Zooarchaeology recognises that animal remains can register social relationships, ritual, identity, memory, and place, yet in Australia zooarchaeological interpretations have historically tended to emphasise diet and subsistence, at times narrowly framed through notions of economic optimisation or maximisation under the guise of 'adaptation'. In this paper, we present a framework of relatedness for faunal interpretations in GunaiKurnai Country (Gippsland region, southeast Australia) by detailing nineteenth century ethnographic records read alongside contemporary GunaiKurnai knowledge. Across these sources, animals emerge as socially active participants: Ancestral Beings, kin, environmental interpreters, and sentient anchors of Country. The framework proffered here treats archaeological faunal remains as the outcomes of socially governed pathways informed by local Indigenous philosophies and world views rather than automatic signifiers of subsistence and economic rationalism. It shifts interpretation from asking only about what was eaten, to asking what kinds of place-based and kin-centric connections, duties and activities shaped how animal bodies and substances were handled, restricted, shared, and deposited. Applied to Gippsland archaeology, this approach strengthens inference by enquiring into local existential-cosmological, production, consumption and depositional pathways to better position zooarchaeological remains (including subsistence practices) as social and cultural domains, and by reading faunal patterning through local, culturally grounded understandings of animal sociality at nested spatial scales.
Archaeology has a long relationship with ethnographic objects housed in museums. These institutional collections are often obtained from private collectors through donation or sale. As with museum collections, ethnographic objects in private collections have complex acquisition histories and entangled biographies. Rare is it for a large private collection to be from a single cultural group and well documented. Rarer is for such collections to be made available for repatriation back to source communities. One such private collection is the extraordinary Hampton Archive of around 900 objects from the Hubula (Dani) peoples of the Grand Valley of the Baliem River in the central highlands of western New Guinea. The archive was donated to the Tracing Patterns Foundation for documentation and conservation, including consulting Hubula community members, in preparation for repatriation. The process of preparation, along with a detailed description and aesthetic appreciation of representative objects and photographs of Hubula using objects, especially of stone, is detailed in Christopher Buckley's 2025 lavishly illustrated book Stone and Fibre: Daily Life in the Baliem Valley, Papua. The first half of this review paper sets the scene for a critical assessment of the book with an overview of the ethical responsibilities of private collectors of ethnographic objects (and the associated 'tribal art' world), focusing on the vexed issues of object authenticity, aesthetics, adequate documentation (including provenance and publication), museum donations, and repatriation. In this sense, the Hampton Archive is exemplary and for the most part described and contextualised well in Stone and Fibre. The book includes a geographical analysis of ethnographically known hafted stone axe-adze types across New Guinea and 'convergent evolution' with European Neolithic hafted ground stone tools that will be of interest to archaeologists.
The deliberate burial of dingoes by Aboriginal people is a widespread and significant Late Holocene practice in Australia, yet the details of this practice remain poorly understood, in part due to the scarcity of well-documented archaeological excavations. Here, we report on the excavation of a dingo burial in Kinchega National Park on Barkindji Country, in the Menindee Lakes region of western New South Wales. First identified by Barkindji Elders in the eroding face of a road cut, the skeletal remains were excavated and examined at the request of the Menindee Aboriginal Elders Council. The Garli (Barkindji for dingo) represents the first published dingo burial from the Baaka (Darling River) region. Buried nearly 1,000 years ago, the Garli was interred within a riverside midden that continued to be added to by Barkindji Ancestors for approximately 500 years thereafter. This finding extends the known northern and western limits of pre-colonial dingo burial practices in the Murray-Darling Basin. Analysis of the dentition and postcranial skeleton suggests the dingo was tamed: it was male, of advanced age for a dingo (4-7 years), consumed a diet with relatively high abrasive content, and had healed traumatic injuries to the ribs and lower leg. Lesion-like features at several limb joints, along with other superficial modifications, suggest a complex taphonomic history following burial. This excavation provides new insights into dingo burial practices in Australia and attests to the close relationship between Aboriginal ancestors and their dingoes.
Snake Rock is a major Wiradjuri place in central New South Wales, Australia-a region for which very few rock art sites have been published. Local Wiradjuri tradition describes this well-decorated rock art site as a highly important congregation place for regional meetings, ceremonies, and trade. Detailed recording of rock art at Snake Rock in 2024 documented 96 images in a repertoire of paintings, hand prints, and drawings, including an imposing composition, 3.7 m long, of two large intertwined 'snake-like' images. Analysis of the superpositioning sequence in the art identified three distinct periods from which a periodic art history of the site was developed.
Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) derived from LiDAR surveys have become essential tools in predictive archaeological analysis. The increasing affordability and accessibility of high-resolution, large-coverage datasets have opened new avenues for archaeologists to detect a diverse array of sites. These datasets facilitate the examination of broad spatial distributions, functional relationships, and patterns of landscape use by past populations over time. Notably, high-resolution LiDAR data enable the identification of sites that have previously eluded detection due to their small size or state of deterioration. In this context, we review current practices and methodological advancements in terrain analysis, focusing on a range of numerous small sites distributed across the extensive UNESCO World Heritage-listed Budj Bim Cultural Landscape in Victoria, Australia. We focus on advanced DEM analysis and visualisation, and outline the potential of machine learning, particularly when successively ground truthed by Gunditjmara Traditional Owners and staff of Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation (GMTOAC).
Archaeologists have a longstanding interest in cross-cultural engagements between Indigenous people and Others, especially in settler colonial nations. In Australia, much archaeological attention has been directed to how such engagements are reflected in rock art, particularly in respect of colonial period seafaring activities and non-Indigenous watercraft technologies. Scholars have written extensively about depictions of foreign watercraft in Arnhem Land (Northern Territory, NT), and to a lesser extent Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria (NT), and the Kimberley and Pilbara regions of Western Australia, but have largely overlooked this topic in the northeast of the continent. Here we describe non-Indigenous watercraft motifs from mainland southeast Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. The majority of the motifs identifiable to a specific type represent coastal vessels dating to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This was the period when b & ecirc;che-de-mer, pearl shell and trochus boats were locally commonplace and largely operated by Indigenous crew, who we argue were probably the creators of the rock art. Given the likely time period and subject matter, we suggest that artists in this region incorporated non-Indigenous watercraft into their artistic traditions once these items had become core elements of their Indigenous worlds. Rather than conveying a sense of strangeness associated with outsiders, the images convey core ideas of the self, as well as encoding new experiences.
This paper explores the viability of 3D imaging in cultural heritage management as a cultural learning resource for Australian Indigenous communities, explored through a case study from the Wiradjuri Nation in the Murrumbidgee Region of New South Wales. A methodology incorporating 3D imaging, yarning, and thematic analysis has provided a proof of concept for a culturally sensitive approach when assessing cultural values and has identified the educational potential of 3D objects. Our results demonstrate that the 3D modelling of Australian Indigenous cultural heritage has perceived benefits to cultural learning in ways that conserve the spiritual well-being of First Nations participants and therefore should be more widely adopted as a recommendation strategy in Australian commercial archaeology.
Boomerangs are part of a suite of Australian throwing sticks, which are specialised wooden implements of purposeful design and aerodynamic properties that are used as projectiles. While throwing sticks are known to occur throughout Australia, they are less commonly found in buried contexts. In this paper, we report on a single, non-returning wooden wangim (boomerang) recovered from a reported burial mound at Yarra Junction, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country, Victoria. Analysis of morphometrics (shape, size), wear traces and residues, combined with traditional cultural knowledge, indicates that the wangim was made and maintained primarily using a variety of metal tools from the nineteenth century. The presence of impact traces, right-handed grip marks, blood, and charcoal indicates that the wangim had many purposes. The steps required to craft (and maintain) this wangim, along with evidence for its continuous use for multiple activities (throwing, hunting, fire management) and its association with a reported burial, indicate that it probably held some form of prestige to its owner(s), who formed a strong personal attachment. The shape, symmetry and cross-section of the wangim appear to be distinct from other Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung wangim housed at Museums Victoria and elsewhere. This study sheds light on boomerangs in southeastern Australia, and is the first of its kind to combine traditional cultural knowledge and functional analysis of a boomerang.
Recent archaeological investigations in the Blue Mountains have established sustained high-altitude occupation (above the periglacial zone) stretching as far back as the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Providing evidence for both long distance north-south transport of material into the mountains and east-west movements across them during the Pleistocene, these findings have reshaped our understanding of human movement and lithic procurement in the wider region during the LGM. To extend our understanding of intra-regional procurement differences in the mountains and how human movement may have changed through time from first occupation to the recent Holocene, this paper compares the provenance of lithic material from two sites in the Blue Mountains: Kings Table shelter and Dargan shelter, using portable X-Ray fluorescence (pXRF) geochemical analysis. These assemblages were selected as they come from the oldest securely dated sites in the region, are situated in different sections of the mountains, and are associated with separate east-west mountain routes. Our results demonstrate that movement in the mountains was dynamic, with evidence for inter-site variation and changes in mobility patterns through time.
To date only a handful of Australian archaeological sites with plant-based objects from the Mid-to-Late Holocene are known. This paper substantially increases this dataset by describing an assemblage of more than 500 fibre fragments from the site of Windmill Way in southeast Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. These objects predominantly represent the end stages of fibre processing, primarily comprising string and netted and looped fabric, with an age range spanning from 1,700-1,589 cal BP to 252-75 cal BP. While the highly fragmented nature of the Windmill Way assemblage makes definitive identification of individual objects difficult, double looping, rather than knotting, was the preferred means of construction, with many pieces clearly deriving from dillybags. Rarer pieces may be fragments of pubic tassel belts or mourning strings. The string, knots, mesh, gauge and loops were all relatively uniform through time, demonstrating intergenerational knowledge of a refined and stable practice. The presence of only two post-contact items (a hooked piece of wire and a strip of red cloth), combined with the radiocarbon sequence, suggests that the site was abandoned around the time Europeans invaded the region in 1874, when wide-scale frontier conflict commenced. Detailed microscopic analysis of the fibres to identify plant species, as well as analyses of the macrobotanics, resins and other organic material culture items recovered from the site are ongoing.
