Claire Smith

Flinders University · Department of Archaeology

rock art of Doria Gudaluk (Beswick Creek Cave) in the Northern Territory of Australia has previously provided a valuable lesson in the difficulties of definitive interpretation without local knowledge. Now, newly recorded motifs at the site - some only visible with digital enhancement - highlight the dangers of relating stylistic changes to the rep...

The complete manual to archaeological field work in Australia, fully revised to incorporate digital techniques and new methods. With step-by-step guidelines, it is an essential companion for consultants, amateur heritage researchers and students. In one volume here is everything you need to conduct fieldwork in archaeology. The Archaeologist's Fie...

This paper presents an analysis of the longest-running archaeological field school in Australia, the Barunga Community Archaeology Field School, which has been operating annually for over 20 years, since 1998. The overarching aim of this field school is for students to learn about Aboriginal culture from Aboriginal people and to experience the cult...

A dramatic increase in the involvement of Indigenous Australians in archaeology has led to a crossroad for the discipline in Australia. This Indigenisation of Australian archaeology is prompting new conceptual approaches and archaeological projects more clearly aimed at addressing the needs of Indigenous communities. Three projects that are the foc...

Online chapters are being published regularly. See website for information: https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/44003

This paper analyses conceptual frameworks that have been suggested in the literature for understanding women’s radicalization, including the emergent phenomenon of family bombings, focusing on Indonesia and Malaysia. We argue that understanding these trends requires grappling with socio-culturally specific gender-related concepts and that the liber...

This paper identifies the emergence of the pursuit of social justice as a core focus of collaborative archaeologies in Aboriginal Australia. A wide range of case studies are examined, especially in relation to efforts to redress a ‘deep colonisation’ that silences Indigenous histories and fails to engage with Indigenous voices or experiences. This...

This paper examines the role of material culture in replicating everyday racism in Katherine, Northern Territory, Australia. We argue that inclusivity is determined by inclusive design supported by inclusive behaviours and that archaeologists can inform the creation of a more equitable world by identifying how material culture acts to exclude certa...

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11759-021-09429-8

This paper presents the results of archaeological fieldwork conducted at the request of elders from Barunga, a remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory, Australia. The aim of the project was to use archaeological methods to help people from the community relocate and identify each person buried in the Barunga Graveyard and to develop a...

Global archaeology is the archaeology of globalization, documenting and unearthing the material markers of its origins, trajectories, manifestations, and repercussions. In the 1980s, when globalization first developed as a major force, there was a sense of excitement, along with some foreboding. Closely connected to ideals of democracy, individuali...

This paper was written in response to a request by the editors of the AP: Online Journal of Public Archaeology, Jaime Almansa Sánchez and Elena Papagiannopoulou, for Claire Smith to write on the future of public archaeology in Australia. In Australia, public archaeology focusses on high profile colonial sites such as The Rocks in Sydney (Karskens 1...

Using an ethnographic approach, this research assesses common assumptions in rock art research in terms of their validity for Aboriginal rock art sites in the Barunga region of the Northern Territory, Australia. In particular, we assess the potential and limits of the commonly held assumption that open or restricted access to sites and/or the meani...

Christoph Antons & William Logan (ed.). 2018. Intellectual property, cultural property and intangible cultural heritage. Abingdon: Routledge; 978-1-138-7961-3 £31.99. - Volume 93 Issue 372 - Claire Smith, Suramya Bansal

This paper identifies the emergence of the pursuit of social justice as a core focus of collaborative archaeologies in Aboriginal Australia. A wide range of case studies are examined, especially in relation to efforts to redress a ‘deep colonisation’ that silences Indigenous histories and fails to engage with Indigenous voices or experiences. This...

The destruction of Notre Dame cathedral is lamentable. A wonderful icon has been largely destroyed by fire. However, we should not despair. Part of the reason this loss is so upsetting is because we are immersed in a Western way of thinking that equates authenticity with preserving the original materials used to create an object or building. But no...

ETNOARQUEOLOGÍA Y ARTE RUPESTRE EN EL SIGLO XXI: DE LA ANALOGÍA DIRECTA A LA REDEFINICIÓN DEL MÉTODO ARQUEOLÓGICO Ethnoarchaeology and rock art in the 21st century: from direct analogy to the redefinition of the archaeological method. RESUMEN: El recurso a la información etnográfica en los estudios de arte rupestre no es una novedad. Las primeras r...

Claire Smith's 2018 review of 'Community Archaeology and Heritage in Africa: Decolonizing Practice edited by Peter R. Schmidt and Innocent Pikirayi'. Book published by Routledge.

In this paper we investigate the pedagogy of archaeological field schools. Specifically, we explore the combination of tertiary level field schools and Indigenous community (or community-based) archaeology. Using a detailed case study of a rock art field school in Arnhem Land, Australia, we explore the processes and outcomes of combining archaeolog...

This paper presents an analysis of how the Islamic State/Da'esh and Hizb ut-Tahrir Indonesia manipulate conflicting social, cultural and religious values as part of their socially mediated terrorism. It focusses on three case studies: (1) the attacks in Paris, France on 13 November 2015; (2) the destruction of cultural heritage sites in Iraq and Sy...

This paper presents a new conceptual framework for the ownership of cultural and intellectual property that is developed by researchers and Indigenous peoples. We argue that ethnographic research produces a new form of knowledge, the creation of an ‘intellectual soup’ that arises from a reformulation of two intellectual traditions and bodies of kno...

Este artículo reflexiona de manera crítica sobre el potencial de la investigación etnoarqueológica para contribuir a la comprensión de los procesos de creación y el uso del arte rupestre. A diferencia de la mayor parte de los estudios arqueológicos, centrados en el estudio de materiales y objetos separados de sus autores desde hace mucho tiempo, la...

The world became a lesser place with the passing of Professor Joan Gero on 14 July 2016. Joan Gero was born on 26 May 1944. She was an eminent scholar in the socio-politics of archaeology, the archaeology of gender, archaeological ethics, and South American archaeol- ogy. With Margaret Conkey, she co-edited the seminal volume Engendering Archaeolog...

Aboriginal people have camped in the long grass since the first European colonisation. Their use of this public space is a continuum of cultural practice. This article interprets their material lives from the perspective of a continuation of culture contact.

Modern material culture in Japan is designed to further a polite society.

This chapter discusses the contribution of ethnography to the study of Australian rock art. With more than 100 years of ethnographic enquiry into rock art from across the country, valuable insights into the meaning, motives, function, and symbolism of images have been identified. However, with this information comes challenges with its use (and abu...

Review essay of Ian Hodder's book, Entangled, especially in terms of Indigenous agency.

In many past and present preliterate societies rock art has been used as a means of communications to convey ideas, believes, ancestral knowledge, traditions, identities, rules, stories, social behaviour or laws. Through an ethno-archaeological perspective based on Arnhem Land rock art, we explore the different functions of the art, how cultural in...

Using the Islamic State/Da’esh as a case study, we identify the genesis of a new form of terrorism arising from the convergence of networked social media and changes in the forms of conflict. Socially mediated terrorism is defined as ‘the use of social and networked media to increase the impact of violent acts undertaken to further a social, politi...

Draft of commentary for forthcoming Current Anthropology article by Liam M. Brady, John J. Bradley and Amanda J. Kearney on 'Negotiating Yanyuwa rock art: relational and affectual experiences in the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria, northern Australia'. Complements the analyses presented by Brady et al. with Smith and Jackson's own understandings of a...

John Kay Clegg Antiquity online, http://antiquity.ac.uk/tributes/clegg.html Obituary for eminent rock art researcher John Kay Clegg, formerly of the University of Sydney. Clegg was the first academic to teach rock art at an Australian university. He was part of an enthusiastic first wave of English archaeologists who arrived in Australia during th...

This article offers career advice for students and early career practitioners in archaeology. It presents new data from a global survey on success strategies for careers in archaeology. The topics covered include fieldwork and laboratory experience, volunteering, publication, peer reviews, referees, conferences, international exposure, and grant wr...

The major challenge of our generation is breaking down global divides, especially as these relate to inequities of wealth, power, and access to knowledge. Related to this is the impact of globalization on cultural diversity. Using the example of the World Archaeological Congress as a case study, this paper explores how scholarly organizations can i...

ENGAGED ARCHAEOLOGY: THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX Claire Smith Flinders University Banquet presentation on 9th November, 2014, at the 47th annual Chacmool conference, Breaking Barriers, Calgary, Canada and for publication in conference proceedings. This paper discusses the emergence of, and trends in, engaged archaeology. It presents a definition of...

This paper explores whether Aboriginal people have used graffiti to display resistance to the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act 2007. One of the first studies of graffiti in a remote Aboriginal community, this research was undertaken on Jawoyn lands in the Northern Territory, Australia. It encompasses the Aboriginal communities of...

This is the Table of Contents by topic for the 1st edition of the Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. The second edition is currently underway, seeking to fill gaps in the first edition and to extend the work. This compendium is both a print reference and an online reference work. The 11-volume first edition provides a comprehensive and systematic...

The Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology has two outstanding innovations. The first is that scholars were able to submit entries in their own language. Over 300,000 words have been translated from French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Japanese, Turkish and Russian. Many of these entries are by scholars who are publishing in English for the fi...

Obituary for Professor Michael (Mike) John Morwood died on 23 July 2013 in Darwin, Australia. While he will be remembered primarily for his high-profile discovery of a new species, Homo floresiensis in the cave of Liang Bua, on the island of Flores, Indonesia, he also made world-class contributions to rock art research and to regional studies in no...

http://antiquity.ac.uk/tributes/morwood.html Professor Michael (Mike) John Morwood died on 23 July 2013 in Darwin, Australia, surrounded by his family. Though he had been ill for some time, his death was unexpected. Mike Morwood was one of the leading archaeologists of his time. While he will be remembered primarily for his high-profile discovery o...

Discussion of a collaborative partnership over two decades with the Barunga, Wugularr, Manyallaluk and Werenbun communities in the Northern Territory, Australia, structured the paper around points of change.

Critical archaeology is vital to the healthy development of archaeology as a discipline. The stand-out benefits of a critical archaeology lie with the development of archaeological theory and understanding the social, ethical and political ramifications of the work we do. However, we need to be conscious of the risks that are posed by a critical ar...

This paper is a personal response by the President of the World Archaeological Congress (WAC) to critiques of WAC by Nick Shepherd and Alejandro Haber in their article 'What's up with WAC? Archaeology and "Engagement" in a Globalized World', published in Public Archaeology in May 2011. This paper rectifies factual errors in Shepherd and Haber's pap...

As a discipline, anthropology has increased its public visibility in recent years with its growing focus on engagement. Although the call for engagement has elicited responses in all subfields and around the world, this special issue focuses on engaged anthropology and the dilemmas it raises in U.S. cultural and practicing anthropology. Within this...

This chapter looks into how culture/nature divide became the filter for many aspects of ethnological, anthropological, and archaeological enquiry throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In relatively raw settler societies, in particular, this dichotomy had important ramifications, first for the conservation movement, and second for the s...

Discusses the history of how the colonial division between culture and nature has informed Australian heritage management.

Obituary for Andree Jeanne Rosenfeld, rock art researcher with the Australian National University. Andrée initiated a number of projects that were critical to the development of archaeology in Australia. She undertook ground-breaking excavations at the Early Man site in Cape York Peninsula that related rock art to changes in excavated evidence and...

Andree Rosenfeld obituary - from her youth in Belgium under Nazi occupation to her employment at the Australian National University in Canberra and retirement in Rathdowney, Queensland, Australia. Starts: Andrée was born in Belgium in 1934, five years before the start of World War II. She had a younger brother, Jean, who became a research scientis...

The Archaeologist's Field Handbook: North American Edition is a hands-on manual that provides step-by-step guidance for archaeological field work. Specially designed for students (both undergraduate and graduate) and avocational archaeologists, this informative guide combines clear and accessible information on doing fieldwork with practical advice...

This edited book focuses on Kennewick Man, known as the Ancient One to Native Americans, has been the lightning rod for conflict between archaeologists and indigenous peoples in the United States. A decade-long legal case pitted scientists against Native American communities and highlighted the shortcomings of the Native American Graves and Repatri...

Discusses panache and protocol in terms of the relationships between style and social strategy in an Aboriginal community in the Barunga region of the Northern Territory, Australia. Concludes that different information is being communicated through style in different contexts.

Background to the debate over the "Kennewick Man", also known as "The Ancient One", and an introduction to the book "Kennewick: Perspectives on the Ancient One".

This paper focuses on some of the ways in which anthropological and archaeological research can be used to assist the survival of Indigenous cultures. It considers how research can be conducted so that it supports the transmission of cultural knowledge, and considers the impact of globalisation on Indigenous cultural survival. My argument is based...

This essay frames a number of individual contributions on the subject of visa stories. The author considers the issues raised by these contributors in terms of human rights, structural violence and ethical globalisation. The contributions to this Forum sharply delineate the contrasting capacity of archaeologists from different countries to particip...

What are the secrets to successful archaeology in Australia? What traps are there for the novice archaeologist? How can a hill be a sacred site? Who holds the best repositories of historical documents? What skills and qualities do archaeological consultancy firms look for?

This book presents novel and interesting ways of teaching archaeological concepts and processes to college and university students. Seeking alternatives to the formal lecture format, the various icontributions seek better ways of communicating the complexities of human behavior and of engaging students in active learning about the past. This collec...

Fecha de exportación: el 31 de agosto de 2011 , Origen: DIALNET

Australia is a continent, an island and a country. Often referred to as “the big country”, it is the sixth largest country in the world. It is 50% larger than Europe and about the same size as the 48 mainland states of the USA, but has a population density of only two people per square kilometer—the lowest in the world. The Australian landmass sepa...

All archaeology in Australia is governed by some form of cultural heritage regulation within three concentric regulatory frameworks: federal; state; and local government. Both federal and state levels involve various pieces of legislation that mandate how heritage sites and resources are to be protected under law. Local regulation typically takes t...

Historical archaeology studies the colonial past of Australia—the places and artifacts that have been left behind by over two hundred years of non-Indigenous activity. Britain officially colonized Australia in 1788, when the First Fleet landed in Sydney Cove carrying 717 convicts, 191 marines and 19 officers. There had been contact between Indigeno...

Much archaeological fieldwork in Australia is carried out within the confines of cultural heritage management projects—the “business” of archaeological consultancy. Cultural heritage management (sometimes referred to as cultural resource management) is the branch of archaeology that deals with assessing the effects of development or other potential...

The professional practice of archaeology in Australia is a relatively recent endeavor, only crystallising into a distinct discipline in the 1960s and 1970s. It was during this period that Australian archaeology was first taught at Australian universities, that professional organizations dedicated to Australian archaeology were formed, that Federal...

Maritime archaeology encompasses more than just shipwrecks; it also includes the many land-based activities associated with maritime industry and trade, such as whaling stations, docks, jetties and shipyards, the intangible record (for instance oral histories), as well as the material vestiges of maritime lifestyles. It can incorporate ports and th...