Humanities and Social Sciences

Kris Courtney

I am undertaking an MA part-time working with material from amongst the collection at the Australian Institute of Archaeology (AIA). My research includes looking at funerary objects of ancient Egypt produced in various materials, including faience. As part of this research I am exploring the uses of these objects and their purpose and meaning in a funerary context. Currently, my research is focussing on scarab seals of which the AIA has a collection. The scarabs, found in Egypt and the Levant, at sites such as Tell el Ajjul and Jericho will enable me to look at the artistic and cultural influences between Egypt and the Levant during the Bronze Age. My intention is also to compare the collection of funerary objects at the AIA with collections of funerary objects at other locations yet to be determined.

Penny Crook

‘Superior Quality’: Exploring the nature of cost, quality and value in historical archaeology
This study represents an exploration of three key concepts in nineteenth-century consumerism: cost, quality and value; and evaluates the role these may play in approaching the archaeological material culture of the modern world. It interweaves two primary strands of inquiry: one, a consumption-theory driven study of trade catalogues to analyse the cost and promotion of 19th-century tablewares; and two, a close study of material production flaws observed in archaeological sherds. These culminate in a consideration of how these goods may have been valued once they arrived home. This study draws on 55 illustrated catalogues and price lists of major Australian, English, American and Canadian ‘universal providers’, dating from 1872 to 1911, and a detailed analysis of key terms and prices of individual china and glassware items in 27 of those documents.

Christopher Davey

The foundation of the Australian Institute of Archaeology and the origin of its Ancient Near Eastern museum collection.
The museum collection of the Australian Institute of Archaeology was brought to Australia from 1935 to about 1970 and forms one of Australia’s major Middle East collections. Objects from the Institute collection have been dispersed as bequest, sale or loan to the Nicholson Museum, the National Gallery of Victoria, The Potter Museum of Fine Art and the Museum of Ancient Cultures at Macquarie University. The project focuses on the motivation and activity of the founder of the Institute, Walter Beasley, and the early years of the Institute. Beasley had contact with Childe, Sydney Smith, Woolley, Petrie, Schaeffer, Dunand, Kenyon, Albright, Stewart and Garstang amongst many others.

Adrienne Ellis

Located approximately 50km north of Launceston TAS, Yorktown is one of the oldest sites of British settlement in Australia. Settled in 1804 by Lt. Col. William Paterson and a party of approximately 200 people - including soldiers, convicts and their families - the colonisation was considered a strategic move to secure British interest in the newly-discovered Bass Strait, as well as providing a further colony to accommodate settlers removed from Norfolk Island. Two field seasons were held during 2006, investigating only a fraction of the Yorktown settlement. Conducted as part of a research project undertaken by La Trobe University in collaboration with the West Tamar Historical Society, three buildings of the original settlement site were excavated.

Asa Ferrier

My research is a study in contact archaeology that explores the dynamics of Aboriginal occupation in an area of far north Queensland’s rainforest region. It applies a long-term temporal framework in an investigation of the recent past. Specifically, it explores variability in terms of change and continuity through time in Aboriginal rainforest culture and occupation. The research is multidisciplinary and takes a historical approach to the construction of archaeological knowledge of the recent past. It integrates diverse data sources created from archaeological evidence recovered from Aboriginal sites occupied in the pre- to post contact periods, historical documents, and information gathered in oral history interviews. The structure of the analyses focuses on open sites as a means of discovering archaeological variability used together with the historical sources that provide the study with a historical context.

Tania Hardy Smith

Art and Archaeology in Australia : The contribution of archaeology to the formation of cultural identity
While looking for a postgraduate research topic, I was drawn to the connection between archaeology and artistic production when in 2001 I was fortunate to be involved in the first performance of the Australian opera Batavia – a collaboration between composer Richard Mills and librettist Peter Goldsworthy. As an archaeology undergraduate, I had always experienced great aesthetic pleasure in the colours and textures of artefacts, but hadn’t really considered the potential impact of these objects at a deeper cultural level. The wrecking of the Dutch East Indies Company retourship, the Batavia, and subsequent events on the islands of the Houtman Abrolhos archipelago in 1629 is a perfect story for opera. Iit is also greatly enhanced by the archaeological material from both marine and terrestrial sites. Skeletal remains, artefacts and extant limestone enclosures give the story great veracity, sharing the landscape with people of Western Australia who consider the events to be part of their history and identity and have been determined to protect what they consider is part of their heritage. I shall be using a number of other works to investigate a range of responses from different periods in our history. The goal of my research is to contribute to increasing our understanding of the evolution of identity in settler societies.

Les Hazell

I am investigating megalith (large stone) transport by Olmec society around 1500BC-300AD in Mesoamerica (Central Mexico). Archaeologists have long favoured an open water route along the Gulf of Mexico using either log and canoe rafts to carry 15-40 tonne stones between 40- 80 kilometres depending on river outlets used.  I disagree. Olmec society moved many megaliths from a source known as Cerro Cintepec in the Tuxtla Mountains. These megaliths were transported to the major Olmec complex of San Lorenzo, some 80 kilometres away. My research focuses on the transportation of stones weighing up to 25 tonnes, used or reused, for sculptures known as cabazes colosales, Colossal Heads. I am currently investigating viable options for land-based methods and routes. A field survey was undertaken in April 2008 over 3-4 weeks. The current stage of research includes preliminary results of soil testing confirming loading expectations with final results yet to be obtained and Sat image analysis to be undertaken in May, June 2009.

Geoffrey Hewitt

An archaeology of Utopia? Herrnhut Commune, Western Victoria
In 1853, Johann Friedrich Krumnow, a charismatic radical Christian fundamentalist, founded a settlement, which he named Herrnhut, on a large tract of land near Penshurst in Victoria’s Western District. At Herrnhut, resources were pooled and all property was held in common. The Herrnhut communards, mostly recent German immigrants, worked together under Krumnow’s theocratic leadership to establish a flourishing agricultural economy and to prepare for the expected Millennium. This project has focussed upon that period of Herrnhut’s existence between its founding and the 1860 fire. A site thought to have been the location of the original settlement has been excavated and traces of burned and damaged buildings have been found.

Duncan Jones

Early Holocene tool use and subsistence practices in the lower Yangzi River valley, China.
The development of agriculture in China has often been portrayed as a uniform trajectory of increasing reliance on cereal crops that ultimately culminated in the establishment of sedentary agricultural communities by the mid Holocene. Many archaeological studies of early Holocene China are often focussed on locating agricultural indicators to document these developments and giving insufficient attention to non-cereal and non-cultivated plant resources which have been recovered. The site of Shangshan in Zhejiang province (10,000 – 9,000 B.P.) has been characterised as an early agricultural community on the basis of a very small number of rice husks embedded in pottery temper, and the large number of ground stone tools recovered from the site has been provisionally ascribed as processing tools for rice consumption, ignoring other possibilities of potential use. My research aims to examine the robust ground stone tool assemblage from Shangshan in order to identify and examine both cereal and non-cereal plant species that may have been consumed in early Holocene China.

Coral Montero Lopez

Animal remains recovered from the excavation in the archaeological site of Chinikiha, in Mexico
This study of animal bones can provide us with a wide range of information, ranging from procurement, butchering and other food preparation practices, to environmental studies, religious or ceremonial use of animals, trade, and domestication. I am studying the animal remains recovered from the excavation conducted behind a palace in the archaeological site of Chinikiha, in Mexico dated to the Late Classic period (600-750 A.D.) from the ceramic analysis from potsherds associated with the faunal remains in question. In the Mayan region, predominance of animal species perceived archaeologically changes over time. By the Late Classic, white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus)  was one of the most common species, not just because of its natural ubiquity, but also because it was presumedly highly regarded by the Mayan elite.  In Chinikiha, more than 90 percent of the archaeofaunal remains have been identified as white-tailed deer, with almost all their body segments present. These faunal remains also show a high percentage of cutmarks and signs of animal gnawing.

For more information on Chinikiha, visit http://www.famsi.org/reports/06007es/.

Rachel Minos

I am undertaking an MA part-time working with material from amongst the collection at the Australian Institute of Archaeology (AIA). My research includes looking at funerary objects of ancient Egypt produced in various materials, including faience. As part of this research I am exploring the uses of these objects and their purpose and meaning in a funerary context. Currently, my research is focussing on scarab seals of which the AIA has a collection. The scarabs were found in Egypt and the Levant, at sites such as Tell el Ajjul and Jericho. My intention is also to compare the collection of funerary objects at the AIA with collections of funerary objects at other locations yet to be determined.

Norisaki Sato

The Other Side of Archaeology
I started my BA in the late nineties and majored in Australian historical archaeology, in which I have completed my honours thesis. This period coincides with significant changes in the disciplinary, industrial and public attitudes to archaeology, and thanks to the growing heritage management industry in the country, today’s Australian archaeology graduates find it much easier to get their first job in the field of archaeology. My PhD thesis was a response to such a social and political climate surrounding contemporary archaeology, where archaeology is slowly changing itself to serve the public for the sake of its popularity, resulting in a change of the meaning of ‘archaeology’. I have thus in my thesis provided philosophical (mainly ontological and ethical) accounts of the discipline and its practice, to re-define the discipline of archaeology.

David C Thomas

Minaret of Jam Archaeological Project (MJAP)
http://www.arch.cam.ac.uk/~alg1000/mjap/
MJAP is the first major archaeological project to conduct research at the World Heritage Site of Jam in central Afghanistan, since the initial work at the site by French scholars from 1957-60. The project started in 2003 as an archaeological impact assessment, undertaken by Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente (IsIAO) and the National Afghan Institute of Archaeology (NAIA), on behalf of UNESCO. We returned to Jam in 2005, as an independently funded, multi-disciplinary project.

Archaeological Sites of Afghanistan in Google Earth (ASAGE)
Our thwarted attempts to return to Jam since 2005 have highlighted the fact that archaeologists need to find alternative sources of data in regions of the world where fieldwork is periodically impossible. Archaeologists have made extensive use of aerial photographs and satellite images in the past, to explore archaeological sites and landscapes. These images, however, are often prohibitively expensive; the launch of the ‘virtual globe’ Google Earth in 2005 has made ‘remote archaeology’ more practical.
The ASAGE project is using high resolution Google Earth satellite images:

• To complement data on known, documented sites, many of which have been inaccessible for decades
• To generate data and plans for known, poorly documented sites
• To locate and record previously unknown archaeological sites

The ASAGE project is funded by a generous grant from the Cary Robertson Fund, Trinity College Cambridge (to Dr Gascoigne).  Other team members include Dr Fiona Kidd (University of Sydney), Suzanna Nikolovski (La Trobe University) and Claudia Zipfel (La Trobe University). A poster about our research into the Ghaznavid winter capital of Bust was presented at the Sixth World Archaeological Congress in Dublin in June 2008:
http://www.wac6.org/livesite/posters/poster_files/WAC_065_Thomas_Zipfel.pdf

Jacqui Tumney

Landscape Archaeology in the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area
The Willandra Lakes, in south-western New South Wales, contain abundant traces of human activity – stone artefacts, hearths and ovens, faunal remains, and human burials, dating back to 40,000 years ago, making them among the oldest human traces on the continent. The lakes dried up around 15,000 years ago, leaving a system of dry lake basins, dunes and shoreline deposits. The dunes are now subject to significant erosion, exposing their internal structure and revealing archaeological material. In some locations, many metres of sediment, representing possibly tens of thousands of years, have been washed and blown away, leaving a pavement or ‘lag’ of loose artefacts on the resulting surface. These artefacts could potentially have come from any, or more likely many, of the layers that are now gone, making interpretation notoriously difficult. This project aims to test one potential method for obtaining useful information from these surface artefact scatters. Using electronic recording equipment and Geographical Information System (GIS) computer software I will study the spatial distribution of the artefacts to see how this distribution relates to the current landforms and landform processes, and whether there is any evidence for the location and distribution of artefacts on the ancient landscape.

Lita Tzortzopoulou-Gregory

Commemoration and neglect in Modern Greek consciousness: The search for identity in the mortuary landscape of rural Greece. An archaeological study of cemeteries in the eastern Korinthia and northern Kythera.
The purpose of this research is to examine issues of commemoration and identity in Modern Greek society through the study of cemetery data. It is also an attempt to understand the development of the mortuary landscape in Greece over the past two centuries and its relationship to settlement and community, as well as to highlight the significance of cemetery studies as a valuable historical and archaeological resource. It includes an archaeological study of cemeteries in two distinct regions of Greece: the eastern Korinthia and northern Kythera. Although restricted to these two regions, the study is able to make some general observations on how Greeks of the 19th and 20th centuries commemorate each other, the role of individuals and the societal expectations in their performance of commemoration practices (based on social status, age, and gender), and the length of time their commemoration obligations last.

Maya first started to research archaeological footwear in her Honours thesis which examined footwear from an early 20th century site in Lysterfield, Victoria. As footwear has remained a neglected area of archaeological research, Maya has continued in this field with her PhD which focuses on footwear from the Australian colonial period. The thesis incorporates the analysis of four different collections. The first was recovered from the wreck of the Sydney Cove and dates to 1796; the second was excavated from a well from the Rocks area in Sydney and dates to the early-mid 19th century; the third collection was excavated from Paddy’s Market in Sydney and dates to the late 19th century and the fourth collection was excavated from Casselden Place in Melbourne and also dates to the late 19th century. This research project looks at creating a way of cataloguing and analysing archaeological footwear so that historical information may be gained from the collections which can then be used in conjunction with historical data to interpret socioeconomic information regarding the people who used the footwear.

Sylvia Whitmore

Divination in Mesoamerica
Divination is a means of investigating the unknown in order to predict the future or understand occurrences that are beyond the reach of ordinary human comprehension (Tedlock 2001: 189). This enigmatic practice represented a powerful force in the cultures of the ancient Maya and Aztecs.  These civilisations had complex calendar systems that were used in the divination process. The respective calendar systems included a 365 day ‘annual’ calendar and a 260 ritual calendar.  Although the Maya and Aztec calendars did contain some differences, they shared common structures (Broda de Casas 1969:61). However, it was the 260 day ritual calendar that was fundamental to the divination process. The Maya and the Aztecs believed that the days in their respective ritual calendars were ruled over by particular gods who influenced every aspect of their daily lives. Numbers also were deemed to have mystical properties and were associated with specific gods. Hence, the combination of particular days and certain numbers in the ritual calendars were believed to affect whether days were favourable, unfavourable or indifferent, and represented a significant factor in the determining of prognostications (Boone 2007:14-18, 30-32; Broda de Casas: 1969: 13-15; Thompson 1971: 65-69; Tedlock 1992: 98-100). This study will involve the investigation and analysis of the almanacs in the Maya and Aztec codices and also the dates on the appropriate Maya and Aztec monuments and Maya stelae. The impact of Spanish re-interpretation in relation to the quality of the days in the Maya and Aztec calendars will also be considered.