volunteering, fundraising, advertising or otherwise furthering the objects of ArchSoc during the awarded year.The recipients of the Members Award for 2013 are Celeste Jordan, Vanessa Sullivan and Tyler Whitmarsh.

The Ruth and Vincent Megaw Award for Outstanding Collaboration in Archaeological Research and Practice 2013This award was presented for the first time at the Inaugural Ruth and Vincent Megaw Annual Lecture in Archaeology and Art at Flinders University on the 12th of April 2014. The recipients of this award are: Kurt Bennett, Chelsea Colwell-Pasch, Lauren Davison, Celeste Jordan, Josh Russ, Jeffrey Schaeffer, Vanessa Sullivan, and Andrew Wilkinson. This was to recognise the team’s collaboration on a poster series presented at the Australasian Institute of Maritime Archaeology Conference in Canberra in 2013.There will be a call for nominations for 2014 awards in early January 2015.

115

Our most basic premise is to give upper-level undergraduate and graduate students of all fields the opportunity to not only have an article published, but also an opportunity to go through the peer-review process in order to have a better understanding and experience of how the review process works in the professional journals of their respective fields.We are pleased to announce the start of our third year as the journal Anthropology: Bachelors to Doctorates (ABD). Based in the Anthropology Department of the State University of New York at Buffalo, ABD provides an arena for dialogue across the fields of social science through its holistic emphasis on all areas of current anthropological research. Our objective is to showcase rising talent as well as emerging fields of study through ABD’s focus on original research by exceptional graduate and undergraduate students. Further, our peer review process introduces student authors to the steps involved in publication while providing feedback from professionals familiar with their fields of study.We publish two issues each year: one in fall and a second in spring. Look for our call for papers for the spring issue in October!

ABD welcomes a broad range of research interests in the social sciences, including:• American Studies• Applied Anthropology• Archaeology• Education Policies• Classics• Forensic and Physical Anthropology• Human Geography• Linguistics• Medical Anthropology• Primatology• Public Health• Socio-cultural Anthropology• Sociology• Urban Planning

Please contact us at <abdjournal@gmail.com> for further information or to submit a manuscript.

Journal Profile Anthropology: Bachelors to Doctorates (ABD)

Erica Dunayer, EEB - EditorMatthew Dysart, Archaeology - EditorKatharina Pabst, Linguistics - Editor Abbi Lynch, Cultural Anthropology - Editor

Melanie Mayberry, Physical Anthropology - Assistant Editor Kathryn Hudson, Archaeology - Assistant Editor Anastasia Stepanova, Linguistics - Assistant EditorSam Rose, Cultural Anthropology - Assistant Editor

Dig It is a student-run journal and the official newsletter of the Flinders Archaeological Society. The publication began in 1997 and after a hiatus of at least five years, it was relaunched in 2012. The new series began in 2013. The purpose of Dig It is to provide students, from undergrad through to postgrad and recent graduates, with the opportunity to practise and familiarise themselves with writing, publishing, editing and the reviewing process involved in professional publications. It aims to offer emerging young academics with an avenue to engage with archaeological dialogues and discourse. In addition, it aims to keep aspiring archaeologists connected and informed about what is happening in the archaeological community.

Dig It is published twice a year and is printed at Flinders Press. Dig It considers a range of contributions, including research articles, essays, personal accounts/opinion pieces, book reviews and thesis abstracts for publication. We welcome contributions from local, interstate and international undergrad and postgrad students and recent graduates.

The guidelines for contributors can be found here:

http://flindersarchsoc.org/digit/guidelinesforcontributors/.

Dig It is an open access journal. The journal and the individual articles can be freely distributed; however, individual authors and Dig It must always be cited and acknowledged correctly. The intellectual ownership remains with the individual authors. Articles, figures and other content cannot be altered without the prior permission of the author.

Correspondence to the Editor should be addressed to:

The Editor, Dig It c/o ArchSocDepartment of ArchaeologyFlinders UniversityGPO Box 2100Adelaide, 5001

or email <dig.it@flindersarchsoc.org>

Editor: Jana Rogasch

Co-editors: Matthew Ebbs (academic reviews), Antoinette Hennessy (field reports) and Jordan Ralph (layout and ArchSoc news)

Permanent review panel: Rhiannon Agutter, Amy Batchelor, Robert DeWet-Jones, Anna Foroozani, Simon Munt, Dianne Riley, Ada Dinckal, Fiona Shanahan, Rhiannon Stammers and Isabel Wheeler

Email: dig.it@flindersarchsoc.orgWeb: flindersarchsoc.orgTwitter: @FlindersArchSocFacebook: /archsocdigitJoin our free mailing list: archsoc@flinders.edu.au

DigIt