Archaeology in Oceania最新文献

In Mirarr Kunred (Country) in the Alligator Rivers region of the Northern Territory, Australia, a particular form of scarred, culturally modified tree (CMT) is actively being created as Bininj (Aboriginal people) harvest bark to be used as art canvases (dolobbo). Cultural heritage surveys carried out over the past 5 years in and near the township of Jabiru have recorded numerous dolobbo trees, along with a smaller number of older CMTs containing scars from other forms of resource extraction. These newly created CMTs are a tangible demonstration of cultural continuity, produced by Bininj adapting traditional practices to engage with the contemporary economy. Although dolobbo trees are a relatively new addition to the cultural landscape of Mirarr Kunred, they are warmly regarded by Bininj when encountered and have heritage value as indicators of current cultural activities. This study highlights the significance of recording these trees as part of the contemporary cultural landscape of Mirarr Kunred and considers the environmental and heritage implications of this practice.

This research examines rock art and dendroglyphs in the Wet Tropics of northeast Australia to investigate their relationship to linguistic social identity. The region was selected for its complex socio-cultural landscape, marked by a diversity of languages in a distinct, relatively small area. The study was co-designed with nine First Nations partner organisations representing five language groups and employed rock art methodologies and interviews with First Nation knowledge holders. Findings reveal that neither rock art nor dendroglyph motifs correspond neatly with linguistic boundaries. Within a single language area, stylistic variations were observed—rock art is more figurative in the east and abstract in the west, while dendroglyphs, found only in the eastern Wet Tropics, feature predominantly abstract designs. Rather than signifying socio-cultural differences, the dendroglyphs and rock art illustrate connections. Senior custodians identify dendroglyphs as story places, clan symbols, and sites of cultural significance, reflecting a deep and enduring relationship by First Nations with these rare cultural expressions. This study contributes new insights into dendroglyphs and rock art in Queensland's Wet Tropics rainforests, challenging assumptions that stylistic boundaries align strictly with language groups and significantly broadening knowledge of Australian dendroglyphs.

The timing and duration of prehistoric quarrying is poorly understood within Australia, with limited ages available for quarries owing to the difficulties in dating these rock-sediment constructions. We report the first multi-sample, optically stimulated luminescence ages from quarry pits in Brumby Yard, an Aboriginal grindstone quarry situated in the Channel Country region of Western Queensland. Our results indicate three pit abandonments at ∼970, ∼600 and ∼540 years ago. Our results present the first absolute dating evidence that quarrying was a complex, multi-century practice with the use of open sections of the quarry in the presence of abandoned pits.

This paper outlines preliminary results from our multimethod research about Culturally Modified Trees (CMTs) and associated bark and wooden material culture in Yagara Country in southeast Queensland. Methods employed include historical source and modern database analysis, archaeological field surveys, semi-structured interviews with Yagara Traditional Owners and recording of bark and wooden objects housed in museums/institutions. Our work aims to highlight the complexity of Yagara biocultural knowledge and to produce practical models that will assist with the recording and interpretation of Yagara CMTs.

In northwest Australia, boab trees hold significant cultural values for First Nations people. Their leaves, bark, roots and nuts are important as traditional resources for food, medicine, fibre, water and shade and serve as reference points in the landscape. Some of the tree trunks are inscribed with images and symbols which tell of events and narratives that took place during the time when the landscape was created. One boab tree, at Karunjie Station on Nyaliga Country in the Kimberley, is carved with images of a black-headed python and the moon which are associated with a narrative that is a reminder of cultural law about forbidden love. This narrative is widely related across the central and eastern Kimberley and provides a means of selecting marriage partners over a culturally diverse landscape. On Karunjie Station images associated with this narrative are also painted on two rock shelter walls suggesting the importance of maintaining marriage laws at this location. Adhering to these laws may have been particularly important when European and other foreign colonists disrupted the economy as they appropriated First Nations peoples’ land. Carvings on the Karunjie boab tree demonstrates another way in which First Nations people incorporate boab trees into their culture.

Australian Aboriginal song-lines and Dreaming tracks follow the movement and interactions of ancestral beings and are marked by physical features associated with those ancestral beings at culturally significant places, often termed ‘sacred sites’. These locations can include living things like trees and other vegetation with culturally ascribed meanings. Not always visibly marked or intentionally altered, these plants comprise an integral part of a totemic landscape with an associated narrative. Trees and other plants are susceptible to destruction, both from natural and human impact but Aboriginal cultural beliefs maintain cultural continuity in the context of change. Thus cultural custodians may identify and determine the transfer of the locus of an ancestral being from a dead or destroyed tree or feature into an existing or new vegetation feature. Expertise and responsibility for sacred vegetation resides solely with the Traditional Owners and cultural custodians and is recognised in the Northern Territory under different heritage legislation that affords differing levels of protection according to the Aboriginal cultural significance of the particular tree or vegetation.

Pre-Christian religious sites of the Fijian Archipelago have been seldom studied and even less often mapped by archaeologists. This is especially the case for the enigmatic Nanaga enclosures, whose functioning has remained poorly documented by the first ethnographers of the 19th century. This paper describes one of these sites, located near Labasa town in the northwestern plain of the large island of Vanua Levu. After presenting one of the oral traditions associated with some of the uprights of this Nanaga, exemplifying long-distance chiefly networks, we describe the different elements of the double alignment of low platforms and related structures. These data are discussed in the wider context of anthropological and archaeological information published about the Nanaga sites and the rituals associated with them.

This paper presents a detailed overview of archaeological research undertaken on Epi and Tongoa, in central Vanuatu. These islands were previously connected to one another and respectively formed the western and eastern portions of Kuwae, one of the largest islands in the Vanuatu archipelago, until the catastrophic Tombuk volcanic eruption separated them in the mid-fifteenth century AD. Oral traditions and insights drawn from previous ethnographic, linguistic and genetic research provide context for the archaeological data. We begin to address questions about the extent to which impacts of the major Tombuk eruption were experienced across the entirety of the former Kuwae landmass, and the role of this and other volcanic events in the complex transformations of the physical and cultural landscapes of central Vanuatu.