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An A r t e f a c t o f Na t i on
Historical Archaeology, Heritage and Nationalism in Australia
Tracy Ireland
Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Sydney
2001
Synopsis
This thesis argues that heritage and historical archaeology in Australia should be
understood as practices and discourses profoundly intertwined with nationalism.
Nationalism is often defined as a political doctrine or ideology, but here a broader
approach is advocated to enable a better understanding of the role of nation-centred
thought and practice in the Australian cultural context. Nationalism is an identity
project – one which is given great power and significance through its alignment
with the nation state and its economies, social structures and institutions.
Nationalism is also a discursive formation which is mutually constituted through
other modernist forms of specialist knowledge such as history and archaeology.
Nationalism in Australia is complex and fragmented, constituted simultaneously
through colonial and anti-imperial, radical and conservative, local and global
discourses. However, like most nationalisms around the world, it depends heavily
upon shared understandings of the nation’s past, which not only explain the basis
for national identity but also, significantly, provides benchmarks for the nation’s
future. Contests over the nature and moral implications of the past have been a
feature of much political and scholarly discourse in Australia over the last decade.
Looking at historical archaeology’s entanglement with nationalism in Australia
provides a window of understanding into some of the ways the category of the
national is negotiated, contested, reproduced and imagined anew.
It is generally accepted that all forms of knowledge are constituted through the
environment and cultural preconceptions within which they are formulated.
Archaeologists have tended to understand this situation through the identification
of political influences upon their research, rather than as a more complex
involvement of archaeological discourse and practice within in a web of broader
cultural discourses, practices, social structures and institutions. Conceptualising
archaeology as an “evolving”, independent “discipline” serves to further mask its
nature as a culturally embedded practice.
i
Synopsis
ii
This thesis provides a detailed reading of Australian historical archaeology in its
cultural context, exploring histories of practice, genealogies of theory,
interpretations and foundational concepts. I argue that nationalism provided a
crucial framework for the ascription of value to the material relics of settler
history, a value which has been primarily expressed through the discourse of
heritage since the 1960s. Discourses articulating a relationship between identity
and landscape have been particularly distinctive in the Australian context. Heritage
and historical archaeological research have been constituted through these
landscape and identity discourses, seeking to explain them and in some ways
therefore giving a reality to these historical mythologies.
Through case studies of historical archaeology’s involvement in some of
Australia’s key heritage initiatives, such as the conservation of Port Arthur in
Tasmania, the National Estate Grants Program, the conservation of the site of first
Government House in Sydney and the Australian National Maritime Museum's
search for Cook's ship Endeavour, I explore the way historical archaeologists have
participated in issues of national identity, history and heritage. These studies reveal
a history of idealistic practitioners who believed historical archaeology could
contribute valuable perspectives on Australian history and identity through their
stewardship of the nation’s material relics. Stewardship of fabric and relics
however, has tended to confine historical archaeologists’ role in public discourses
about nation and identity to one of authentication, rather than interpretation.
Entrenched institutional procedures perpetuate this situation within the heritage
management framework. Understanding the culture of nationalism, and how
archaeology participates in it, is crucial as Australian communities debate the
nature of the past more intensely than ever before.
Preface
This thesis is primarily the product of library and archival research conducted by
the author. Extensive use of secondary sources was made in order to review and
critique relevant approaches in the fields of archaeology, heritage, cultural studies
and social theory. Original case studies and historical reviews are the product of
archival and library research, concerning government and non-government records,
newspaper and magazine articles, legislation and policy, as well as a broad range
of published and unpublished reports. Many historic sites and museum exhibitions
were visited, and informal interviews undertaken, in the course of this research as
the basis for discussion and critique salient to the case studies.
An original contribution of this thesis is the presentation of new research
undertaken for the case studies and used to support the investigation of the
relationship between archaeology, heritage and nationalism in Australia. An aim of
this thesis is also to develop an original approach to the social and cultural analysis
of Australian archaeology. Therefore it is submitted that the original contribution
of this thesis lies not only in the presentation of new research, but also in the
application of innovative approaches to the socio-cultural analysis of archaeology,
within a well-founded theoretical framework.
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Acknowledgements
It is my pleasure to acknowledge the contribution of the following people and
institutions to this thesis:
For supervision, my primary debt is to Sarah Colley who worked so hard to instill
rigour and structure into my work, and bring me back to earth when required. I
thank Sarah for her generosity and persistence. Roland Fletcher and Judy
Birmingham also took on supervisorial roles, Roland taking over after Judy’s
retirement. Thank you to Roland for his recent help and I acknowledge the support
of Judy Birmingham over a period of many years before this thesis.
For funding, I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Carlyle Greenwell
Bequest, which supported travel and research costs. A University of Sydney
Completion Scholarship supported the final 6 months of my candidature.
Many people working in, and associated with, the School of Archaeology at the
University of Sydney helped in many ways: Pim Allison took on the difficult
reading of an early draft, Aedeen Cremin, Peter White, Andrew Wilson, Jo
Thompson and Dan Potts all offered help in different ways.
For interviews, discussion and other generous assistance with research I thank
Mary Casey, Richard Morrison, Kate Holmes, Helen Temple, Judith Ion, Ian
Stephenson of the NSW National Trust, Peter Romey, Susan Hood and Greg
Jackman of the Port Arthur Historic Site, Leah McKenzie of Heritage Victoria,
Keiran Hosty of the Australian National Maritime Museum, Val Attenbrow and
Leanne Brass of the Australian Museum, Sydney and Chris Wells of Australian
Heritage Projects, Environment Australia, Canberra.
Thank you to the friends and colleagues who provided a mixture of professional
and social support: Wayne Johnson, Jane Lydon, Cath Snelgrove, Mary Casey,
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Acknowledgements
v
Matthew Kelly, Huw Barton, Matt Campbell, Iain Stuart, Robin Torrence and The
Sydney Reading Group.
Many individuals responded to requests for expert advice and discussed issues with
me, thank you to Bain Attwood, Richard White, Denis Byrne, Linda Young,
Eleanor Casella, Jane Lydon, Tim Murray, Grace Karskens, Mark Staniforth and
Susan Lawrence.
For his unreserved support and enthusiasm for my project, especially when mine
was flagging, I thank Nels Urwin. Connor and India Urwin deserve awards for
patience, while Neil and Janet Ireland have helped and encouraged me in endless
ways.
Table of Contents
Synopsis i
Preface iii
Acknowledgements iv
List of figures viii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 Nationalism and the Past 15
Modernity and Nationalism 16
Ethnicity and Nationalism 20
Postmodern and Postcolonial Interpretations 25
Globalisation 30
The Culture of Nationalism 33
Nationalism and National Identity in Australia 36
Conclusions: Nationalism and the Past 57
Chapter 2 Relationships within Culture: Archaeology, Nationalism and Identity
63
Archaeology and the State: British Archaeology after World War Two.
65
The Social Context of Archaeological Knowledge: The World Archaeological Congress
69
Trigger’s Alternative Archaeologies and the Issue of Disciplinarity
74
Political Consciousness in Historical Archaeology: Capitalism and Inclusiveness
81
Constructing the Past in the Present 87
Conclusions: Relationships within Culture 95
Chapter 3 Giving Value to the Australian Historic Past 98
Valuing Things 104
An Archaeology of Value 115
Conclusions: Structures of Value 122
vi
Table of Contents vii
Chapter 4 Practice makes Perfect? Doing Historical Archaeology in Australia.
128
Legislation, Policies and Procedures 131
The National Estate Grant Program 1973 - 1998 145
The Port Arthur Conservation Project 1979 –1986 162
Conclusions: Practising the Nation 172
Chapter 5 Intimate Histories and National Narratives. 190
A Genealogy of Historical Archaeological Thought in Australia
192
Interpretive Themes 212
Conclusions: A suitable past? 224
Chapter 6 Materiality and National Origin Myths. 231
Relics of Cook: the Quest for the Endeavour 242
First Government House Site and the Museum of Sydney
251
Remnants of the Macquaries: Even Drains will Do 257
Conclusions: Archaeology, Materiality, Mythology 265
Conclusions Archéologues sans Frontières: Thinking Outside the Nation.
273
Appendix 283
Bibliography 309
List of Figures
Chapter 1 Nationalism and the Past
Figure 1.1 “Identity Crisis” Source: Sydney Morning Herald, Good Weekend 25/3/1995
60
Figure 1.2 Statue of John McDowell Stuart, Department of Lands building, Sydney Source: The author.
61
Figure 1.3 “Down on his Luck”, Frederick McCubbin, 1899. Source: Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
62
Figure 1.4 “The Selector’s Hut: Whelan on the Log”, Arthur Streeton, 1890. Source: national Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
62
Chapter 3 Giving Value to the Australian Historic Past
Figure 3.1 The Industrial Archaeology Committee of the National Trust of Australia (NSW) Source: National Trust Bulletin, Newsletter of the National Trust of Australia (NSW) No. 70 December 1975, page 1.
127
Chapter 4 Practice makes Perfect? Doing Historical Archaeology in Australia.
Figure 4.1 Legislation Affecting Historical Archaeological Sites and Relics in Australia
177
Figure 4.2 Funding of Historical Archaeology in the NEGP 1974 – 1991
178
Figure 4.3 Proponents of Historical Archaeology Projects – NEGP 1974 – 1998
179
Figure 4.4 Types of Historical Archaeology Sites in NEGP Projects 1974 – 1998
180
Figure 4.5 Definitions of Site Type Terms In text
Figure 4.6 Trends in NEGP Funding for Selected Site Types 1974 – 1998
183
Figure 4.7 Types of Historical Archaeology Projects in NEGP 1974 – 1998
185
Figure 4.8 Definitions of the Project Type Terms In text
Figure 4.9 Port Arthur Historic Site, Tasmania. Source: The author.
188
Figure 4.10 Restored Cottage, Port Arthur Historic Site, Tasmania. Source: The author.
188
viii
List of Figures ix
Figure 4.11 Volunteers at Port Arthur in 1982. Source: Port Arthur Historic Site Archive No. 36 2(15).
189
Figure 4.12 Excavation at Port Arthur. Source: Port Arthur Historic Site Archive No. 69 5 (16).
189
Chapter 5 Intimate Histories and National Narratives.
Figure 5.1 Citations of Theory in AHA Articles 1983 - 1999 227
Figure 5.2 Citations of Case Studies in AHA Articles 1983 - 1999
227
Figure 5.3 Classification of Citations in All Articles in AHA 1983 - 1999
228
Figure 5.4 Citations in Articles on Industrial Themes in AHA 1983 - 1999
228
Figure 5.5 Citations in Articles on Urban and Ethnicity/Gender/Class in AHA 1983 – 1999.
229
Figure 5.6 Citations in Articles on Critique/History of Archaeology Themes in AHA 1983 – 1999.
229
Figure 5.7 Themes of Articles in AHA 1983 - 1999 230
Chapter 6 Materiality and National Origin Myths.
Figure 6.1 Endeavour Canon. Source: Australian National Maritime Museum.
268
Figure 6.2 Timber Samples from shipwreck in Newport, Rhode Island. Source: Australian National Maritime Museum.
268
Figure 6.3 Excavation at first Government House site. Source: Historic Houses Trust of NSW.
269
Figure 6.4 The Friends of First Government House Site Rally, 1983. Source: Historic Houses Trust of NSW.
269
Figure 6.5 Protestors in 1995. Source: The author. 270
Figure 6.6 MoS. Source: The author. 270
Figure 6.7 “The edge of the trees” Source: The author. 271
Figure 6.8 “Convict descendent and proud of it”. Source: The author.
271
Figure 6.9 The Conservatorium of Music, Sydney. Source: The author.
272
Figure 6.10 The “Macquarie” drain. Source: The author. 272
List of Figures x
Appendices A-1 Funding of Historical Archaeology (HA) Projects in the NEGP compared to the total NEGP Funds for each State, 1974-1991
284
A-2 Funding of Historical Archaeology Projects - NEGP 1974-1998
285
A-3 Analysis of Funding of Historical Archaeology Projects in the NEGP 1974-1998
286
A-4 Type of Site in Historical Archaeological Projects - NEGP 1974-1998
287
A-5 Trends in NEGP Funding for all site types, 1974-1998
288
A-6 Victoria: NEGP Projects in Historical Archaeology
292
A-7 Tasmania: NEGP Projects in Historical Archaeology
295
A-8 South Australia: NEGP Projects in Historical Archaeology
297
A-9 Queensland: NEGP Projects in Historical Archaeology
299
A-10 Northern Territory: NEGP Projects in Historical Archaeology
301
A-11 New South Wales: NEGP Projects in Historical Archaeology
303
A-12 Australian Capital Territory: NEGP Projects in Historical Archaeology
305
A-13 Western Australia: NEGP Projects in Historical Archaeology
306
Introduction
“While the historical legacies of colonialism and modernity remain palpable,
many of the dreams of colonialism and modernity lie in ruins… But ruins are
never simply gone or in the past; ruins are enduring traces; spaces of romantic
fancies and forgetfulness where social memories imagine the persistence of time
in the records of destruction”(Healy 1997: 1).
“Such abandoned sites are Australia’s romantic ruins, the equivalent of Britain’s
Tintern Abbey or Stonehenge. The presence of old sites has a powerful effect. It
legitimises a society’s occupation of the land and it gives it historical depth.
Surely a people must have a valid claim to ownership of a land punctuated with
sites marking their conquest?” (Bickford 1991b : 77).
How have the ruins of colonialism become the artefacts of nation in Australia?
What are the processes a nation has used to turn new territory, terra nullius, into a
landscape which chronicles the culture, the values and the history of a settler
community? Some time before its 70th birthday, the Australian nation became a
worthy subject for the archaeologist, a profession previously associated by most
Australians with the ancient cultures of Egypt, Greece and Rome, and perhaps also
with Aboriginal prehistory. The material remains of Australia’s colonial past, a
period of just over 200 years, were transformed from abandoned sites and buried
relics into “an archaeological record” in a process which began in the 1960s. Why
is it that this practice emerged at this time? Was it simply imported from Britain
and America, or did it emerge from local interests, and how has it been involved in
interpreting Australia’s colonial and national past?
Working in historical archaeology and heritage management in the late 1980s and
1990s led me to believe that, while innovative in some ways, these fields were
caught within a set of practices, institutions and philosophies that allowed little
room for reflexive readings of heritage, nation and culture. Entrenched practices
had led to a situation where heritage institutions not only represented Australia’s
colonial past, but also reproduced it, perpetuating the meaning and power of
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Introduction 2
colonialist myths in contemporary society. It seemed to me at that time that the
intellectual inheritance of colonialism should be as significant an issue for
historical archaeology and heritage management as it was already perceived to be
for prehistory in Australia. However in the context of settler heritage conservation,
colonial thought and structures were embedded within the institutions of the nation
and the discourse of Australian cultural nationalism, perhaps most obviously
within the colourful rhetoric of national identity.
I first investigated these ideas in 1995 in a paper entitled “Excavating National
Identity”, which I prepared for a seminar marking the opening of the Museum of
Sydney on the site of First Government House (Ireland 1996). This site had been
excavated by historical archaeologists in the 1980s and the battle to preserve the
archaeological remains in situ was the first case of public activism for the
conservation of an historical archaeological site in Australia (Temple 1988 and see
Chapter 6). Inspired by recent readings in postcolonial studies, the work of literary
critic Kay Schaffer (1988) and historian Bain Attwood’s (1992) use of Foucault to
deconstruct colonial knowledge, I concentrated on the representations of identity
that had been reproduced and reinforced through heritage management and
historical archaeological research since the 1960s.
The 1990s saw a great deal of critical attention paid to the role of colonialism in
shaping the archaeology of Aboriginal prehistory in Australia. In the context of
local Aboriginal rights movements and international scholarship on the control of
the past by dominant groups, archaeologists in Australia addressed the
contemporary cultural and political implications of their work. The history and
intellectual genealogies of many aspects of archaeological practice were subjected
to scrutiny – from the level of institutions and professionalisation, to questioning
disciplinary boundaries, and re-assessing epistemologies of objectivity (Byrne
1996; Colley and Bickford 1996, Murray 1992; 1993b; 1996d).
The 1990s was such a vibrant period in Australian cultural and historical studies
that it was impossible not to continue to build ideas concerning nationalism,
Introduction 3
cultural practice and the perplexing context of the settler nation. Cultural and
political debates about the past escalated during this period. This was the initiation
of hostilities in Australia’s, still continuing, “history wars”, with the “black
armbands” against the “white blindfolds” in the forum of national parliament
(Birch 1997; Curthoys 1999a). These are debates between historians, politicians
and other cultural commentators, about the events of Australia’s colonial history
and about the moral responsibility of the present generation for violence and
racism in the past. During these years all that was solid about the good nature of
the Australian nation was challenged and defended, abandoned and reaffirmed.
And yet the nation remained at the centre of debates about a postcolonial future,
the celebratory version of the national past may have been discredited, but a
postcolonial nation remained the object of desire.
An Outline of Aim and Approach
The aim of this thesis is therefore to understand what the relationship between
Australian historical archaeology, heritage and nationalism has been. How is such
a relationship constituted and how has it been played out? My approach to this
investigation is derived from a broad range of techniques, methods and
perspectives developed in cultural studies, history, anthropology and the social
sciences. Central to these is the work of Foucault, his approach to the critique of
the relationship between knowledge and power, his histories of knowledge, and in
particular his scepticism about concepts of progress (Foucault 1970; 1972; 1991
and also see Dean 1994; Kendall and Wickham 1999). Getting this analysis
underway soon made it apparent that the problem of the nation as telos in historical
and cultural analysis is paralleled by the problem of the discipline as telos in
histories of archaeology and critiques of its epistemologies. Foucault’s histories
suggest ways around this problem. They are “problematised” by the present and
aim to undermine “objective”, foundational knowledges. In doing so, they disrupt
notions of progress by showing that these histories are specific and contingent.
These concepts gave me the basis for an approach to the relationship between
historical archaeology and nationalism that avoids a teleological denouement; that
Introduction 4
is a conclusion that resolves how this relationship has occurred and sets out how it
may be avoided or managed in the future. The aim here is to reveal the histories of
knowledge production and of practice, to use these histories to understand how
knowledge is produced and authorised in the present, and to assume that the
present is, and the future will be, an ongoing negotiation of contingent
circumstances, not an unfolding growth of knowledge - not a development in an
evolutionary sense, nor a resolution.
Combined with these Foucaultian perspectives I have followed other analysts of
archaeology, nationalism and colonialism in adopting various concepts from
Bourdieu’s influential sociology of culture (Bourdieu 1977; 1984; 1990 and see
Byrne 1993; 1996; Hamilakis and Yalouri 1996; Hamilakis 1999a). In particular,
Nicholas Thomas’ approach to colonialism, drawing on both Foucault and
Bourdieu, inspired my approach to nationalism as a project which is practised in
social and cultural contexts (Thomas 1994). It was with Thomas’ “ethnographic”
approach in mind, that I assembled detailed local case histories to explore issues of
meanings and values, practices and interpretations, and the negotiation and
deployment of these concepts in specific historical situations. My approach
therefore is centrally historical, but a history in the service of various tasks of
cultural and sociological analyses. It is also qualitative and although I introduce
various forms of empirical data, the aim is not to prove arguments on the basis of
numbers, but to employ this empirical information in broader discussions of
practice, discourse and institutional effects.
The deconstruction of foundational knowledge is primarily seen as a meaningful
political gesture which should be an end in itself, and antithetical to the creation of
alternative master narratives. Too often however, deconstruction leads to a
simplistic rejection of traditional subjects of study in preference for areas perceived
as neglected. It is my aim that this analysis supports an imaginative process that
goes beyond deconstruction: to assist archaeologists in thinking outside the
intellectual and geographical boundaries of the nation; and to assist in constructive
Introduction 5
new readings of existing research, within an enhanced understanding of their
cultural context.
The Contexts for Research
This study is situated within a number of broader debates about the social and
cultural context of archaeological knowledge production and also about
nationalism, identity, history and literature. In Chapters 1 and 2, I explore aspects
of these debates in detail and situate my approach. Many recent critiques of
identity discourse and archaeology treat nationalism as a political ideology and as
embodied primarily in the structures of the state (Kohl and Fawcett 1995; Kohl
1998; Atkinson et al. 1996; Diaz-Andreu and Champion 1996). This leads to
descriptions of archaeology’s relationship to politics. It leads to the concept that
good archaeology can remain free of political bias through rigorous adherence to
codes of objectivity. Although the late 1990s saw the publication of several major
studies concerning archaeology and nationalism in different parts of the world
many of these focused on “abuses” of archaeology by fascist or oppressive regimes
(such as National Socialism in Germany, Salazar in Portugal and experiences in
parts of the USSR). These dramatic examples seemed to have little relevance to
Australia where 20th century nationalism has often been seen as quite
underdeveloped and as still possessing some radical potential to build a more
equitable social order (During 1990; McLachlan 1989; Turner 1994).
I will go on to propose in Chapter 1, not a definition of nationalism, but an
approach to the culture of nationalism. To understand the power and pervasiveness
of nationalism in the contemporary world it must be understood as an identity
project, a project which remains relevant and vital within the context of
globalisation. While this concept is critical to enabling my analysis, it is also
dangerously all encompassing, enticing me to see the nation as pervasive and
constitutive in all areas of culture and identity. In Australia, nationalism is a
fragmented, inconsistent discourse, and it is negotiated and contested in overt
political debates, such as Australia’s “history wars”. However such positions are
enabled through more subtle structures and discourses which are enacted daily,
Introduction 6
through forms of knowledge which appear to be objective and natural concepts. It
is this idea, of nation as a discourse which is constitutive of, and constituted
through cultural practice in ordinary and everyday contexts, which sits uneasily
with the term “nationalism” and its history of use to describe more narrow political
doctrines. This is the problem Bhabha refers to when he suggests that the history of
this term is a barrier to really understanding nationalism, which he describes as a
“ubiquitous form of living the locality of culture” (Bhabha 1990a: 291).
Another potential context for this study are analyses of colonial forms of science.
The development of “colonial sciences” has often been approached in terms of
their originality, or intellectual dependence on the metropolitan core (Robin 1997).
Murray has noted in relation to Australian prehistory how the development of
local, colonial “sciences” were involved in nationalist movements from the late
19th century (Murray 1992: 4). Indeed studies of Australian prehistory, and a few
concerning historical archaeology (Bairstow 1984a; 1991), have foregrounded
issues of local originality in the context of the metropolitan (Murray and White
1981; McBryde 1986). I have specifically avoided such issues in my analyses. This
is not because more detailed comparisons between Australian historical
archaeology and other archaeologies would not be worthwhile. On the contrary,
comparisons with American historical archaeology, or other British, European or
transnational archaeologies, or colonial or settler archaeologies for instance, would
be most interesting to pursue. I am assuming throughout my project that Australian
historical archaeological discourses are involved in broader, transnational
discourses. I am assuming that “Australian” discourses of identity, nation and
heritage for instance, are also constituted through both global and local cultural,
social and political discursive formations. My analysis does however foreground
the negotiation of meanings in local contexts. I am not concerned with whether or
not Australian historical archaeology is derivative but I am concerned with the
foundations of the knowledges which constitute historical archaeological practices
and interpretations. It is a limitation of my research project that I have not
investigated further issues of the global context of archaeological discourses, but I
Introduction 7
hope that future research on these issues will be facilitated through the analyses
presented here.
Historical Archaeology in Australia
Any discussion about “historical archaeology” is generally preceded by debates
about the definition of this term (see for instance Andren 1998; Funari et al 1999;
Orser and Fagan 1995). Since my aim is to analyse what sort of work and research
has been conceived of as “historical archaeology”, and to treat this as broadly as
possible, rather than to suggest what should be thought of historical archaeology, I
believe the issue of definition should be left somewhat open ended. However, in
using the term historical archaeology I mean to encompass archaeological research
in Australia focussing on the post-1788 or what is sometimes called the “post-
contact” period. I treat 1788 as more of a conceptual date than an actual one. The
remains of Macassan trepang processing sites or Dutch shipwrecks, which might
pre-date 1788, could just as well be covered by the term historical archaeology,
while at the same time, many areas of Australia remained untouched by white
settlement for long periods after 1788. Some Australian archaeologists have called
these early periods of pre-British-settlement contact between indigenous people
and “outsiders" a “protohistoric” period (Mulvaney 1969; Fredericksen 2000).
In Australia, the critical divide has been between “prehistoric”, precolonial
Aboriginal archaeology and more recent sites, for which written records of some
kind are relevant. Historical archaeology has therefore focused on the colonial
period and has occasionally been termed “colonial archaeology” (Jack 1980;
1985). While the term “colonial archaeology” has been associated with a
colonialist approach and has not been popular recently (Egloff 1994), it has
something to recommend it in the Australian context. To call a period historical,
and in opposition to “prehistory”, is to position it within the evolutionary,
conceptual framework of modern historicism: a product of the Enlightenment
belief in progress towards scientific rationalism from beginnings in myth and
superstition. Fredericksen has recently discussed the way in which terming colonial
Introduction 8
archaeology “historical” and precolonial archaeology “prehistoric” inserts an
ontological dilemma into the archaeology of Australia (Fredericksen 2000). He
concludes that drawing a line across time and calling one side historic does not
adequately deal with the issues that he, as an archaeologist, has to deal with. I
agree with Fredericksen as far as he goes, but he fails to get to the heart of the
problem because he does not separate the discourse of history from the phenomena
of writing and literacy. History is a way of understanding and ordering the past, it
is a discourse with a history of its own. The history/prehistory divide is not just
caused by the events of colonisation, it is an artefact of modernist, colonialist
discourse. The focus on literacy, which characterises many definitions of historical
archaeology, depoliticises and neutralises the context of colonialism and simply
has no interpretive validity in the context of a colonial past (see for instance Funari
et al 1999: 8). In these contexts the issue of literate modes of communication is far
less important than the constitution of the subject through nested historical
allegories and larger discursive formations such as colonialism or Orientalism
(Curthoys and Docker 1999; Lydon 1999).
Many American historical archaeologists have advocated Deetz’ definition of
historical archaeology as an archaeology centred around the events, processes and
cultures arising from European imperial expansion and contact with indigenous
people (Deetz 1977: 5). Others have centred on the context of capitalism as the
crucial issue for historical archaeology (Leone and Potter 1999; Johnson 1996). It
is not the place here to draw further conclusions about the problematic term
“historical archaeology”, but looking at historical archaeology’s broader
involvement in the cultures of colonialism and nationalism is pertinent to a better
understanding of how archaeology might deal with unequal experiences of
modernity within the context of colonialism.
Within the scope of this thesis, I confine my analysis, for the most part, to
terrestrial historical archaeology. Maritime, or underwater, archaeology in
Australia is now generally accepted as part of the broader practice of historical
archaeology (Hosty and Stuart 1994; Staniforth 1995). While I do include a case
Introduction 9
study on the excavations seeking Cook’s Endeavour in Chapter 6, the emergence,
institutional focus and legislative history of Australian maritime archaeology is
quite distinct from that of terrestrial archaeology, and because it is not tied to the
land and has international dimensions it appears also to have a different
relationship with nationalism than that of (land) historical archaeology (and see
comments in Bennett 1995: 149).
Historical archaeology in Australia possesses a small base in universities in
Australia, but one that has expanded numerically and geographically in the later
1990s, seeing aspects of historical archaeology taught in most States (Egloff 1994;
Mackay and Karskens 1999). It receives relatively little funding from sources
which traditionally fund research in Classical or Near Eastern archaeology or
prehistory (Connah 1998: 3; Colley 1996a). Alternatively, most historical
archaeological work is funded through private or government clients complying
with heritage management requirements embodied in legislation, which varies
from State to State. This commercial or “consulting” historical archaeological
work proceeds within a framework where research must be justified in terms of
heritage benefits. However, such is the nature of the system that such justification
is only rarely made explicit and therefore one of the aims of my project is to draw
out the “linking logic” between specific historical archaeological practices and the
way in which their role in the heritage framework is conceptualised.
The major funding source for university based archaeological research is through
the notoriously competitive Australian Research Council. This funding body has
become more significant for historical archaeological research only as the numbers
of university employed practitioners has expanded. Further, a review in 1994 of the
Australian Research Council’s system of classification and assessment, pointed out
that historical archaeology had previously been grouped disadvantageously, as
“Other Classical Studies and Archaeology”, which was at odds with both its
regional and historical context (National Board of Employment, Education and
Training 1994: 38).
Introduction 10
Having drawn a distinction between university based and commercial or consulting
historical archaeology that is indeed important for the context of research, I do not
want to overstate this division. Not only is academic research subject to the same
legislative framework as consulting historical archaeology, but many historical
archaeologists work in both spheres.
A Note on Key Terms and Concepts
Some of the terms and concepts which are relied upon in this thesis are ambiguous.
I have chosen to use each of the following terms or concepts in a particular way, so
it is important that I set out the choices I have made in this regard.
Aborigines
Throughout the text I use the term Aborigines to represent the indigenous peoples
of Australia and the Torres Strait Islands. The terms “Aborigine” and “Aboriginal”
therefore represent a shorthand reference to a complex cultural reality covering an
array of people who may identify themselves in many different ways. These terms
have a history which is pertinent to the histories I am analysing in this thesis; the
history of archaeology and heritage in Australia; the history of nationalist discourse
in and about Australia (Attwood and Arnold 1992). My focus here is primarily on
discourses concerning settlers (see below), but the subjects “settlers” and
“Aborigines” have been formed in opposition to one another, and both are
implicated in constructions of the nation, its future and its past.
Colonialism
Following Thomas, I treat colonialism as a complex cultural formation rather than
primarily a form of social organisation resulting from the expansion of imperial
power (Thomas 1994: 2). This broad view of colonialism stresses that although
characterised by some large scale ideological formations and “world views”,
colonialism is a cultural project that was practised, negotiated, altered and
reconstructed in specific locations by individuals. While racism is a central aspect
of colonial perception, its expression can also vary greatly, from “a gentle
exoticism” to “racist settler violence” (Thomas 1994: 13). Also of central
Introduction 11
importance to the cultures of colonialism is Eurocentric progressive historicism.
Historicism can be seen as a cultural structure which promotes ideologies of
progress, development, civilising and improving which are central to the colonial
project (Chakrabarty 2000: 7). What is particularly relevant to my study is the
recognition that colonialism “instituted enduring hierarchies of subjects and
knowledges” (Prakash 1995: 3). Modern strategies of governance which enabled
colonialism as a social order also created institutional and disciplinary forms which
have been seen as separate from and not implicated in colonialism. I use the term
neo-colonial in this study to describe situations where such colonial forms are
promulgated and reinforced in contexts which are no longer seen as “colonial”.
Culture
While I have no intention of setting up a theory of culture here, I want to set out
some of the concepts about culture which have influenced my approach. Accepting
that archaeology is not an objective science that is separate from culture, I needed
ways of approaching archaeology as a part of culture. A Foucaultian perspective
uses the notion of culture as sets of practices and knowledges, stressing the use of
knowledge and institutions to shape the formation of individuals (Foucault 1972).
Foucault therefore saw power as the control and management of individuals by
their subjectification through expert knowledge, institutions and disciplinary
structures. Thus medical discourses produce the medically ill, and in the same way
archaeological discourses can be seen to produce the subject of archaeological
inquiry and the archaeological record.
Bourdieu’s focus on practice and concept of the habitus have also enabled an
approach to nationalism as more than an “ideology” which is imposed on
unknowing subjects. His concept of a dialectic between habitus and institutions, as
two modes of the objectification of history, that constantly create a history which
appears “like witticisms, as both original and inevitable”, is particularly useful in
understanding the culture of nationalism (Bourdieu 1990). This is not to suggest
that culture and nation are conterminous however, or that culture exists in any way
as a shared “substance”. Appadurai suggests that we think of culture simply as a
Introduction 12
“dimension of phenomena, a dimension which attends to situated and embodied
difference” (Appadurai 1996: 13). Therefore while I am interested in distinctive
shared narratives and practices which form material conditions for the formation of
identities, these should not be seen as existing in a sealed or fixed substance, but as
within a fluid and open cultural dimension.
Heritage
I use the term heritage here, not as a concept of a community’s shared inheritance
from the past, but as a discourse which sees the past as materially embodied in
places and things and which publicly demarcates and represents the past through
these things (Bennett 1995: 130). I am particularly concerned here with the forms
of practice, governance and expert knowledge that have been constituted through
this discourse.
Settler
Settler is a term that has gained currency through the field of colonial discourse
analysis or postcolonial theory (Stasiulis and Yuval-Davis 1995). It is used to
describe nations where colonisation was undertaken on such a scale that colonial
settlers eventually outnumbered and displaced the indigenous people, as in the
United States, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and of course Australia. The
term is used to distinguish the results of this colonial process from those where the
aim was to rule subject peoples and incorporate them within an empire for
economic and other reasons, as occurred in India and Indonesia. I use the term here
in preference to “European”, “invader” or “non-indigenous” as it offers an accurate
description of the cultural and historic context of the group with which my study is
largely concerned. It is important to note that in the context of postcolonial theory
the term “settler” does not imply peaceful or consenting settlement, but relates
more to the intent of the colonial practices involved.
Introduction 13
Structure of this Thesis
Chapter One explores ways of thinking about nationalism and how it relates to the
past. In particular I investigate concepts of nation and identity in Australia and the
lexicon of images which have operated within Australian culture to represent the
nation and its past. I set this exploration in the context of current issues in the
Australian community which problematise my research on archaeology, heritage
and nationalism.
Chapter 2 changes ground to examine archaeology, investigating ways that the
relationship between archaeology and nationalism has been explained and how
these explanations might relate to the Australian context.
Chapter 3 investigates the processes of giving value to the material remains of
Australia’s settler past. I consider how archaeological discourses were involved in
these processes of valuing and how concepts of historical archaeology were
defined through a linking of material remains with a continuous historical identity.
Chapter 4 focuses on historical archaeological practice. I consider the framework
of heritage legislation, policy and the procedures which formed a framework for
heritage management historical archaeology. At a national level, I look at historical
archaeological projects conducted through the National Estates Grant Program, an
important federal funding initiative introduced in 1972. I then look closely at the
influential conservation project at Port Arthur in Tasmania, where a distinctive
form of conservation historical archaeological practice was developed.
Chapter 5 is concerned with historical archaeological theory and interpretations.
Here I explore the foundations for the production of historical archaeological
knowledge and consider some interpretive themes which reveal important
relationships between nationalist narratives and archaeological interpretation.
Introduction 14
Chapter 6 pursues links between materiality and mythology which have
characterised archaeology’s involvement in nationalist projects across the globe. In
the Australian context I explore three case histories in which archaeology has been
directly involved with national origin mythologies and consider the role of
archaeology as an authenticating discourse.
Finally, in my concluding chapter I ask how we can rethink the relationship
between politics, historical consciousness and archaeology? I suggest that
transnational contexts are one way to deal with issues of globalisation, while
acknowledging the ongoing political importance of nationalism, yet simultaneously
disentangling its teleological effect from cultural and historical analyses.
Chapter 1
Nationalism and the Past
“The discourse of nationalism is not my main concern. In some ways it is the
historical certainty and settled nature of that term against which I am attempting
to write of the western nation as an obscure and ubiquitous form of living the
locality of culture” (Bhabha 1990a: 291).
Nationalism was perhaps one of the most debated fields within cultural and
political history, anthropology and sociology at the end of the 20th century. The
search for global definitions and classifications of this phenomenon has led to a
huge body of analytical literature, including a number of journals devoted solely to
this subject. In this chapter I will explore ways of thinking about nationalism and,
in particular, how it intersects with images and understandings of the past.
Combined with this exploration is a review of nationalism and national identity in
Australia. This is not a history of Australian nationalism, but a discussion about the
nationalist discourses, symbols and images which have been current, contested or
accepted in the period of my case study of archaeology and heritage from the late
1960s to the present.
This has been a period of change, debate and fragmentation of national imagery in
Australia, but a significant feature is, I will argue, the perpetuation of many of the
“traditional” images of national identity in new forms. Particularly prominent in
Australian nationalist imagery is the land: landscape, nature and the environment
are terms characteristically used in imprecise ways to embody the essence of
Australia and the “national identity”. Landscape discourse, as I go on to describe it,
is of central importance in configuring concepts of the past, of heritage and history,
and I will return to this theme in detail in subsequent chapters. This chapter
presents an account of the ongoing pervasiveness of this discourse and its
15
Nationalism and the Past 16
relationship to histories and popular narratives describing the past and the national
character.
The constructs of modernity and history tend to encourage a one-way
conceptualisation of cultural change. Ethnic and national fragmentation are
envisaged as being gradually overwhelmed by the ceaseless tide of globalisation:
the unstoppable expansion of global capital, the homogenisation of cultural
difference. However this kind of one-way development is a simplification of a
more complex reality. Nations and nationalism, rather than being simply the
product of modernity, may be a key way of understanding the co-constitutive
relationships which produce it (Arnason 1990: 218). Arguments regarding the
increasing importance of transnational cultural spheres as sources for identity and
the imagination of post-national political orders are compelling and need to be
acknowledged as crucial for contemporary cultural analysis (Appadurai 1996).
Alongside these arguments however, are those which show that modernity has
always been a hybridic, diasporic formation, within which narratives of bounded,
complete nations belie the processes which are most relevant to experiences of
modernity outside the Eurocentric context: imperialism, colonialism, the expansion
of capital, slavery and (forced) migration (Gilroy 1993; Lazarus 1999).
Modernity and Nationalism
Gellner and other theorists of nationalism and modernity have provided crucial
insights into the way nationalism works to reproduce itself politically and
culturally, highlighting the role of the intellectual and the consequences of
institutions which embody the intersection of a version of culture and the power
structures of the state. While these insights are important, and shall be pursued in
my study, they can also lead to an over-determined analysis that ignores the social
and cultural complexities of the modern world. The nation tends to “put itself
forward” as the obvious framework for cultural analysis, to embrace as
distinctively its own a society that is in fact constructing identity from a global
Nationalism and the Past 17
social reality and I will go on to argue that this has been a particularly significant
problem in the Australian context. Postcolonial critiques of Eurocentrism also help
to highlight the teleology of nation-centred accounts of modernity.
Gellner has suggested that nationalism should be understood as a uniquely close
relationship between culture and power, a relationship created by the demands of
modern industrial society (Gellner 1983; Gellner 1997). He claims that nationalism
filled the gap left by the collapse of feudalism and absolutism and addressed the
disenchantment caused by the rationalisation of modern social life. The
organisational and technological characteristics of the modern, industrialised
economy, most importantly the need for an effective mobile labour market,
demanded new forms of social mobility and communication. This in turn required
a new form of cultural identity that aligned individuals with a larger, “higher” form
of culture: the nation. Gellner also stresses nationalism’s tendency to
institutionalise a normative version of “high” culture in the power structures of the
state. Nationalism is therefore cast by Gellner as the replacement of ethnicity and
kinship and as the dominant source of identity for individuals in the modern world,
an identity that is linked to powerful political structures in a new way.
Gellner sees nationalism as a cultural response determined by developments in the
economic and technological spheres. Arnason has suggested that Gellner’s theory,
while a “promising first step” in its location of nationalism in the field of relations
between culture and power, is overshadowed by “functionalist preconceptions”
about the nature of modernity (Arnason 1990: 216). Following Giddens, Arnason
attributes a constitutive role in the modernizing process to nationalism and the
nation-state (Giddens 1985). Rather than seeing ‘modernity’ as the determinant of
a new form of cultural identity (nationalism), resulting in a subsequent form of
political structure (the nation –state), Arnason argues that nationalism is a vehicle
through which culture and power might be “mutually determined and jointly
transformed” (Arnason 1990: 209).
Nationalism and the Past 18
Marxist theorists hold capitalist industrialisation as the fundamental process of
modernity but, although Marxism implies a critique of nationalism through its
promotion of international socialism, most theorists of nationalism have argued
that Marxist theory failed to explain the role and persistence of nationalism. Tom
Nairn claimed that “the theory of nationalism represents Marxism’s great historical
failure”, while Benedict Anderson’s famous treatise Imagined Communities also
begins with the suggestion that, rather than a failure, nationalism remains an
unaccounted for anomaly in Marxist theory (Anderson 1983; Nairn 1977). Lazurus
however, has defended the ongoing utility of Marxism in theorising nationalism
and contemporary global reality. I will review his position below in the context of
globalisation (Lazarus 1999: 61). Giddens saw modernity as constituted through an
array of “institutional clusters”, including the organisational structures of both
capitalism and the nation state (Giddens 1990:174). He defined nationalism as
simply “the cultural sensibility of sovereignty, the con-commitant of the co-
ordination of administrative power within the nation state” (Giddens 1985:219).
Such distinct separation of the structures of the nation-state from nationalism
implies that the role of culture in institutional formation and on-going
administration can be minimised. I suggest Giddens’ separation of culture from
social structure is too succinct.
Liah Greenfield took a middle path between the relative importance of structures,
or Gidden’s institutions, and the social or cultural sphere, by focusing on human
agency and the primacy of nationalism as a “species of identity”, which necessarily
precedes and gives rise to the idea and the form of the nation (Greenfield 1992).
Greenfield argued strongly that the “idea of the nation… forms the constitutive
element of modernity” as it, most centrally, transformed the way individuals
understood their place in the world (Greenfield 1992: 18). In her focus on agency,
Greenfield considers in particular the influential role in Europe and the United
States of elite and middle class 18th and 19th century intellectuals who articulated
the character of national identities.
Nationalism and the Past 19
The relative importance of nationalism within the cultures of modernity is a
significant issue for my study, not so much in terms of the questions about
nationalism’s origins, but for theorising the relationships between aspects of
cultural practice. As Gellner suggests, the connection between culture and power
means that nationalism, as a form of identity, has more wide-ranging implications
than other forms of social and cultural identity. Nationalism may not necessarily be
the pre- eminent source of identity for individuals, but it can constrain the roles of
other forms of identity and discourse which configure many aspects of social
practice. The institutions of the State, as the political reality of the idea of the
nation, are of course a prime site of this power. As Giddens points out, institutions
retain normative referents and undoubtedly shape social practice in very significant
ways, and their administration tends to become “blackboxed”. This is the term
used by Latour to describe the way in which the rationale for proceeding in a
particular way is not analysed, but accepted as common sense, becoming integral
to what appears to be a coherent practice (Kendall and Wickham 1999:140). What
needs to be added to this understanding of the way in which institutions work, is an
account of the processes which enable change. An interest in individual agency is a
vital component of an approach to nationalism which is not overly deterministic. I
return to these issues below in the context of Thomas’ approach to colonialism
(Thomas 1994). As a species of identity relating to a sovereign, limited community, nationalism
tends to be subsuming, to suggest itself as the logical framework for analysis
(Anderson 1983: 6). For instance, in Australia the national boundary appears so
natural that the history of its construction is rarely acknowledged, and debates
about illegal immigrants have the effect of reinforcing the concept of the island
Australia as a bounded, even sealed geo-political body (see for instance
discussions in Byrne 1996; and White 1997). I will discuss these and other debates
later in this chapter. It is not so much that intellectuals have been blinded to
international contexts, but that the category of nation tends to attribute a coherence
to its subject that is more an artefact of the category than a reflection of actual
socio-cultural and geo-political complexity. Post-colonial critiques which question
the universality of Eurocentric explanations of modernity - which always place
Nationalism and the Past 20
Europe as its origin and apogee, also help to break down the perceived coherence
of the autonomous nation. Accounts of slavery, colonisation and diaspora have
cumulatively built up a picture of the experience of modernity from an alternative
point of view. Paul Gilroy claims that this reveals that the nation has never been an
adequate framework for the analysis of modernity, which has always, rather than
just recently, been a “transcultural, international, diasporic, hybridic formation”
(Gilroy 1993: 223). A mere glance towards the imperialism, colonialism, slavery,
and forced migration of the modern period, towards the histories of exploration,
travel, anthropology and natural science, and how they have shaped the Australian
experience, should confirm Gilroy’s arguments.
Ethnicity and Nationalism
Theorists discussed so far all agree on the distinctive modernity of nations. The
work of Anthony D. Smith however, has challenged this emphasis with the claim
that nations are based on ethnic traditions that form both pre-existing foundations,
as well as future limits, for the cultural expression of nationalism (Smith 1986).
Ethnicity is a term which has only been widely used in scholarship since the late
1960s, replacing the term “tribe” as it was used in anthropology before the Second
World War (Eriksen 1993: 8) and the construct of a “culture” (an association of
artefact types and styles thought to be the signature of a cultural group) in
archaeology (Jones 1997: 51).1 Eriksen discusses how nationalism and ethnicity
are kindred concepts. The difference between them lies, at the most fundamental
level, in the relationship between cultural identity and a political state that
represents that identity. This distinction is however, highly problematic (Eriksen
1993: 118). What is difficult about these terms is the cultural baggage they have
come to carry in contemporary Western parlance. Eriksen comments on their use in
the English speaking media where nation states are often linked with bureaucratic
principles of justice and democracy, while ethnic affiliations are associated with
traditional, pre-modern blood feuds and threats to the cohesion of a state. The
Nationalism and the Past 21
recent proliferation of the term “ethno-nationalism”, particularly in relation to
struggles in the former Yugoslavia and the collapse of the Soviet Union, is also
generally associated in the Western media with racist and culturally chauvinistic
ideologies. I suggest that the recent history of these terms shows that they are used
in opposition to one another and that their definition is therefore circular. Ethnicity
is often conceived of as a form of primordial, group cultural identity, based on
kinship and myth-symbol complexes, which is pre-modern and which pre-existed
nationalism but, if given political expression, may become (ethno-) nationalism.
However, the problem with this political expression of ethnicity, in the perception
of the Western media, is that it lacks the modern, rationalist and progressive
inheritance of the Western Enlightenment which is exemplified by the core world
nation states: Britain, France, and the United States for instance.
Smith privileges the status of ethnic stories and symbols in modern nationalism
because, although he admits they might be chosen from a range of possibilities,
they must be “real”, authentic and of continuing meaning within culture to be
acceptable to the community. Smith notes in particular the role of archaeological
artefacts as symbols of the ethnic past (Smith 1986; Smith 1995). The materiality
of these objects seems to reassure Smith of their objective status as evidence of the
“social –magnetism and psychological charge” attached to “myth-symbol
complexes” (Smith 1986: 207). Smith builds up a detailed analogy of nationalists
as “archaeologists”, who are therefore bound to meet a range of criteria in their
exploration of the past: “their interpretations must be consonant with the scientific
evidence, popular resonance and the patterning of particular ethno-histories”
(Smith 1995: 13). He is arguing that modernists and postmodernists have tended to
deny the reality of ethnic traditions, and therefore their power and place in
nationalism, by treating the nationalist’s construction of traditions as, to continue
his analogy, a totally arbitrary “quarrying” of the “past” (see for instance
Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). One aim of Smith’s strategy is to diminish the
perceived power and influence of the intellectual’s creativity by claiming that they
may only draw out realities that already have an authentic form in the collective
1 Although Gordon Childe used the term ethnic in the 1930s to distinguish an archaeological
Nationalism and the Past 22
memory of the community. In this way Smith explains the operation of ethnic
traditions in nationalism as a constant rediscovery and regeneration of the
community’s knowledge of its self, as opposed to totally new, “invented” forms of
nation. His main point is that ethnicity is a pre-modern human trait that has
persisted and adapted in modern, industrial society as nationalism, and that
nationalism should therefore not be thought of as totally modern.
Miriam Dixson, in her recent book The Imaginary Australian, claims that ethnicity
inhabits a dimension “not entirely cultural and by no means necessarily embodied”
(Dixson 1999: 56). She seems to be imbuing ethnicity, or the “ethnie - the ethnic
group aware of itself as such”, with an embedded “race memory”, that stands apart
from culture. I will discuss Dixson’s thesis further below in relation to Australian
nationalism. What is relevant here is her work as an application of Smith’s general
theory. Dixson is attracted to the way in which ethnic history, as a definitional
limitation on the range of possible nations or nationalisms, democratises nation
building. Dixson claims that modernist and post-modernist positions on the nation,
the first termed the “elite plot” and the second condemned as the post-structuralist
orthodoxy of the “intellectual invention”, give too great a role in nation building to
intellectual elites and minimise the participation of ordinary people. She is
concerned to stress the positive aspects of national belonging and cannot accept the
indignity of seeing ordinary people as duped or deluded into an emotional
attachment to “primordial folk symbols”, which are in fact, as Gellner would
argue, part of an institutionalised high culture imposed upon the nation from its
centre of power.
Smith and Dixson seem to want to legitimate our current, nationality saturated
identities with some core of truth derived from an almost magical, psychological
holding of deep time tradition. I agree with Smith and Dixson that the organisation
and practice of social memory, of shared history, is a crucial aspect of the way in
which the nation form is produced and culturally reproduced. I also agree that
shared social memories and narratives can act as not only a psychological form of
cultural group from a racial one (Childe 1935).
Nationalism and the Past 23
understanding identity, but as a material condition which shapes social practices
and institutions. I also share Dixson’s interest in issues of agency and in the
manner in which individuals negotiate their ways through these webs of discourse
and practice in the context of local conditions and histories. However, what is
particularly problematic here is the notion that nations are simply taking ‘real’,
objective cultural roots and re-using them. This approach completely naturalises
the historic-narrative framework within which cultural genealogies are imagined. It
depoliticises the way in which discourses of identity, history, heritage and
archaeology construct knowledge about the past and disseminate it in the
community, shaping the way individuals and groups imagine their ethnic and
cultural backgrounds.
Archaeology is one of the ways many contemporary communities practice social
memory and it is a distinctive historical practice because of its material dimension.
As a result of their materiality, archaeological sites and remains are not only
amenable to the discourses of empirical science, in a way that history is not, but
they can also be experienced as things or places which appear to carry the past into
the present, in an apparently unmediated way (this issue is taken up in detail in
Chapter Six). Rowlands has suggested that “in escaping the deceit of historical
writing, the production of past material cultures has the spontaneity of a kind of
unconscious speech, a taken-for-granted, common-sense existence that simply
demonstrates that a people have always existed in that place” (Rowlands 1995:
136). Smith and Dixson’s uncritical adoption of ethnicity as a category which, to at
least some extent, exists outside discourse and culture, weakens their explanation
of nationalism.
What all theorists agree upon is nationalism’s obsession with history and historic
origins; its claim of a common historic legacy for its members; and its use of this
legacy as the basis of a collective project for the future (Jenkins 1995). History
provides the idealised, mythologised, and emotionally charged benchmarks around
which the political project for the future can be structured. Within culture then,
nationalism can be seen as a project to create and sustain a particular type of
Nationalism and the Past 24
collective identity, and this involves infinite political contests over the limits,
symbolic content and future implications of that identity (Stokes 1997: 10). This
inevitably attributes a crucial role to historians, archaeologists, and other
intellectuals who deal in representations of the national past. The critical issue here
is the concept that history and archaeology are natural and neutral methods which
are separate from nationalism. However as many historiographers and historians of
archaeology have revealed, historical and archaeological discourses are products of
the cultures of modernity. As I shall go on to discuss in Chapter Two, the rise of
modern or scientific archaeology is generally located within the emerging
European nations of the 19th century, and as a product of nationalist concepts of
continuous cultural identities. The notion that identities are continuous through
time is accepted by Smith as understood and unproblematic but Eriksen claims that
many anthropologists would be prepared to argue against this claim: “Perhaps they
(identities) only seem continuous and our analytical task consists in showing that
they are not, and that the very notion that people ought to be concerned with the
past is an ideological child of the age of nationalism” (Eriksen 1993: 96).
This discussion of ethnicity and nationalism led me to a consideration of the role of
archaeology and other historical discourses in the construction of the concepts of
cultural continuity upon which nationalism depends. I have highlighted the issue
that definitions of nationalism which claim that to be effective nationalisms must
incorporate some objective core culture, make this claim without explaining how
this core culture is to be known or distinguished from ideological constructions by
the community involved. This is not to discount the possibility that cultural
traditions have persisted in modernity, for it seems that discourses of modernity
have served to emphasise ruptures with tradition disproportionately. Nor is it to
suggest that all attempts to examine past identities, through archaeology or history,
should be abandoned as a false ideological consciousness. The material effects of
long established social relations, and the practices associated with these social
relations, may indeed be thought of cultural continuities. To imply however, that
identity is thus also continuous is, I argue, an effect of nationalism rather than an
explanation for it.
Nationalism and the Past 25
An understanding of nationalism as an identity project, and an understanding of the
practice of archaeology and the status of questions posed about the past, requires,
at the very least, critical, detailed scrutiny of the intellectual, historical and political
context of the “knowledges” which are compounded into ordinary, everyday
questions about how we know who we are. I will go on to outline below an
‘ethnographic’ approach towards a detailed, historicised analysis of historical
archaeology and nationalism in Australia as a means of accounting for the
relationship between these formations. But before moving on to this, I want to
consider postmodern and postcolonial interpretations of nation and nationalism
which stress the productive and creative cultural strategies of nationalism as the
key to understanding both its power and infinite adaptability.
Postmodern and Postcolonial Interpretations
Benedict Anderson’s work has focused more on nationalism’s cultural strategies of
production and reproduction, than on its political power structures and sociological
forms (Anderson 1983). Anderson’s perspective on nationalism is largely
compatible with Gellner’s: “Both stress that nations are ideological constructions
seeking to forge a link between (self-defined) cultural group and state, and that
they create abstract communities of a different order from those dynastic states or
kinship-based communities which pre-dated them” (Eriksen 1993:100). Anderson
however, concentrates on “nation-ness”, as well as nationalism, as a “cultural
artefact”, rather than a political one, as Gellner tends to do (Anderson 1983:4). In
concentrating on cultural production, Anderson seeks to understand how
nationalist sentiment retains such commitment and persistence in the lives of
individuals that they are willing to die, and to sacrifice their children, for the sake
of an “imagined community”. Anderson’s study has therefore been more
influential in cultural studies, history and literary theory, than in cultural sociology
which retains a greater emphasis on the role of social structure as an autonomous
realm and normative constraint on cultural production and social action. Both
Nationalism and the Past 26
Anderson and Hobsbawm have been concerned with deconstructing nationalism,
focusing on the creation of narratives and “traditions” which become discourses of
national cohesion, central to personal and collective identity (Hobsbawm and
Ranger 1983; Hobsbawm 1990).
This brings me to the question of exactly what are the mechanisms via which
nations might be regenerated and reproduce the idea of themselves? Anderson
focuses strongly on the role of print media as an enabling technology for
nationalism, related, as Gellner would agree, to the capitalist system of production,
and to linguistic commonalties and diversities. Novels, histories and romantic epics
exploring identity, national foundations, landscape and environment, form a
chronicle of the nation, and education systems have the effect of solidifying these
chronicles into a “canon” of national texts, which are widely understood
throughout a community. The role of the intellectual, who mediates the
relationship between “print capitalism” and national identity is obviously a crucial
one. In the Australian context Dixson (1999) and McLachlan (1989) make strong
arguments for the role of “ordinary people” in nation building and one of the much
discussed aspects of Australian national identity is its anti-intellectual character.
However, the role of the intellectual: the historian, writer, artist and film-maker for
instance, should not be underestimated, as they provide images around which
concepts of identity can be crystallized (White 1997; Curthoys 1997).
Anderson suggests that national communities are imagined through the
“homogenous time of realist narrative”(Anderson 1983). Bhabha follows Anderson
in arguing for the narrative as a significant form through which the nation is
articulated, pointing out that the rise of the realist narrative as the dominant literary
form is concurrent with the rise of post-Enlightenment nationalism (Bhabha 1990b:
2). Alexander and Smith have suggested that narrative should be analysed as a
deep “cultural structure” which underlies the formation of discourses, and as a
seemingly natural way people and nations have imagined their progress through
time (Alexander and Smith 1993: 156). The process of remembering and
forgetting, which Bruner describes as the process of “hermeneutic composability”,
Nationalism and the Past 27
implies more than just a selection of events, “the events need to be constituted in
the light of the overall narrative” (Bruner 1991: 8). The concept that narrative
structure is not simply a way of representing reality, but a means via which reality
is comprehended, is particularly important in the analysis of nationalism. As
Hadyn White puts it “narrative, far from being merely a form of discourse that can
be filled with different contents, real or imaginary as the case may be, already
possesses a content prior to any given actualisation of it in speech or writing”
(White 1987: xi). Archaeology, history and nationalism, as related, modern,
discursive formations, share the structural influence of the narrative form in the
way they constitute the past and the future (Attwood 1996a; Bhabha 1990b; Bruner
1991; Silberman 1995). Attwood has discussed the role of narrative structure, “the
content of form” (White 1987), in the composition of influential Australian
historical narratives (Attwood 1996b). Attwood stresses how the major
protagonists and events have been constituted within the context of the overall
narrative, its meanings and conclusions. A disruption of the meaning of one of
these components, as has occurred in the case of the “Aborigines”, disrupts the
meaning of the overall narrative and thus the meaning of “Australia” (Attwood
1996b:101). I will take up these issues again later in this chapter.
Anderson stresses the role of the print media in the development of nationalism, as
well as the shared, influential cultural structure of literary narrative. Film and
television (Turner 1986), commemorative ceremonies and community celebrations
(Spillman 1990), museums and the heritage industry (Bennett 1995; Byrne 1996;
1999; Handler 1988), are all important sites for the negotiation and legitimization
of national identities (Schudson 1994: Hutchinson 1994). The heritage industry
now forms an umbrella concept in Australia, and many other nations, covering a
wide range of forms of public consumption of the local or national past, as well as
being a vehicle for the consumption of the past of others through cultural tourism.
Byrne has shown how fetishisation of the national terrain, its very earth and soil, is
a process that is extended and emphasised in heritage, through discourses of place
and archaeology (Byrne 1996: 99). Hamilakis has investigated representations of
Greek antiquity on the World Wide Web in discourses constructing “Hellenic”
Nationalism and the Past 28
identities and Greek nationalism. Particularly interesting in this case is that the
transnational context of the Web is used in the construction of diasporic Hellenic
nationalism, challenging the effects of any supposed cultural globalisation and re-
creating the topos of the nation in cyberspace (Hamilakis 2000). In Chapter 3 I will
examine the way in which discourses of heritage value have been constructed for
the material remains of the Australian past, transforming all aspects of the
continent into a national inheritance.
Also important in national cultural integration is participation in the national
market economy (Schudson 1994:32). Some commentators see “National Culture”
as little more than the construct of a marketing exercise, a self-fulfilling advertising
prophecy describing who customers are, their needs and aspirations (Schudson
1994; Turner 1994). Advertising, through national broadcasting and print media,
has become a critical forum for the constant reinforcement and regeneration of
iconic national imagery. Nations are commonly characterised by the signature
array of consumer goods supported within the national market: food, clothes and
household accoutrements are ways in which national cultures are performed and
foreign or exotic cultures are consumed. Clothing and fashion are good case
studies for globalisation, as many local traditions where clothing defined ethnic,
class and status differences, appear to have been significantly eroded through
industrial mass production and distribution of standard western forms, blue jeans
perhaps being the most iconic. Despite “Cocacolonization”, food can still be a
significantly “nationalised” discourse, albeit one transformed through discourses of
multiculturalism. Multicultural influences in “national cuisine” often serve to
reinforce what is “new” and multicultural, and what is “authentic” and national
(James 1996). In Australia consumption of some fetishised products, such as
various brands of beer or Vegemite, is a nationalist practice, in that it is seen as
distinctively Australian. Consumption of such products becomes a performance,
and reaffirmation, of national identity. Graeme Turner has suggested that
Australia’s clearest lexicon of the “national character” has been found in the kind
of product advertising made since the 1980s (Turner 1994).
Nationalism and the Past 29
Postcolonial theorists see nationalism as a “Janus-faced” construct: a term coined
by Nairn but taken up by postcolonial theorists who are centrally concerned with
the ambivalence and “doubleness” of nationalism. While the nation has represented
freedom from colonial rule for some colonised countries, it is also defined by
colonial institutions, the doctrine of progress and the quest for modernity. It can
simply act “to transfer into native hands - those unfair advantages which are the
legacy of the colonial period” (Fanon quoted in Lazarus 1999: 78). Nationalism,
points out Bhabha, is also two faced in the way it purports to imagine a simple
unity, but one that is constructed in terms of “Others” (Bhabha 1990a). Thus to
define itself, the nation must define what it is not. It is this exclusionary aspect, and
the fact that it intersects with all facets of identity (gender, sexuality, race,
ethnicity, class) and politics (economics, democracy, imperialism, civil society)
that has lead to the enthusiastic launch of a “counter-totalizing” project, designed
specifically to reveal how nationalisms have stealthily constructed boundaries
(Bhabha 1990a; Hudson and Bolton 1997; Lerner and Ringrose 1993; Parker et al.
1992). Nationalism is also seen as two faced in the way that it both imagines the
nation surging forth into its ever more highly evolved future, while the other face,
like Walter Benjamin’s “angel of history”, is firmly fixed on the past (McClintock
1994).
Much current thinking sees nationalism originating in Europe (in England in the
1600s according to Greenfield), and then spreading and diversifying as a means of
linking a modern cultural collectivity to a political structure (Greenfield 1992).
Postcolonial critiques have pointed out how this philosophical framework
characterizes non-western nationalisms as unfinished projects, still striving towards
modernity (let alone the post-modernity of the West). The Eurocentric position,
epitomized by Hobsbawm, suggests that the importance of nationalism has been
surpassed in the late 20th century by globalisation and the (potential) creation of
supra-national entities like the European Union (Hobsbawm 1990). Leela Ghandi
claims that this European stance derives from an “historically deep seated
antipathy toward anti-colonial movements in the third world” (Ghandi 1998). This
suggests that the legacy of imperial history continues to construct the globe in
Nationalism and the Past 30
terms of metropolitan and other, Occident and Orient, civilised and civilising.
Hobsbawm’s position also requires that a logical developmental structure be used
to understand all world nationalisms as an essentially unitary phenomenon. Many
postcolonial scholars have reacted against the West’s demonisation of nationalism
as a form of collective identity which failed to transcend its “regressive”,
“atavistic” reliance on pre-modern forms of identity (Ghandi 1997: 107). I will
discuss in Chapter Two how underlying assumptions of nationalism as a
necessarily negative force has led to a concentration of studies in the
archaeological literature on the abuse of archaeological knowledge by nationalistic
regimes. The result of this situation is a proliferation of what is in fact a
sublimated, European-situated discourse of judgement upon the “level” of
modernity achieved in any particular location, with the secular, cosmopolitan, left
leaning European intellectual used as the measuring stick. This is not to deny that
nationalism has been responsible for bloodshed and violence. Nationhood
however, continues to be a crucial locus of identity for masses of the world’s
people and a central aspiration for communities oppressed by imperial nations and
their colonial regimes.
Globalisation
To this point I have treated nations as internally coherent political systems, even
though they emphasize the extent and effects of this boundedness. But it is the
conceit of nationalism itself which stresses the completeness of the nation, when it
in fact exists as a part of, and as a result of, a world of nations. Many theorists of
globalisation suggest that the world of nations is well on the way to be being
replaced by a global capitalist system entailing new forms of social organisation
and cultural consciousness (See for instance Albrow 1996; Appadurai 1996). The
consequences of this process, and the intellectual or conceptual framework within
which it is constituted and reflected, is the replacement of modernity with
“globality” (Dirlik 1994). This has prompted some critics to suggest that the nation
state is being rendered obsolete, both as a viable political formation and as an
appropriate unit for social and cultural analysis. Globalisation is also often linked
Nationalism and the Past 31
with the postmodern intellectual movement as the “twin bastions” of an apparently
radically altered world order and world view. If we think of post modernism in a
simple sense as an engagement with the intellectual inheritance of modernity, of
which nationalism is generally thought to form a crucial aspect, and of
globalisation as essentially an erosion of the relevance of nations in economic and
cultural terms, we can see that this has lead some theorists to proclaim an epochal
change in world history. While the expansion of capitalism is enabled in new ways
through recent technological developments in transport and information
technology, this appears to be more of a continuation of modern capitalism than a
radical break. While the national economy certainly seems less able to act
autonomously, and the amount of consumption of internationally created products,
from film, to clothes and electronic toys has undoubtedly intensified, just how
profound are the cultural implications of these processes? While it is clear that the
way the past is conceptualised and imagined has changed in the period 1960s to the
present should this be seen as a true epistemic shift (Appadurai 1996)?
Neil Lazarus’ recent review of positions in the globalisation debate concludes that
rather than a radical disjunction, recent events tend to suggest a consolidation of
the trends of modernity. Citing Habermas’ characterisation of the modern as a
sense of being cut off from the past and open to the future, Lazarus claims that the
present is “under constant pressure to (re-) imagine itself as a new beginning”
(Lazarus 1999: 18). “Strong” globalisation theory is disposed towards both
millenialism and technological determinism, claims Lazarus, and an assumption of
culture as subsumed by the capitalist economy (Lazurus 1999: 48). I am attracted
to Lazarus’ conclusions because they seem to most adequately theorise the
complex reality encountered in the Australian regional context. Globalisation,
particularly from a non-European perspective, has been as much a part of the
modern world as nationalism. Exploration, imperialism, colonisation and the
globalisation of capital, are processes that have been crucially interwoven with the
rise and spread of nationalism. The imperialistic aggression of European nation
states caused the proliferation of settler and anti-colonial nationalisms. The fact
that these revolutionary and anti-state nationalisms have been articulated through
Nationalism and the Past 32
the Western nationalist vocabulary has been a source of ongoing angst and
ambivalence amongst post-colonial thinkers (for instance Fanon 1968, Prakash
1990; Chatterjee 1993; Chakrabarty 2000). In Australia nationalism focused
primarily on the best interests of the settler population and, as I shall go on to
discuss, was essentially a continuation of colonialism. As concepts of personal and
collective identity have changed the concept of the nation has changed and
fragmented, but it has not been replaced as the central metaphor and political
reality for this continental community. Indeed, as has been argued for many
nations, globalisation appears to have resulted in a distinct intensification of the
level and importance of nationalistic imagery current in the community. As
Richard White has pointed out, accounts of the Australian nation have tended to
reproduce the innate coherence that is an effect of nationalism rather than a
description of the globally integrated history of this formation (White 1997). It has
also been suggested that the demise of the category of British Imperial and
Commonwealth history in the postwar period, ironically led to the loss of one of
the few comparative frameworks available for Australian history, and to the
effective isolation of Australian scholarship (Griffiths and Robin 1997: 5).
I conclude that much globalisation theory is misleading in suggesting that
modernity has been superseded by globality and that although nations were once
the prime site for cultural analysis this is no longer appropriate. Lazarus (1999) and
Gilroy (1993) convincingly argue that not only is the sociological evidence for this
change in world order lacking, but also that this misrepresents the nature of
modernity, which has always been an international and hybrid formation. The
impacts of technological change in communications and production, and of the
cultural changes caused by changing patterns of consumption and commodification
cannot be ignored (Appadurai 1996). However I remain convinced that the
“theoretical and political problems that shape our lives and thought today continue
to be those that have shaped them throughout modernity” (Lazarus 1999: 49).
While it has been simplistic to use the nation form as the main unit for cultural,
sociological and historical analysis, it is also simplistic to disregard its ongoing
importance as the site where cultural identity is wrought into objects of powers.
Nationalism and the Past 33
The culture of nationalism
Nations and nationalisms are not totalities with clearly defined boundaries,
predictable historical trajectories and “use by dates” declaring obsolescence. To
chronicle the history of a nation, or in my case the history of the archaeology of a
nation, is to simply reflect the nation’s strategy for self-definition. The Australian
nation today is not the same thing as the Australian nation in 1901, when it came
into being. But it is the same place, and the material remains of those earlier
nations make us imagine that the nation today is the only possible one, the
inevitable result of a process of evolution and maturation. The teleology of the
nation is a very powerful and insidious one. Richard White suggests that to really
understand the meaning and implications of the nation we should “write against the
notion of national history”, we should write it out of our analyses in order to reveal
its real role in the past and in contemporary life (White 1997). While
acknowledging White’s warning of the centrality of nation in Australian cultural
and historical analyses, I want to both unclothe naturalised concepts of the nation,
and also understand what I see as its ongoing importance for Australian
communities.
A problem in coming to come to grips with competing readings of nationalism are
the differences to be found (though not always explicitly stated) in understandings
of culture and the perceived relationships between culture, politics, economies,
states and other social structures. This is of course a significant issue for my study
which seeks to investigate links between different fields of cultural production and
what have traditionally been seen as separate areas of thought and practice, namely
archaeology and nationalism. It is therefore necessary to plot a careful path through
this minefield of statements about the way in which culture works and how
distinctive cultural structures are of particular importance in the modern world.
Nationalism and the Past 34
Clifford Geertz defines culture very broadly as the “webs of significance” which
humans spin and within which they are enmeshed. He therefore goes on to define
cultural analysis as “not an experimental science in search of law but an
interpretive one in search of meaning” (Geertz 1973: 5). As I set out in the
Introduction I want to approach culture as a “ragbag” of practices and knowledges,
as a fluid and open dimension through which actions and events are constituted as
meaningful. While I am interested in meaning, especially in the way nationalist
discourses appear to be so deeply enmeshed in the web-like cultures of modernity,
I don’t want to approach my study without a sufficient emphasis on the role of
structures and institutions as well as an appreciation of issues of individual agency.
In this I have been inspired by Nicholas Thomas’ approach to the analysis of
colonialism. Drawing a range of concepts and methodologies, rather than entire
theoretical programs, from Foucault and Bourdieu, Thomas aims to “establish that
‘culture’ and ‘colonial dominance’ are deeply mutually implicated without
reducing one to the other” (Thomas 1994: 41). Developing the concept of
colonialism as a project, Thomas presents a range of detailed, local case studies
which analyse the “mediation, reformulation and contestation in practice” of
“regimes of truth”(Thomas 1994: 58). Thomas’ approach is therefore essentially an
“ethnography of colonial projects: that presupposes the effect of larger objective
ideologies, yet notes their adaptation in practice, their moments of effective
implementation and confidence as well as those of failure and wishful thinking”
(Thomas 1994:60). Thomas is driven not only by Bourdieu’s interest in practice to
illuminate agency in the colonial situation, to break down the notion of the passive,
repressed colonial subject, but also by Foucault’s conviction that treating the
effects of power in consistently negative terms of repression and exclusion, denies
the importance of what is actually produced through the effects of power. In this
vein Thomas suggests that Foucault’s focus on techniques of governmentality
which are at once “discursive, practical and local”, enables an emphasis on the
contingency of colonial encounters rather than reproducing the totalizing effect of
a monolithic colonial ideology.
Nationalism and the Past 35
Nationalism as an identity project has significantly different aims from the colonial
project, and yet Australian nationalism and colonialism are deeply intertwined. The
techniques Thomas borrows from Bourdieu and Foucault are not specifically
designed for colonial contexts or cross-cultural encounters. In fact their original
applications were more specifically concerned with national contexts, although this
was not the object of their analysis. What I want to draw from Thomas are
analytical strategies which reveal how nationalism and culture in Australia are
“deeply mutually implicated” but crucially, are not the same thing. My aim is to
break down the coherence of the national context especially in the way it has
“policed” representations of the past and practices relating to research and heritage.
Nation and national identity are dynamic images which contribute to individual
and community identity and which often lie unacknowledged, “always near the
surface of everyday life” (Billig 1995). Such images have the effect of
“structur(ing) what is thought”, which is to say they become a cognitive tool which
may be used to understand and evaluate social experiences (Bourdieu 1992). The
concept of habitus has aptly been applied to the daily enactment of national
identity: “The habitus – embodied history, internalized as a second nature which
people must acquire and so forgotten as history - is the active presence of the
whole past of which it is the product” (Bourdieu 1990: 56 and see Billig 1995: 42).
It is also useful to adopt the concept of discourse to describe groups of these
images or signs, which communicate related information to form a cultural code
(Foucault 1972). Discourses are sometimes described as operating in networks that
intersect to describe the possibilities for representation (Thomas 1994). Alexander
and Smith, in their model of cultural explanation, also stress the elasticity of these
codes or discourses, as they are applied by people in actual situations, which may
be experienced via an unlimited set of contingencies. In this way they attribute
agency to social actors, and the ability to disrupt discursive circularity. Culture’s
role in political and social life is mediated through institutional structures (such as
the bureaucratic and political institutions of the state) which develop their own
cultural logics and normative referents and which may therefore appear to act
autonomously (Alexander and Smith 1993: 159). It is both through their evaluative
Nationalism and the Past 36
application, as well as through their incorporation into institutional structures, that
discourses have practical effects on day to day life.
It is with these broad concepts in mind that I will approach my investigation of
historical archaeology, heritage and nationalism in Australia, considering aspects
of practice, the role of institutions and policy and the operation of discourses in
local, historicised ethnographies. In the following section I will first look more
closely at nationalism, national identity and representations of the past in Australia.
Nationalism and National Identity in Australia
“The settler makes history, his life is an epoch, an Odyssey. He is the absolute
beginning, ‘This land is created by us’ ” (Fanon 1968)
What are the facts about Australia’s past? Exactly how many Aborigines were
killed by settlers? How many indigenous children were taken from their families?
How many settlers were killed by Aborigines? Were all convicts hardened
criminals or victims of an oppressive system? Were all settlers brave pioneers or
were they destroyers of the environment? Can we be proud of our national history
or is it something to be ashamed of?
All of these questions have circulated in the Australian media over the past decade.
They have been debated in Federal Parliament, they have divided some
communities and brought others together. The past is always a national issue, but
in contemporary Australia, in this year of the centenary of Federation (1901 –
2001), there is no comfortable consensus about what happened in the past, nor
about what the past means for a national “identity” and a national future.
The past is contested everywhere. In Australia, the basis for the contested past is a
history of colonialism and the existence of a settler nation. To form a settler nation,
colonial control is transferred from the founding metropolitan country to the
colony itself, the settler group therefore becomes both coloniser and colonised. A
Nationalism and the Past 37
settler nation only exists through colonialism, involving, as it must, facts of
dispossession and discourses of racial superiority. However, the settler’s internal
“cultural geography” also insists that psychologically, they remain in a position of
inferiority and exile, somewhere “Down Under” or as past Prime Minister Paul
Keating (1991 – 1996) once put it, “at the arse end of the universe” (Rose 1996;
Gibson 1992).
Recent engagement with the historic facts of colonialism has undoubtedly eroded
the “moral authority” of the traditional narratives of colonial nationalism in
Australia (Rose 1996). However, I agree with Deborah Rose’s caution that it is
premature to apply the term “postcolonial” to present day Australian society:
“to contend that we are somehow postcolonial obscures that we live in a world
that is so effectively colonised that it is almost impossible to think beyond it. Here
the culture and practice of conquest … is so deeply embedded in our social
consciousness and so institutionalised in political and bureaucratic practices,
that it is almost unnoticed” (Bird Rose 1996: 209).
There are currently three prominent areas of public discourse in Australia which
contest the content and meaning of Australia’s past. These are debates about
whether Australia should become a republic, debates about reconciliation with
Aboriginal people, and debates about immigration. The question of the republic
hinges upon whether the colonial past and the continuing attachment to Britain,
with the Queen of England as the Head of State, should be “honoured”, celebrated
and continued, or whether Australia should break with tradition and acknowledge
the present as neo-colonial. Reconciliation is the term that has been given to a formal process designed to
address the implications of colonialism for Aboriginal people. One widespread
response throughout the community has been to ask the present Federal
Government to say “Sorry”, as a symbolic gesture that acknowledges wrongs done
in the past. The present Prime Minister has refused to accept that an apology is
appropriate, and has promoted instead what he calls “practical reconciliation”. This
Nationalism and the Past 38
addresses issues such as housing, education and medical care for indigenous
communities, which of course his critics claim should not be an element of
reconciliation, but a right of all citizens. The issue of reconciliation has also been
affected by debates over the truth about what happened to Aboriginal people in the
past, which I alluded to in the questions above. As Ann Curthoys has put it:
“Many (Australians) do not wish to be told that their whole society was built on a
process of invasion and child theft; they want, instead to reassert pride in their
history, institutions, and culture” (Curthoys 1999a: 2).
Debates about the need for reconciliation and the moral responsibility for past
events are joined with debates about immigration through the discourse of racism
(Curthoys 1999b). This has emerged in particular, in discussions surrounding the
rise to prominence of politician Pauline Hanson and her party “One Nation”.
Hanson was lauded as giving a voice to supposedly suppressed middle class
opinions, suggesting that Australian culture was being destroyed by Asian and
Arab immigration and that Aborigines were the undeserving and ungrateful
recipients of an unfair share of government welfare money. As Peter Gale
suggests, Hanson’s arguments depend upon a naturalised assumption of “ordinary
whiteness”; an assumption that the ordinary, hard working citizen is a white
Christian who loves and is proud of, not ashamed of, their country (Gale 2000:
266). Lydon has also pointed out how Hanson promoted a view of culture as a
unified national “essence” and of the past as shared and consensual (Lydon 2000:
96).
New understandings of the past (in this case the recognition of dispossession and
colonial violence) obviously challenge the self-perceptions of individuals who
locate their values and identity in that past. Despite decades of critical research,
revisionist history and alternative myth making, it appears that the traditional
national stereotypes continue to be enthusiastically regenerated (Figure 1.1). The
bushman for instance, which as I will go on to discuss was idealised by Henry
Lawson and the Bulletin writers of the 1890s. He was first described as a unique
Australian “character” in Russell Ward’s 1958 The Australian Legend, but this
Nationalism and the Past 39
character continues to be associated with not only modern day bushmen like
Crocodile Dundee (1986), but also, in the economics saturated 1980s, with the
larrikin corporate raider, Alan Bond (Turner 1994: 26). Libby Robin has also
convincingly argued that the wholesome dream of rural life created by the 1890s
Bulletin writers, has been regenerated in the guise of the spiritually restorative
“wilderness”, which all Australians need to connect with to really belong (Robin
1998).
The current Prime Minister John Howard’s 1996 Sir Robert Menzies Lecture was
couched in terms fundamentally suspicious of the agenda of revisionist history:
“I have spoken tonight of the need to guard against the re-writing of Australian
political history... There is of course, a related and broader challenge involved.
And that is to ensure that our history as a nation is not written definitively by
those who take the view that Australians should apologise for most of it”
(Howard 1996: 13).
Attwood claims that the incorporation of Aboriginal history into the national
narrative fundamentally challenges its legitimacy, therefore challenging the
foundations of nationhood (Attwood 1996b: 116). The Keating administration
(1991 –1996) had attempted to deal with this issue in its cultural policy Creative
Nation, which celebrated aspects of the traditional national mythology, but it stated
that urban life (rather than the bush) and multiculturalism (rather than Anglophilia
or jingoism) were just as important to contemporary Australian society. It went on
to state that: “the culture and identity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Australians has become an essential element of Australian identity, a vital
expression of who we all are” (Commonwealth of Australia 1994: 6). In contrast to
Keating, Howard disassociated himself from postmodern concepts of identity,
maintaining that:
“National identity develops in an organic way over time...social engineers should
not try to manipulate it or create a sense of crisis about identity.
It (Australian history) risks being further distorted if highly selective views of
Australian history are used as the basis for endless and agonised navel gazing
Nationalism and the Past 40
about who we are or, .... as part of a perpetual seminar for elite opinion about
our national identity” (Howard 1996: 13).
Here Howard calls upon the perceived anti-intellectual bias of Australian culture to
associate himself with ordinary people, “the battlers” and against what he calls the
“elite navel gazers”. Howard suggested that revisionist intellectuals had presented
Australian children with a depressing “story of imperialism, exploitation, racism,
sexism and other forms of discrimination” and in reply to this statement, leading
“revisionist” historian Henry Reynolds said:
“John Howard is looking back to his comfortable memories of the 1950s. He is
on record as saying that Australia does not have a racist, bigoted history. That
represents the greatest degree of historical revisionism possible” (Sydney
Morning Herald 20/11/96)
Where have these current debates I have just outlined come from? As Reynolds
alluded to in the quotation above, there has been a perceived fragmentation in the
meaning of nation in Australia since the 1950s. I will now go back in time to
outline what some of these changes have been and also look at the discourses
which have been fundamental to nationalist constructions of identity and the past. “The New Nationalism”
A revival in popular and scholarly interest in all aspects of Australian history and
culture in the 1960s and 70s saw the emergence of an array of contested discourses
concerning nation and identity. The reasons for this revival are complex, but events
such as the withdrawal from the Vietnam War, the collapse of the White Australia
Policy, and the 1973 Federal Commission to advise on Aboriginal land rights, all
signal challenges to colonial order and structure in Australia. In the late 1960s the
term “the new nationalism” came into use to describe this re-engagment with the
meaning of Australia, the desire to replace tired old symbols of the bush and
mateship with more urbane, intellectual and modern images. Donald Horne
suggested that the 1970s mining boom had a significant effect on the way in which
the world status of Australia was imagined, causing the irony of the title of his
Nationalism and the Past 41
1964 book, The Lucky Country, to be almost totally forgotten and the phrase
introduced into everyday speech as a truism (Horne 1981). Horne suggested that
the mining boom, in the context of post-war prosperity, seemed to represent a
move into a new industrialised era for Australia, when the notion of a nation
“riding on the sheep’s back” could finally be replaced with a more sophisticated
image. The election of the Whitlam Labor government in 1972, with its reform
agenda, interest in Asia and focus on cultural development, saw many Australians
believing they were on the verge of a new era. As Alomes points out, Australian
society did not change overnight, but “the rhetoric of change” was certainly a
feature of political discourse at that time (Alomes 1988: 251).
This period of enthusiastic national identity renovation also saw the influence of
postmodernist deconstruction in scholarship. Intellectuals were interested in
breaking down the monolithic, colonial character of Australian national identity
and revealing the interests it had served over time (White 1981). Feminists sought
not only to challenge national identity constructions as masculinist, but also to
secure women a role in nation building and greater power in contemporary social
and political life (Dixson 1976; Summers 1975; Lake 1986; Lake 1992). In 1958
Russell Ward had distilled the accumulated myths about national identity into the
following description of the typical Australian:
“…he is a practical man, rough and ready in his manners and quick to decry any
appearance of affectation in others. He is a great improviser, ever willing to have
a go at anything, but willing too to be content with a task done in a way that is
near enough. Though capable of great exertion in an emergency, he normally
feels no impulse to work hard without good cause. He is a hard case, skeptical
about the value of religion and of intellectual and cultural pursuits generally. He
believes that Jack is not only as good as his master but, at least in principle,
probably a good deal better... He is a fiercely independent person who hates
officiousness and authority yet he is very hospitable and above all will stick to his
mates through thick and thin He swears hard and consistently, gambles heavily
and often, and drinks deeply on occasion” (Ward 1958: 1-2).
Nationalism and the Past 42
Ward’s typical Australian was not only exclusively male, but also preferred
masculine company and the freedom of the bachelor life. Aboriginal women, as
casual sexual partners, had served, in Russell Ward’s view, to “keep the sodomy
out of mateship” and while black and white women were generally absent from
constructions of national identity, their historical characterisation had been
according to sexual stereotypes: Anne Summer’s “damned whores and God’s
police” (McGrath 1997: 40). Some feminists rejected the nation altogether as an
“imagined fraternity”, urging women’s voices into a counter-nationalist,
internationalist discourse (Reekie 1992).
Contrasting with the deconstructionists, more conservative intellectuals, politicians
and the media participated in the cultural revival in a different way: celebration. In
attacking White Australia’s greatest social malaise, “the cultural cringe”, a new
discourse of pride in Australian achievements was encouraged (Phillips 1950).
A.A. Phillips was one of a number of critics who revisited Australian literature
from the 1890s and promoted it as an authentically Australian tradition. Although
the “bush stereotypes” had lost some of their appeal in the new cultural
sophistication of the 1960s, pride in Australian acheivements was a central theme
in nationalist discourse (Horne 1981). This celebratory discourse could be found in
many arenas: advertising, political rhetoric, film and literature (Turner 1994). A
distinctive form developed in the heritage industry. After the flurry of legislation
creation and institutional development of the 1960s and 70s, the heritage industry
received a huge boost in terms of funds and personnel in the 1980s, leading up to
Bicentennial celebrations (Davison 1991a; Healy 1997: 2). In a similar way,
environmental conservation movements embarked upon celebrations of Australian
bio-diversity with nationalistic fervour (Morton and Smith 1999).
Nationalism and the Past 43
Colonialism and Race: Aborigines and the Nation
If a decolonising process can be seen to have begun in Australia in the 1960s and
1970s, then the perpetuation and regeneration of the images of colonial nationalism
gives some credence to Smith’s argument for nationalism’s tendency to re-invent,
rather than create anew (Smith 1986). However rather than the concept of ethnicity
upon which Smith focuses as the essential cultural basis for nationalism, the
Australian nation has been defined in terms of “race”, from which culture and
ethnicity were seen as essential derivatives. Despite Prime Minister John Howard’s
rejection of the opinion that we (Australians) have a “racist, bigoted past”, nothing
in fact could be clearer (Curthoys 1999a; Langton 1999). Colonial ideologies are
based upon concepts of racial superiority, this belief both enables the possession of
land occupied by so-called “primitives”, and also compels the progressive,
modernising mission of the colonialist (Attwood 1996b). The ebullient,
nationalistic rhetoric of the 1890s and the period of Federation (1901), clearly
established national unity on the basis of race, defined as essentially white and
British. For instance the slogan for the Bulletin Newspaper, “Australia for the
White Man”, clearly identified Aborigines and Asians as unAustralian. One of the
first acts of the newly federated nation in 1901 was to pass legislation that became
the basis for the White Australia Policy, which was designed to stop all non-
European immigration. This policy persisted until 1966 (Curthoys 1999b).
While nationalism in 19th and 20th century Australia may have at times been anti-
imperial, it has rarely been anti-colonial, and this is why the Mabo High Court
decision of 1992, which overturned the doctrine of terra nullius which is discussed
a little further on, has been construed by a range of intellectuals as the most
significantly anti-colonial event in the history of the nation (Rowse 1993; Attwood
1996b). The greatest challenge to the legitimacy of the Australian nation came
from the actions and influences of the Aboriginal rights movements. As well as
overt political actions and protests, Aboriginal histories and pre-histories,
published from the late 1960s, had a cumulative impact on community attitudes
Nationalism and the Past 44
(see for instance Mulvaney 1969; Rowley 1970; this early literature is reviewed in
Broome 1996). While Aboriginal groups developed their own anti-colonial and
sometimes anti-state nationalisms, an appropriative discourse of indigenisation
emerged in main stream nationalist discourse. For example Lattas discusses a
“redemptionist discourse”, whereby the alienated settler is redeemed through a
spiritual connection with the land via Aboriginal culture (Lattas 1990). This is
most clearly seen as emerging in the cultural policy of the Keating government, in
particular Creative Nation, mentioned earlier, which set out a clear program for
reconciliation to proceed on the basis of the integration of Aboriginal identity into
national identity. Like all identity constructs this raised issues of essentialism, in
this case the concept of the timeless, unchanging character of Aboriginal culture,
profoundly linked with the land and particularly with remote, outback landscapes.
Multiculturalism
In the 19th century Australian settlers came predominately from Britain and
Ireland, over 160,000 arriving as convicts until this practice finally ceased in
1868. Free immigrants were also predominantly English, Scottish and Irish,
although some Europeans, especially Germans, thought to be culturally and
racially closest to the British, were encouraged. Chinese immigration, largely
associated with the gold rushes of the 1850s and 60s, caused immense social
debate in the late 19th century and was eventually restricted by the White
Australia Policy from 1901 (Curthoys 1999b). However, despite this
predominance of settlers of Anglo-Celtic heritage, the settler group should still
be considered as ethnically, religiously and politically diverse (Melleuish
1998:10). Miriam Dixson has construed the British “thread of kinship”, as an
expression of an “Anglo-Celtic ethnicity” which has formed the core of the
national community and its institutions. However the reality of a strongly
perceived, shared ethnicity amongst the white settler group as a whole seems
unlikely in view of the stronger divisions of class and religion.
Identification as British, and as a part of a great empire, was obviously a solid
basis upon which to define the identity of Australians at the time of Federation
Nationalism and the Past 45
and through the first part of the 20th century. If a concept of “ethnicity” cannot
be said to be shared, then the events of the First World War indicate that the
“imagined community” for white Australia was indeed the British Empire. The
Great War was followed by an upsurge of imperial feeling and allegiance to
Britain, which seems to have had the effect of blurring the memory of the ethnic
diversity of the 19th century population (Docker 1992).
Post war migration radically changed the ethnic composition of Australian
society. Since the late 1940s there has been a steady widening of the countries-
of-origin of immigrants, including large intakes from Asian countries such as
Vietnam and Hong Kong since the 1970s. In 1999 24% of the population had
been born overseas, while a further 27% had at least one parent born overseas
(ABS 1999).
This has engendered a diverse society which struggles in search of appropriate
expressions of cultural identity and national unity (Pettman 1992). Ghassan
Hage has argued that in contemporary multicultural discourse, ethnicity is
ascribed only to minorities, while the white, mainstream cultural identity is
completely nationalised (Hage 1998). Hage’s recent study of racism in
Australia, describes racism as a nationalist practice, enabled through deep
seated colonialist ideologies. Ann Curthoys has been quick to point out that
Australian multicultural discourse has also perpetuated these colonial
ideologies, and that all Australian immigrants are the “beneficiaries of a
colonial history” (Curthoys 1999b: 288). She points to the problems of a
dehistoricised multicultural discourse that casts indigenous claims for land as
just another problem of cultural diversity.
The perceived success of multiculturalism as a social policy, and the Mabo Land
Rights decision of 1992, led some to state that Australia was entering a post-
colonial, post-nationalist era. However the subsequent rise of Pauline Hanson’s
One Nation Party and John Howard’s criticism of “black armband history”, have
lead others to the conclusion that that particular celebration was premature (see
Nationalism and the Past 46
Castles, Kalantzis et al. 1988 and Gelder and Jacobs 1998, and contra see Curthoys
1999a; Curthoys 1999b, Hage 1998, Rose 1996).
In the absence of a common cultural legacy, the experience of place has been
described as central to identity constructions in settler societies (Ashcroft et al.
1995: 152). In Australia, the ideology of colonialism has constructed the land as
the prime object of desire, and it is the consequences of this desire that provides
the clearest basis for a community identity that is differentiated from that of the
Mother country (Schaffer 1988). In the final part of this chapter I will
concentrate on discourses which have configured understandings of landscape
and identity within the context of narratives and representations of Australia’s
past and Australian “culture”. These discourses have engendered a taken for
granted assumption that Australian identities are rooted in the landscape and
environment of the continent. This assumption, as I will go on to argue, is
integral to contemporary heritage discourse, and has been involved in
structuring narratives of the national past in distinctive ways.
Landscape and National Identity
As opposed to Dixson’s core ethnicity theory, Davison suggests that it is
ambivalence and confusion about a core culture which leads to Australian
nationalism being so focussed on the land, and to the expressions of national
“character” being seen as a product of the Australian environment (quoted in
Attwood 1996b and see Davison 1978). In her comparison of bicentennial
commemorations in Australia (1988) and the United States (1976), Lyn Spillman
has pointed out how central the landscape was to expressions of national identity in
the Australian celebrations. This contrasted markedly with the United States where
the land had formed only ‘a minor part of the symbolic repertoire’. She also noted
that the Australian land was more important in national iconography in 1988 than it
had been in the centennial celebrations of the previous century (Spillman 1997:
125).
Nationalism and the Past 47
Settling Australia was an imaginary as well as a physical process. The culture of
the settlers provided the forms and descriptions through which the landscape was
given a meaning and shape that was comprehensible to them. Representations of
landscape in the Australian imagination have constructed a powerful discourse
through which the landscape, and human behavior within it, has subsequently been
understood. This “landscape discourse” has, and continues to be, central in the
narrative construction of the Australian settler nation and its past. In particular, the
landscape is seen as a determinant of not only the course of colonial history, but
also of the distinctive characteristics of national identity. The construct of the
Australian environment as hostile, and as the opponent in the battle to establish the
nation, still persists as a fundamental tension in Australian society (Gibson 1993,
Griffiths and Robin 1997, Lattas 1990). This idea contributes structure and
rationale to the Australian mythologies of pioneers and explorers. In seeing the
settlers as alienated from the Australian environment, Lattas claims a prime
conceptual site for the construction of national identity is created (Lattas 1990).
Traditionally in the national canon, Aborigines have been seen as either irrelevant,
as in the genre of national history before the 1960s, or as part of the environment.
In more recent decades, Aboriginal spirituality and connection to the land has
served as a “model” for postcolonial forms of belonging. Although the last decades
of the twentieth century saw new imaginings of the nation and its postcolonial
future, the land remains absolutely central.
Landscape discourse has been an essential component of what has been termed an
“Australian cultural tradition” (Schaffer 1988:4). In this analysis I am less
concerned with critiquing the basis in reality of these ideas concerning landscape
and identity, than with understanding the way in which they have operated within
culture generally as discourses or self perpetuating codes of meaning (Foucault
1972; Schaffer 1988). It is important to point out that landscape discourse is not
only a set of ideas about the landscape but also about settler men and women, who
are constructed in various roles in opposition to it; about history, which is seen as a
result of it; and about Aborigines, who are viewed as part of it. In studies of
Australian cultural traditions the term “landscape” is used very broadly and may
Nationalism and the Past 48
cover a grab bag of concepts from the biophysical environment, to a natural
backdrop in films and literature, or the more specific genre of landscape painting
(see for instance Hodge and Mishra 1990, Gibson 1993 and Schaffer 1988).
Generally the term is used to describe representations of nature. Nature in this
context is the opposite to culture, and in the Australian settler context, the enemy
of culture and the opponent of civilization (Gibson 1993: 212). Griffiths suggests
that “the competing realities of geography and history, land and culture, have stood
for a fundamental, persistent tension between origins and environment in
Australian life.” (Griffiths and Robin 1997: 11). For the purposes of definition
however, it is important to note here that the archaeological understanding of
landscape, as both a cultural palimpsest and a culturally received perception of
place, cannot simply be overlaid upon concepts of “landscape” in Australian
culture generally. In Australian cultural and historical literature, the term
“landscape” is used interchangeably with “land”, “country”, “nature”,
“environment” and “place”.
A so-called Australian “cultural tradition” was first referred to as such by A. A
Phillips in his 1950s study of Australian literature (Phillips 1958). Phillip’s peers
were sceptical of both the worth and validity of this tradition, which he linked
solidly to the nationalistic texts of the 1890s. However, since the 1950s there has
been an expanding number of texts which have sought to define and explain a
tradition which in some way is seen to define national character. Graeme Turner’s
National Fictions (1986) took this examination in a new direction by positing that
the meanings produced by and through this cultural tradition actually create
imaginary relationships between Australian people and the situation in which we
now live. This is to say that we understand our environment, and our past, through
imagining it in terms of the symbolic vocabulary we inherit from our cultural
context, what Bourdieu has termed the habitus. As I discussed earlier, it is this idea
which is so useful in understanding how these received understandings are used to
evaluate and structure new experiences in day to day life, or to circumscribe the
possibilities for representations of the past. Both Turner and Schaffer point out that
the constant reconfirmation of nationalist concepts which are represented in myths
Nationalism and the Past 49
or narratives have the effect of actually creating “ a reality they appear to describe”
(Schaffer 1988: 171).
Terra Nullius:The Land as Empty
“It was the fearful loneliness of the place that most affected her - the absence of
ghosts. Till they arrived no other lives had been lived here. It made the air that
much thinner, harder to breathe. She had not understood, till she came to a place
where it was lacking, the extent to which her sense of the world had to do with the
presence of those who had been here before, leaving signs of their passing and
spaces still warm with breath - a threshold worn with the coming and going of
feet, hedges between fields that went back a thousand years, and the names even
further; most of all, the names on the headstones, which were their names, under
which lay the bones that had made their bones and given them breath” (Malouf
1994: 110).
This passage from David Malouf’s novel Remembering Babylon, is an eloquent
illustration of this process. Malouf describes how a settler from Scotland felt about
her surroundings on a remote Queensland farm in the late 19th century. He
catalogues what is absent from the place: the features of the European landscape
which represented her cultural identity and from which she could derive meaning.
Malouf’s settlers do see the land as empty and threatening, and this is based on the
European perception that property involves improvement and exploitation of
resources rather than simply living with the land as the Aborigines were seen to do
(Fletcher 1997). The novel in fact employs a conceit in which Aborigines were
literally invisible to the settlers, as invisible as the ecological balance of the land
which they struggled to make more like “home”. Malouf’s phrase “the absence of
ghosts” describes the cultural basis of the concept of terra nullius, a land belonging
to no-one, in the minds of some Australian settlers. Their culturally received
perception of the Australian landscape as hostile and without a human dimension,
results in a constant and unhappy emphasis on survival and on the hardships
associated with changing or battling the land to conform to their understanding of
civilization and progress. It also results in the formation of a group identity based
primarily upon fear of their opponents: nature or the environment, and Aborigines
Nationalism and the Past 50
as nature’s strange envoys in human form (Fletcher 1997: 176). Malouf reminds us
that although “imagined”, the results of this psychological battle are still real, and
that we live with its political and social consequences today: with the reality the
myth has created.
Terra nullius was the legal description of the concept that the continent of
Australia was vacant, unimproved territory, owned by no-one, before the
possession of the land by the British, a concept which was finally overthrown by
the High Court of Australia’s Mabo land rights decision in 1992 (Reynolds 1996).
The idea of terra nullius is crucial to the foundational histories and popular
understandings of Australia as a nation of settlers rather than conquerors. Although
no longer upheld by law, it remains deeply embedded within Australian culture,
from beliefs about pioneers and settler identity through to understandings of the
land, nature and so-called “wilderness” (Langton 1995). Recent studies have
attempted to assess the significance of terra nullius, and its subsequent overturning
in the Mabo decision, to Australian settler culture and national identity, through a
consideration of how it has operated within various fields of discourse such as
colonial history, science, politics, literature and the archaeology of Aboriginal
Australia (see for instance Attwood 1996; Hodge and Mishra 1990; Murray 1996d;
Griffiths and Robin 1997; Gelder and Jacobs 1998).
Attwood has shown how a philosophical rationale for the colonisation or invasion
of Australia in 1788, was in part provided by the Scottish Enlightenment
philosophers, such as Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson, who expounded an
influential theory of the evolution of human society (Attwood 1996a). This four-
phase explanation saw hunter-gatherers as the first stage in a natural evolution that
concluded with commerce and empire. Hunter-gatherers, they proposed, had no
conception of property and so their lands were deemed desert or waste, that is terra
nullius. Interest in cultural evolution was one of the scientific rationales for the
journeys of exploration into the Pacific:
Nationalism and the Past 51
“The Moral Philosopher... who loves to trace the advances of his species... draws
from voyages ands travels the facts from which he is to deduce his conclusions
respecting the social, intellectual and moral progress of Man” (Jacques Julien de
Labillardiere 1800, quoted in Dixon 1986: 6).
These journeys were therefore conceived of as travel into the ancient past that
could be used to complete knowledge of “the history of man”. Within this
framework Aborigines were conceived of as living in a different time from the
Europeans: a time before History. Attwood has analysed the implications of the
epistemological framework of the European discourse of history for both the act of
colonisation and the subsequent construction of Australian colonial history
(Attwood 1996a). European historical discourse, following Enlightenment and
evolutionary thinking, aligns time with progress in an inevitable linear progression.
This discursive alignment formed part of the mental framework that enabled the
British to see the Australian landscape as wilderness and available for possession.
Attwood therefore claims that “History was not only the colonisers’ discourse; it
was also a colonising one” (Attwood 1996a: viii). Colonisation, and its attendants:
Christianity, civilization and progress, therefore enabled history to begin on a
continent where time, in European terms, had previously been meaningless.
In 1828 Sir Thomas Mitchell was appointed as Surveyor General of New South
Wales. A man of great energy, Mitchell saw his mission as translating these tracts
of wilderness into an intellectually defined object, through a process of survey and
naming. Benedict Anderson has pointed to the significance of mapping as a way in
which the colonial state “imagined its dominion” (Anderson 1983). The concept of
terra nullius is central to understanding this process of exploration and mapping in
Australia. The declaration of terra nullius constructs this task as “exploration” of
unknown, untouched land, rather than as “travel” through exotic cultures and
places. The task was therefore conceived of as purely geographical, not one that
involved mapping the boundaries or territories constructed by the indigenous
people. Mitchell undertook extensive journeys of exploration in Eastern Australia
in order to lay the framework for imperial possession. His exploration diaries detail
how each expedition was lead by Aboriginal guides who negotiated with the
Nationalism and the Past 52
various tribes encountered along the way. Although Mitchell records daily
encounters with different groups of Aboriginal people he was nevertheless able to
write that he saw “a country which is yet in the same state as it was when formed
by its maker… A land so inviting, and still without inhabitants” (Lines 1991: 71).
Mitchell named the lush valleys of Victoria ‘Australia Felix’ and wrote:
“Of this Eden I was the only Adam; and it was indeed a sort of paradise to me,
permitted thus to be the first to explore its mountains and streams – to behold its
scenery –to investigate its geological character – and finally, by my survey, to
develop those natural advantages, all still unknown to the civilised world…” (As
quoted in Bolton 1992: 1)
The Land as Hostile: Explorers and Pioneers
Mitchell and the early explorers wrote of Australia in rapturous terms, however as
settlement and exploration progressed, as explorers perished, and farmers
experienced drought, the land came to be seen as harsh and threatening. As early as
1849, when Charles Sturt published an account of his failed journey to locate an
inland sea in the center of the continent, visions of rapture are replaced with a
perception of the continent as inhospitable to civilization (Gibson 1996: 92). But
the dangerous and threatening character of the land was to become constructed as
the test of Empire and the test from which Australian manhood would emerge
ennobled:
“To successfully plant a young Colony…. Seems to require special qualities,
physical, moral and intellectual, which are possessed in their highest form by the
Anglo-Saxon people. It is a small matter to supplant the Aboriginal inhabitants of
a barbarous country and to secure possession of their land… It is battling with
Nature, conquering the soil, holding on against capricious seasons, fighting with
the elements and compelling the earth to yield…” (William Harcus’ 1876
emigration guide quoted in Schaffer 1988: 84).
Surveyors and explorers were popular figures in 19th century Australia, their
journeys often funded through public subscriptions (Hodge and Mishra 1990: 157)
Nationalism and the Past 53
(Figure 1.2). Explorers both acted for the imperial mission while also embodying
its notions of racially superior manhood (Schaffer 1988: 84). Their failure or death
became a metaphor for the “devastating human consequences of life in Australia”
(Hodge and Mishra 1990: 161).
Hancock’s 1938 history Australia is a crucial text in establishing, and giving
academic authority to, a nationalist history connecting the land with national
character. Hancock’s history is centrally concerned with land settlement and the
pastoral industry as the instrument of colonial possession. The battle for possession
is the battle to establish European agricultural systems in the Australian
environment. The enemy in this battle is therefore nature, not international trade,
economic depression or the inequities of the colonial administration (Schaffer
1988: 87). Failure on the land, through drought, bushfire and flood, came to be
seen as the mythical forge for national character. The settler’s failure in material
terms is compensated by the spiritual benefits of pioneering strength, stoicism, and
love of the land, love of the nation.
The bushman and the bush as the “essence” of Australia
The 1890s have been constructed through later history writing as the decade in
which a true national culture was crystallized. By this time seventy percent of the
settler population was Australian born and the six colonies were instigating the
process of federation which lead to the creation of the continent nation in
1901(Byrne 1996). Australian writers, artists, journalists and politicians began to
consciously articulate descriptions of a unique national character at this time, using
imagery which remains current and influential in the 1990s. The results of the
settler experience became essentialized in the myth of the “bushman”. His
character is the sum result of his relationship with the unique Australian landscape
(Figure 1.3,4).
Henry Lawson’s stories and poems are the best known of this genre. One form of
the bush hero beloved by Lawson is the swagman, an out-of-work man who
Nationalism and the Past 54
wandered the roads of rural Australia carrying nothing but his swag, or bed roll.
Lawson writes “The Australian swag was born of Australia and no other land – of
the Great Lone Land of magnificent distances and bright heat: the land of Self-
reliance and Never give in and Help your mate” (as quoted in Hodge and Mishra
1990: 153). This sentence is a distillation of Lawson’s ideology of the bush clearly
articulating how facets of the environment, distance, isolation and harsh climate,
shape a unique Australian character which is built on masculine, egalitarian
mateship.
The main aspect to note about the myth of the bushman is that its most famous
exponents were a group of urban writers and the magazine the Bulletin, which was
a mouthpiece for the urban liberal bourgeois against the interests of powerful rural
pastoralists. In contrast to the myths of settlement discussed above, which are more
centrally concerned with the process of imperial possession, the bush myths link
more strongly with these nationalist, democratic ideologies. At the time of the
creation of this representation, as is still the case now, the overwhelming majority
of the Australian population lived in a few cities on the eastern seaboard. The bush
or the land is used as an allegory for the masculine freedom that was the political
agenda of the writers. However this allegorical function of the bush within the
political context of the 1890s, is a largely forgotten aspect of this construction as it
has been reproduced throughout the 20th century as a key aspect of national
identity.
The bush myth has also been constituted through, and perpetuated by, landscape
art. In particular the images of the Heidelburg School of the 1880s and 1890s,
remain icons in Australian culture today (Figure 1.4). These landscape images,
often employing a heroic figure dwarfed by open surroundings, so dominated
Australian art that they lead prominent art historian Bernard Smith to state in 1976
that “This preoccupation with landscape has been largely responsible for the
creation and maintenance of a false consciousness of what it is to be Australian”
(Hodge & Mishra 1990: 143). The idea that national character is a result of our, or
our ancestor’s, experience of the bush and its hardships, still pervades Australian
Nationalism and the Past 55
culture today, exemplified in recent films such as Crocodile Dundee (1986), The
Man from Snowy River (1982), and even Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994).
Libby Robin has recently pointed out how the meaning of the ‘bush’ in national
culture has changed since the 1970s. The value of a rural life on the frontier, as
conceived of by the Bulletin writers, has transmuted into the concept of the
spiritually restorative ‘wilderness’, required as an escape for suburban Australians
from ‘economy and history’ (Robin 1998: 123). Of particular interest in Robin’s
work in this context is her argument that current meanings of ‘bush’ and
‘wilderness’, associated with the environmental conservation movement, have
been developed through the power and meaning of the earlier bush myths,
revitalizing in some ways their ongoing centrality in national culture.
No place for a woman
“A country is a jealous mistress and patriotism is commonly an exclusive
passion: but it is not impossible for Australians, nourished by a glorious
literature and haunted by old memories, to be in love with two soils” (Hancock
1930: 51).
The texts and representations which created the bush myth, and which were so self
consciously designed to express the emergence of a new national culture, are also
pervaded by a description of gender relations which continued to resonate in
Australian culture in the 20th century (Rowley 1993: 186). If the bushman has
represented the nation, then the nation’s “Other” has been seen as the land or the
body of Australia itself. Analysts of nationalism have outlined how the nation
develops conceptions of itself in opposition to a perceived Other, an object which
may be simultaneously both desired and despised. In Australian nationalist
traditions the Other can take many forms, it may be Britain, it may be Aborigines
or Asians, but frequently the Other is the landscape itself. The linguistic
signification of Australia as mother, and the land as the body of a woman, was
studied in detail in a ground-breaking analysis published by Kay Schaffer in 1988.
In essence, it is the colonialist framework of desire, to possess, master and tame,
which casts the object of this desire, the land, in a feminine role. Historical rhetoric
Nationalism and the Past 56
of the 19th and early 20th centuries constantly eroticises the love/hate relationship
between the settlers and the land. The explorers “lift her veils of mystery” and
penetrate the vast recesses of the interior. In contrast to the benevolent European
construction of Mother Earth, Australia is often personified as a “witch mother”,
experimenting with her helpless victims.
The implication of this discourse, which casts the nation as masculine and its
“Other” as feminine, is that women as subjects are almost totally absent from
constructions of national identity. In the 1970s Anne Summers and Miriam Dixson
initiated an ongoing analysis into what they considered was an ethos of subtle
contempt for women which pervaded the Australian cultural tradition (Summers
1975; Dixson 1976). As I have suggested, the bushman is a loner, just a man and
the wide-open spaces. Freedom is paramount, as is loyalty to his mates, the ties of
the family can be construed as the antithesis to this freedom. Significantly, the
bush myth casts the battle with the land as establishing the territory of the nation.
This creates an inherent tension between the ties of wife and family and nation
building work. As Sue Rowley has pointed out, when women are present in bush
literature, their labour is not marked on the land, but on their own bodies, which
Henry Lawson habitually described as “gaunt” and “haggard”: “these women are
positioned not as the heroes of the battle, but as its casualties” (Rowley 1993: 188).
This construction has since been the subject of much historical explanation. It has
lead to an overwhelming focus on bush work, mineral prospecting, droving,
pastoralism and so on, as the work that made the nation. Revisionist historians
have successfully “discovered” women in the past and included them in popular
historical accounts, however the ongoing power of this discourse, which
establishes a relationship between men and the national territory based on
patriarchal gender relations, continues to resonate in Australian national life
(Reekie 1992: 17).
Nationalism and the Past 57
Conclusions: Nationalism and the Past.
It is into this fragmented field of debate about the nation, identity and Australia’s
past that this study of historical archaeology, heritage and nationalism, from the
1960s to the present, must venture. Nationalist discourse has changed and
fragmented in this period, and representations of the past have played a crucial
role. There have been competing versions of Australian nationalism, expressed by
conservatives, left wingers, feminists, Aborigines, multiculturalists, monarchists
and republicans, to name just the most obvious.
Richard White has claimed that for many Australian intellectuals, culture has been
explicable only in national terms: that in Australia, culture is synonymous with
national culture (White 1997:16). It is indeed difficult to think outside this elision
of nation, culture and history in Australia, partly because of the clarity and
“naturalness” of the national geographical boundaries. However, the political
history of that national boundary shows that it has been created, just as the highly
contested national boundaries of Europe and the Levant have (White 1998). White
claims that the tasks of writing the political history of the nation, the social history
of nationalism, and the history of idealised concepts about the nation, have often
been confused and have failed to tease out the meanings of the Australian nation
from more complex contexts of global cultural and economic interactions, local
conflicts and multiple identities. Revisionist Australian history has shown that
what the nation has imagined itself to be at various times, did not reflect the sum of
experiences, identities and histories of the people encompassed by the political
construct of the nation state (see for instance Dixson 1976, McQueen 1970;
Summers 1975, White 1981, Lake 1986; Lake 1992, Curthoys 1993; Curthoys
1997, Reynolds 1987). To write the fullest history of what has gone on in this
place, the geographical space called Australia, White suggests historians write
against the concept of national history which takes the nation not only as its
subject of analysis but also its teleological dynamic. This has been attempted by,
for instance, Paul Carter in The Road to Botany Bay and Ross Gibson in South of
Nationalism and the Past 58
the West (Carter 1987; Gibson 1992). Both texts attempt to destabilise the elision
of nation and continent by deconstructing the narratives of settlement and
discovery which have played such a central role in national history. While writing
the nation out of colonial history is an essential corrective in Australian
historiography, the period of my case study is one where it is appropriate to
interrogate more closely the intersection between nationalism and cultural practice,
in particular fields that generate representations of the past in the present, like
archaeology and heritage.
It is significant that current studies of “postcolonial belonging” in Australia,
perpetuate the concept of landscape as the location and inspiration for a cultural
understanding of identity (Read 2000). The land remains central to constructions of
the nation, masking conflicts which are really about community, identity and
power. The land is the central focus of Aboriginal rights movements, and this
threat to the legitimacy of settler possession, as Ann Curthoys has pointed out,
appears to be yet another battle for the battle weary settlers. The “average Aussie
battler” cannot see themselves as the beneficiaries of colonialism, because they see
themselves primarily as victims; of governments, larger nations, trade wars and of
a harsh, obdurate continent that gives up nothing without a fight. Curthoys argues
that this victim mentality continues to form a significant structuring device in the
historical narratives of Australians of British and Irish descent (Curthoys 1999a).
In an often quoted passage Benedict Anderson asked “But why do nations
celebrate their hoariness and not their astonishing youth?” (Anderson quoted in
Bhabha 1990a: 293). The traditional narratives of the Australian nation started time
in 1770 at the place of Botany Bay, with the “discovery” of a new continent by
Captain Cook. In the recent opening ceremony for the 2000 Olympic Games in
Sydney a new, but older and deeper narrative for the Australian nation was
performed that was acclaimed throughout the community. It began with a
“Dreaming”, attaching 50,000 years of Aboriginal culture onto the national
narrative. It stood as a timeless, mythical introduction to national history. The
national narrative seemed to easily unfold from a beginning in dreams, through a
Nationalism and the Past 59
colonial adventure and into a finale of colourful multiculturalism. Archaeology and
history have enabled the Australian nation to bury its roots more deeply on the
Australian continent. But as I shall argue this has not been any simple co-option of
research for political purposes. In fact it is a process which has not been national,
but has been involved in transnational discourses of preservation, heritage,
archaeology and identity. The nation is constructed, and deconstructed, within a
complex, hybridising, global social reality.
Chapter 2
Relationships within Culture: Archaeology, Nationalism and Identity
“... an ethnography of two discourses that feed off each other” (Handler 1988:9).
Recent debates in the Australian community draw upon different versions of the
past to support different visions for the future of the nation. This encourages
archaeologists to ask questions about the political implications of their research
and the way it participates in these issues of importance to the community. In this
chapter I will explore how similar kinds of questions have been approached by
archaeologists working in the recent Anglo-American tradition. How have they
characterised the relationship between archaeology and nationalism? What kinds
of problems have they identified; what strategies have they suggested for the future
of archaeological research; and what are the relevance or utility of these ideas in
the Australian context? The archaeological literature presents a wide range of
opinions on the depth to which cultural and historical contingencies permeate the
constitution of archaeological evidence and its interpretation, and on the real
significance of the social context of archaeological practice. However, there does
appear to be consensus amongst commentators that an important relationship does
in fact exist between nationalism and archaeology. The nature and implications of
this relationship have however, been explained in very different terms depending
upon the theoretical and philosophical orientation of the archaeologists involved.
In Chapter One I argued for the value of an approach to nationalism as a cultural
“artefact” constituted through discourse, governance strategies, and social
practices as deployed by competent social actors. I also suggested, following
Thomas’ concept of an ‘ethnography of colonialist projects’, that localised,
historicised analyses are necessary both to apprehend the productive complexity of
63
Relationships within Culture 64
culturally enmeshed nationalist projects, as well as to contextualise nationalism
within other global and local cultural discourses (Thomas 1994). It is possible to
focus on archaeology, as a disciplinary or knowledge project, in the same way
(Foucault 1972). Just as nationalism can be seen as a complex of cultural strategies
defining identity, so archaeological discourses, practices and institutions constitute
disciplinary identity(ies), objects of knowledge and power structures. This kind of
critique of archaeological practice is situated within the intellectual framework of
postmodernism, particularly the work of Foucault, which encourages a questioning
of foundational, “objective” categories of knowledge. I have already discussed
some of the ways in which nationalist and historical discourses are distinctive and
specific expressions of cultural modernity, and how nationalism and historical
consciousness are not separate areas of thought and practice, but mutually
entangled and mutually constitutive discursive formations. The implications of
such claims has lead some archaeologists, such as Bruce Trigger, to put special
emphasis on the role of the “archaeological record” as a material, objective
constraint upon archaeological interpretations, and also upon the ability of
archaeology, as a discipline, to progress as it accumulates more and more data
towards a fuller picture of the past. Yannis Hamilakis, on the other hand has
responded with suggestions for new research foci for archaeology: “I would argue
that the constructions and negotiations of national identity in everyday life and the
deployment of the material past in these processes should be one of our main
prorities for research” (Hamilakis 2000: 242). I agree with Hamilakis that the kinds
of insights provided by Foucault’s histories of ideas and critiques of knowledge
and power, do not imply a collapse of archaeology into paralysing relativism. On
the contrary these open up rich, new and philosophically demanding research areas
concerning identity, the past and material culture. Hamilakis’ approach is however
somewhat exceptional in the field of archaeology. This is because most critiques of
archaeology and nationalism continue to focus only on politics and the authority of
the state, implying that an objective archaeological practice is possible without
these influences (Hamilakis 2000: 242). They fail to adequately contextualise the
inter-relationships between these areas of thought and practice at the level at which
Relationships within Culture 65
cultures constitute knowledge and the discourses and structures through which
reality is apprehended.
Archaeology and the State:
British Archaeology after World War II:
An interesting starting point for this investigation of archaeology and nationalism
is a comparison of the views of two archaeologists who are often credited with a
global influence on the conduct of archaeology since World War Two: Graham
Clark and V. Gordon Childe (See for instance Trigger 1989, Daniel 1981;
Ucko1995a:5). In the following discussion of their views I argue that, despite their
opposing visions for the future of archaeology, both conceptualised the
relationship between archaeology and nationalism as occurring in two main forms:
one was the “internal danger” posed by idealism and historicism, operating
through the theoretical positions adopted by archaeologists, to bias or skew
interpretations (Trigger 1996). The other form was the “external” direction of
archaeological research through alliances with the state, or with non-state bodies
which had nationalist, ethno-nationalist, or other political identity agendas. Recent
Anglo-American research continues to be centrally concerned with this essentially
dualistic concept of the relationship between archaeology and nationalism as a
“double edged sword” (Diaz-Andreu and Champion 1996; Kohl and Fawcett 1995;
Anthony 1996).
At the Conference of the Future of Archaeology held in London in 1943, Grahame
Clark and Gordon Childe, with their British colleagues, debated what should be the
appropriate relationship between archaeology and the state (Evans 1995). In his
analysis of the historical significance of this conference Evans contends that the
events of World War Two had convinced Clark that state organised archaeology
was a recipe for the nationalistic distortion of archaeological interpretation. Clark
had admired the efficiency of German state archaeology before the war, but he
later saw it as a way in which German archaeology had been controlled by the
Relationships within Culture 66
ideology of National Socialism. This post-war debate amongst British
archaeologists, argues Evans, was instrumental in giving form to the ideas
underlying Clark’s seminal work, World Prehistory, published in 1961. Clark felt
that the obvious influence of nationalism before and during the war had degraded
any sense of a common human experience. He also felt that education had a key
role to play in re-establishing a sense of the “solidarity of civilised men”. Clark
therefore argued that a prehistory concentrating on the “biological unity” of human
kind and on the universality of human experience, would avoid the nationalistic
bias and involvement in local politics, which he thought was inevitable in regional,
historicised archaeologies:
“Today men nurtured in their own parochial manners, beliefs, art conventions
and histories, and situated at the most diverse levels of economic and cultural
development find themselves caught up in a world that for a variety of reasons,
not least among them the possession of weapons of unparalleled power, cannot
long survive without a common sentiment and allegiance more positive than the
fear of mutual destruction. Modern science has created conditions under which
autonomous histories are not merely obsolete but even pernicious”(Clark1959:
12-13 quoted in Evans 1995:318).
Clark’s concept of a world prehistory reflected post-war idealism, supported by
economic prosperity, technological innovations such as radio carbon dating, and an
unassailed belief in objective, scientific truth. Clark saw objective science as the
essential counter to the nationally oriented prehistories which had characterised the
pre-war years (Evans 1995:320). He also sought to avoid the influences of
nationalism through situating his enquiry in the prehistoric past and concentrating
on movements of people around the globe, rather than on the depth of occupation
of present ethnic groups.
At the 1943 conference, Clark argued strongly against any state involvement at all
in directing archaeological research. This was in contrast to his colleagues
Jacquetta Hawkes and W.F. Grimes who claimed a need for both state regulation
of archaeological practice, of excavation in particular, and the creation of a
Relationships within Culture 67
centralised funding source with the ability to promote large scale projects. Further
state roles were envisaged in the form of a “National Artefact Card Index” and the
concept of a “planned archaeology” administered through the public service, rather
than an uncoordinated practice conducted through universities and non-
government, amateur bodies (Evans 1995:315). Clark argued strongly against these
ideas:
“Many speakers have stressed the National interest, but I would stress rather
International interest. In efficiency of method, pre-war Germany was exceedingly
far advanced. I myself have admired it for years. Card indexing, record, and so
on are all magnificent. We are years behind, but where has it led Germany, and
where would it lead us?” (Clarke quoted in Evans 1995:315).
Gordon Childe’s concern with nationalistic abuses of archaeology has also been
comprehensively reviewed (Trigger 1994:11; Trigger 1996:275; Murray 1996b:67)
and although Childe advocated a very different theoretical program to that of
Clark, he too focused on a concrete, objective, scientific archaeology as the most
effective counter to spurious or contrived interpretations developed to support
particular regimes. However Childe remained pragmatic regarding the state’s role
in the funding and organisation of ‘archaeological exploration’ as he put it, and on
the seemingly unavoidable link between modern national boundaries and the
manner in which antiquities were investigated (Evans 1995:318). Childe’s interest
remained in European prehistory and in the archaeological antecedents of modern
populations, and therefore he obviously did not share the antihistoricism of Clark’s
approach. As Murray points out, Childe believed that to deny the importance of
ethnic heritages was “spiritual suicide”, and that understandings of ethnic heritages
could be positive forces through the application of rational scientific and historical
analysis (Murray 1996b: 67).
Clark’s future theoretical program resulted, Evans claims, at least partially from a
desire to withdraw archaeology from interaction with the state and to create a solid
platform for prehistory in education, as a means of fostering a universal sense of
humanity. (Clark therefore obviously saw university education as being
Relationships within Culture 68
independent of the state). Childe, on the other hand, relied upon the hope that his
solid culture-historical methodologies would be broadly adopted to achieve an
internationally co-operative archaeology:
“…the elimination of metaphysical speculations that are liable to nationalistic or
other distortions, and the substitution of objective archaeology and legitimate
controllable deductions therefrom must depend upon international co-operative
effort”. (Childe quoted in Evans 1995:318)
These “metaphysical speculations” were the mechanism via which Childe believed
the works of the nationalistically driven German archaeologist Gustaf Kossina,
who published Die Herkunft der Germanen (The Origin of the Germans) in 1911,
were able to be tainted with racist and culturally chauvinistic views (Trigger
1989:170, Anthony 1996; Arnold and Hassmann 1996; Harke 1995; Wiwjorra
1996). Metaphysics is seen here, at least in part, as the influence of the German
Romantic movement, interest in which had been revived in the 20th century by the
philosopher Martin Heidigger, among others, who was also implicated in the
politics of National Socialism (Anthony 1996: 88 and see Thomas 1996). The
German Romantic movement contrasted the influence of Enlightenment traditions
of rationalist empiricism and scientific naturalism, with the insights achieved, in its
view, through a spiritual, humanist interpretation of the world (Anthony 1996: 88).
Nationalism was therefore seen as a potential problem for archaeology by these
post-War British archaeologists who focused on the issue of state interference in,
and misuse of, archaeological research. In this situation then nationalism is seen as
an external influence upon the discipline or individuals which, through the
mechanisms of state organisation and “planning”, might manipulate the content of
archaeological research and use it in support of evil political policies. However it
is evident that both Childe and Clark also saw a potential for nationalism to
infiltrate archaeological research from “within”, through the influence of Romantic
idealism and historicism on the theoretical standpoints adopted by archaeologists.
Childe concentrated on the potential for the metaphysical aspects of Romantic
idealism to interfere with the objective quality of scientific inference. Clark, on the
Relationships within Culture 69
other hand, focused on historicism, believing that an historicised archaeology was
inevitably involved with national interests and could only serve to emphasize local
differences, rather than common human interests. Childe’s culture historical
methodologies became unfashionable in mainstream, Anglo-American archaeology
with the rise of de-historicised functionalism. While there is no doubt that Clark’s
“World Prehistory” and the functional and processual approaches it encouraged
have been very influential in Australia and other parts of the globe, as has been
broadly claimed, the extent to which such ideas replaced the foundational concepts
of culture history is questionable (Jones 1997: 137; Smith 2000: 111). Although I
will go on to argue in Chapter 5 that anti-historicism also had implications for
Australian historical archaeology, and for concepts of heritage, it was little more
than a surface posture for archaeology and not a thorough-going rethinking of
archaeological epistemologies. As Jones points out “expectations of boundedness,
homogeneity and continuity, which have been built into ideas concerning culture
since the nineteenth century, are related to nationalism and the emergence of the
nation-state” (Jones 1997: 136). These expectations remain fundamental to
archaeology and to the community’s understanding of identity, in particular the
notion of cultural heritage depends upon the reification and commodification of a
continuous identity and the material symbols of that identity.
The Social Context of Archaeological Knowledge:
The World Archaeological Congress.
In the 1970s and 80s, in the context of postmodern critiques of science and broader
social movements including indigenous rights, feminism and environmental
conservation, many archaeologists became more centrally concerned with the
implications of archaeology’s relationship with politics and society. This resulted
in an explosion of literature which problematised archaeological objectivity,
questioned the influence of ideology on interpretations of the past and the
involvement of archaeologically produced knowledge (and archaeologists) in
maintaining or subverting power in society (see for example Hodder 1986, Shanks
Relationships within Culture 70
and Tilley 1987a; Shanks and Tilley 1987b, Leone 1973, Pinsky and Wylie 1989;
Trigger 1984, Conkey and Spector 1984). The debates leading up to and following
the First World Archaeological Congress in Great Britain in 1986, provided a
focus for some of these concerns (Ucko 1987). The Congress involved
archaeologists acting in an overtly political manner, in the banning of South
African academics from participation in the Congress as part of a world wide
protest movement against the Apartheid regime in South Africa. This challenged
traditional notions of the neutrality of science and academic pursuits and this
conflict was in fact explored in sessions designed to examine the cultural context
within which archaeological interpretations had been produced. As Peter Ucko, the
head of the Congress, put it:
“I wanted to show that a world archaeological approach to archaeology as a
discipline revealed how subjective archaeological interpretation had always
been. It would also demonstrate the importance that all ‘rulers’, ‘leaders’ and
politicians have placed on the legitimisation of their positions through the
‘evidence’ of the past.” (Ucko 1987: 31).
An understanding of the involvement of archaeological interpretations in wittingly
or unwittingly supporting political positions, and thus affecting human rights,
depends upon the perceived integrity of objectivity in archaeological interpretation
(Jones 1997:5). Ucko’s experience of working as an archaeologist in Australia
appears to have been influential to the development of his “world archaeological”
approach. During his leadership of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies in
the 1970s he saw what he described as “an essentially British archaeological
discipline” as being transformed, in terms of research goals and practice, through
the involvement of Aboriginal people (Ucko 1983:11). Ucko saw these changes in
Australian prehistory as transforming “an aseptic (practice) of purely scientific
enquiry into a humane investigation of the past development of cultures whose
practitioners still live in the country of their origin” (Ucko 1983:22 my emphasis).
Ucko therefore draws out and links the pursuit of objective science with the moral
and political issues associated with practice. In his 1983 account of changes in
Australian prehistory through the 1970s Ucko focuses on the moral accountability
Relationships within Culture 71
of archaeologists for their influence over broader public conceptions of
Aboriginality and for the respect of Aboriginal cultural sensitivities. Ucko saw the
single most important barrier to building a more “humane” archaeological practice
as the Western tradition of objective, positivist science and the status attached to
this knowledge at the expense of other forms of cultural knowledge. Ucko also
foreshadowed his interest in the implications for archaeology of culturally different
ways of constructing the past. In Australia he focused on concepts of time
(Western linear time vs Aboriginal non-linear and non-historical concepts of time)
and place (the archaeological construct of the site vs indigenous understandings of
landscapes or country). The political implications of culturally different ways of
constructing the past became a central focus of the World Archaeological
Congress, highlighted through the participation of representatives of indigenous
people, colonized people and Third World nations (Ucko 1987:2). Publications
resulting from the 1986 and subsequent World Archaeological Congresses today
form a significant core of the archaeological literature concerning nationalism,
ethnicity, identity and the past (see for example Gathercole and Lowenthal 1990;
Bond 1995; Layton 1989; Shennan 1989). In particular Ucko has intensified his
concentration on the role of archaeological theory as the critical component
shaping the way in which archaeology interacts with its political and cultural
context, finding situations where a positivist, objectivist version of culture
historical archaeology prevails as orthodoxy, as being the most “perilous” (Ucko
1995a: 11). He also finds little to recommend state management of archaeology:
“The evidence is that the vesting of archaeological enquiry in the 1990s within a
national state agency leads to two consequences: first, to a real fear for the
future of archaeology as public monies dry up and other priorities receive
greater support; second, to the fostering (whether it be in Germany, India,
Japan, the former Soviet Union, or the United Kingdom) of an approach to
archaeological fieldwork which assumes (in a good old Pitt-Rivers-type way, and
often using Pitt-Rivers methodology) that archaeological facts are out there to be
recorded objectively according to a series of always improving strategies and
technical skills” (Ucko 1995a:8).
Relationships within Culture 72
As Ucko concedes, and as Moser has demonstrated in her study of Australian
prehistory, such generalizations tend to mask the complexity of the realities of
practice: which may include the influences of individuals, funding structures,
particular events and a host of other factors (Moser 1995; Ucko 1995a: 9).
However the “demonisation” of groups with a different theoretical orientation, and
the over simplification and patronisation of state – funded archaeology by elite,
metropolitan critics, remains a significant feature of the archaeology and
nationalism debate, as I will go onto discuss further below (Kohl and Fawcett
1995).
It is Evans’ contention that in some ways the World Archaeological Congress can
be seen as both a result of, and a reaction against, the global archaeological
perspective initiated by Clark’s “World Prehistory” (Evans 1995: 321). The advent
of absolute dating enabled Clark’s students, and others, to quickly take up his
“noble”, but imperialistic, vision of a world prehistory in areas, like Australia,
where little fieldwork had previously been done. This global perspective was
reflected in, for instance, the creation of the journal World Archaeology in 1969; in
the post-war focus of British (Cambridge) prehistory towards the ‘world’ rather
than the nation; and the great interest in “overseas” ethno-archaeological work in
the 1970s (Evans 1995:320). Evans also notes that this expansion of “world
prehistory” was through university appointments, not through the creation of state
departments of antiquities, as had been the case with British colonial archaeology
prior to World War Two (Evans 1995:321). However, in Australia, and other
colonised nations, the increasing power of indigenous movements from the 1960s
onwards, meant the rejection of universalising, scientific renderings of the
indigenous past. The 1980s thus witnessed a fragmentation within what had
previously been considered the theoretically cohesive Anglo-American core of the
discipline. Under the influence of broader paradigm changes in the social sciences,
the discipline became characterised by disputes over what Wylie terms “the
epistemic limits of enquiry: what can be understood of the human past and what
the status is of knowledge claims about the past” (Wylie 1989:108). These debates
heralded, it is claimed, the collapse of positivism revealing the historically
Relationships within Culture 73
contingent nature of all archaeological interpretation (Murray 1993b:105). The
growing acceptance of varying degrees of relativism within the archaeological
community lead to a range of theoretical projects which aimed to enable
archaeology to continue to be done, in the face of postmodern uncertainty. In
Britain, the Cambridge based movement lead by Hodder, approached this problem
with a critique of processualism and formulated a range of “contextual”
archaeologies, sometimes combined with an idea of radical social action (see for
instance Hodder 1986; Hodder 1989, Shanks and Tilley 1987a; Shanks and Tilley
1987b, Bapty and Yates 1990, Wylie 1992). However, as Ucko has recently
demonstrated, the relevance of these metropolitan political and theoretical debates
upon the colonised “peripheries” of the world has varied enormously (Ucko
1995a). It has also been claimed that despite the democratic rhetoric of post-
processual theory, it in fact served to further isolate academic archaeology from
public archaeology and the political realities of heritage management (Smith
1994).
Throughout the 1970s and 80s many critics (see for instance Leone 1973; Shanks
and Tilley 1987b) refer to the involvement of archaeology in the creation of
national identities, however most did not pursue in detail the mechanisms via
which this involvement might occur, beyond a belief that: “Academic archaeology,
as often as not, operates as part of a wider cultural discourse serving to reproduce
the relationship between the dominated and the dominant” (Shanks and Tilley
1987b:189). Bruce Trigger however, took the relationship between nationalism and
archaeology as one of the central concerns of his wide ranging historical analysis
of the development of modern archaeology.
Relationships within Culture 74
Trigger’s Alternative Archaeologies and the Issue of Disciplinarity
In his influential 1984 paper entitled “Alternative Archaeologies: Nationalist,
Colonialist, Imperialist”, Trigger broadly categorised regional archaeological
practices in terms of the cultural, political and economic systems under which they
occurred. In the light of the theoretical debates referred to above, Trigger’s paper
can be seen as a first attempt to understand in detail the variations in the “problems
that archaeologists think it worth investigating and in what they are predisposed to
regard as acceptable interpretations of evidence” (Trigger 1984:355). Trigger
believed that the relationship between archaeological interpretation, nationalism
and other political and economic contexts, could be understood in more
meaningful detail, and that particular systems resulted in an identifiable kind of
archaeology. His means of achieving these insights was to develop an historicised
account of the “development” of archaeological thought and the gradual
accumulation of archaeological knowledge (Trigger1989 :1).
Trigger outlined a set of characteristics for nationalist archaeology:
that it is most likely to occur in nations which feel politically threatened;
that it may be used to foster a sense of unity in nations suffering significant
social divisions;
that it is more likely to focus on the recent past, and be closely aligned with
national history; and
where ancient populations are considered, it is likely to stress the ‘primitive
vigour’ and creativeness of people assumed to be national ancestors (Trigger
1984:360).
Trigger’s analyses focus on prehistoric and ancient archaeology, but his
classificatory system clearly throws historical archaeology into the nationalist
camp. He further makes the point that different kinds of archaeology: “paleolithic,
prehistoric, ancient, medieval, industrial”, may have different social orientations
within the same country (Trigger 1984: 356). Within his 1984 schema Australian
prehistory would of course be classified as colonialist archaeology, while
Relationships within Culture 75
Australian historical archaeology would, by implication, be nationalistic. However
he later made the important observation that during the 1970s Australian prehistory
became increasingly nationalistic, in that the uniqueness of Aboriginal culture, and
art in particular, had been stressed and claimed as an aspect of the national
heritage, a process Allen has called “grafting white culture directly onto an
Aboriginal root” (Allen 1988: 83; Trigger 1989: 144). Trigger noted how different
the situation of American prehistory has been in this regard. He suggests that the
historical orientation of Australia’s British trained prehistorians (of the 1970s)
provided the framework which enabled this kind of incorporation of prehistory into
national history, while the anthropological orientation of American prehistorians
had not facilitated a similar incorporation (Trigger 1989: 145).
“Alternative Archaeologies” was presented only as a collection of ideas in 1984,
but Trigger strengthened and clarified his original position in later publications
(Trigger 1989, Trigger 1996). In his 1989 History of Archaeological Thought, he
associated ‘nationalist archaeology’ most strongly with the culture-historical
approach, which in itself, he claimed, evolved through nationalist thought (Trigger
1989: 149; 1996: 269). He established an interrelated, developmental sequence
between the growth of nationalism and concepts of ethnic identity in the nineteenth
century, the collapse of cultural evolutionism, the rise of interest in diffusionism,
and eventually the crystallization of the culture historical approach by Kossina in
the first decade of the 20th century. The identification of geographically defined
archaeological “cultures” as the signatures of ethnic groups, according to Trigger,
appears to have occurred to a number of archaeologists simultaneously, but is an
important feature of late 19th and early 20th century work in Scandinavia and
Central Europe where it is particularly associated with the “invention” of national
traditions (Trigger 1989: 162 and see for instance Stig Sorenson 1996). However
Trigger does not argue that the culture historical approach must always be
nationalistic, nor that the nationalistic approach is always negative, stating that in
America and Europe it also caused archaeologists to trace spatial and geographic
variation in the archaeological record more “systematically” than had previously
been the case. He suggests that this lead to more sophisticated models of culture
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change than could have been accommodated by evolutionary or colonial
archaeology (Trigger 1996: 270).
Anglo-American theoretical archaeological literature today remains deeply divided
by the meaning and implications of the “past as socially constituted” position for
archaeology. Trigger’s position might be described as a “common sense”
acceptance of the fact that in archaeology the construction of interpretations is both
defined and constrained by the material evidence and that the evidence is in fact
real. Trigger claims that Childe’s understanding of cultural systems offers a
“sophisticated and realistic” epistemological position from which to arbitrate
between matters of ideology and objective reality. Childe suggested that what
people believe could, in extreme circumstances, limit their responses to new
situations, which is to say that knowledge might be adaptively functional or
dysfunctional (Trigger 1996: 265). Trigger contends that: “Childe’s views apply
equally to particular nationalisms, to specific forms of archaeological
interpretation, and to cultural systems”(Trigger 1996: 265). He suggests that this
encapsulates a “Childean epistemology” which allows for a “productive dialogue”
between the cultural preconceptions of the archaeologist and the reality of the
archaeological record:
“Even though the preoccupations of archaeologists play a major role in
determining such basic matters as what they do or do not perceive as evidence
and the ways that they classify such evidence, the very fact that archaeologists
must take account of material that they did not create themselves imposes
significant limitations on their imaginations. It is absurd to maintain that there
are no empirical limits to the manner in which archaeologists can responsibly
interpret their data” (Trigger 1996: 265).
The key aspect of Trigger’s position on the social construction of archaeological
knowledge is his contention that misuses or misinterpretations of archaeological
data rely just as much upon an under documented and ill understood archaeological
database as they do on the socially determined beliefs of the archaeologist. He
suggests that tenuous origin myths such as the Mound Builders of North America
Relationships within Culture 77
or the building of Zimbabwe by Semitic colonists, are gradually over turned by an
accumulated weight of evidence which eventually leads to the discredit of the
earlier theory. He stresses the ability of the archaeological database to provide
“resistance” to spurious or perhaps nationalistically biased interpretations, and also
the robustness of archaeology’s internally defined path towards gathering more
and more data. Trigger’s analysis is based upon his claim that the history of
archaeology reveals; “an irreversibly changing understanding of the past that has
been shaped by the constraining influence of the growing body of archaeological
data”(Trigger 1996: 276). He concedes however, that the “complex ways in which
internal patterns of research and external conditions intersect ensures that the
development of archaeology does not occur in a unilinear fashion and that the
paths it follows can never be predicted easily or with any assurance” (Trigger
1996: 266). This claim is, in effect, a justification for his historical project, but the
scope of his global analysis does not allow him to follow this notion through with
an appreciation of local details. Because Trigger concentrates so heavily on the
ability of the discipline to establish an overwhelming body of data with which to
overthrow wrong interpretations, I believe he downplays the significant roles
which local conditions may have on the conduct of local archaeologies. Such
conditions may include, as well as the political and economic differences referred
to by Trigger, a range of more idiosyncratic factors such as inertia to shifts from
the dominant paradigm, the long-term influences of institutional structures and of
particularistic funding, as well as the destruction of undervalued categories of data.
While Trigger accepts that the choice of sites for investigation is open to obvious
subjectivities, he places complete faith in archaeology’s ability to eventually
“discover” all aspects of a finite archaeological record. These issues are important
for my consideration of historical archaeology as the archaeology of the modern
world raises issues outside Trigger’s concept of “the archaeological record” (and
see Patrik 1985 and Thomas 1996 on this issue). Historical archaeological
evidence may be constituted from any modern material culture and is quite
transparently chosen because of its relevance to a research problem or because of
its cultural heritage value. Such material culture may still be in use (such as studies
Relationships within Culture 78
of urban neighbourhoods or rural landscapes) and will certainly have a range of
cultural meanings and uses attached to it by contemporary communities.
Trigger does not pursue his analysis of archaeology and nationalism far enough to
take account of the changing, fluid and some times contradictory nature of
nationalism itself, responding in turn to cultural factors, which are in themselves
part of the milieu of archaeological research. This is because his analysis is framed
from within a naïve concept of disciplinarity which causes him to construe
divergent, culturally enmeshed practices into a history of archaeological progress.
Trigger’s analysis of local divergences in central disciplinary issues is both
illuminating and impressive in its scope, but he speaks as if situated at the
evolutionary zenith of a secure disciplinary entity. Uncritical acceptance of the
notion of the “discipline” as a neutral, inevitable entity, is a barrier to a more
sophisticated critique of archaeological knowledge. Even though recent studies
(Schmidt and Patterson 1995; Ucko 1995b) eloquently document fundamental
differences in what is meant by the practice of archaeology in the context of
specific regions, and to some extent account for these differences, the implications
of the construct of either an actual, or ideal, united disciplinary identity are rarely
made explicit (but see Hamilakis 1999; Hutson 1998; Ronayne 1998; Smith 1996;
Thomas 1995). The notion of the discipline, just like the idea of the nation, when
used as a subject of historical or social analysis, imposes an artificial coherence
and denies real understandings of disunity and diversity. To question the notion of
the discipline is not to question the reality of an international community of
practitioners who share a range of ideas, practices, a body of literature and
communications to greater and lesser extents. What it does question is: the political
neutrality of disciplinary structures and boundaries; the teleological effect that the
notion of an evolving, improving discipline has on accounts of archaeological
practices; and, as Hamilakis has pointed out, the understanding of the
archaeologist’s role in contemporary society (Hamilakis 1999). The concept of the
discipline exists primarily as a legitimizing power structure for the knowledge
produced by those authorized to do so, and this has been an empowering situation
which has enabled archaeology to develop in creative ways. Disciplinary
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boundaries also serve to limit the range of social responsibilities which members
need to be aware of. In this vein Australian prehistorian John Mulvaney has been
termed a “public intellectual” because he has used his knowledge and status in the
service of many community causes which were considered beyond his
responsibilities to his discipline (Bonyhady and Griffiths 1996). Archaeologists’
responsibilities are often construed as being primarily to the discipline, to the past
or more specifically to the material remains of the past (Wylie 1996). Although
these concepts have been broadly critiqued through the latter part of the 20th
century, they remain foundational and influential within archaeological practice
and to broader understandings of archaeology within the community (Ronayne
1998). It is crucial to problematize the construct of the discipline in order to
investigate archaeology and nationalism because of the way disciplinarity appears
to separate disciplinary knowledge from culture. National histories and
disciplinary histories, such as Trigger’s, remain defined by the “high modernist”
project of progressive histories, underlain by the teleologies of reason and
universalism (Dean 1994: 3). Within this framework, relationships between
archaeology and nationalism are explicable through the internal/external model
discussed above, and remain focused on archaeology’s role in the sphere of state
politics (see for example Kohl 1998). Further, the currency of such explanations
act in the interests of continued Eurocentrism and its judgmental attribution of
levels of modernity. A focus on the relationships within culture of separate forms
of knowledge, and on the historicisation of the discourses which underlie cultural
practice, can effect a disruption of this pervasive, Eurocentric, progressive
historicism (Chakrabarty 2000:7).
Critiques of disciplinary regimes and expert knowledge derived from Foucault
have been broadly influential in the social sciences, but what I want to focus on, in
the context of my study, is the way in which they have been extended into analyses
of colonialism (see Stoler 1995 for a review of some of this literature). A persistent
theme of colonial studies has been the role of anthropological and historical
knowledge in enabling colonialism and in the constitution of its specific strategies
of authority (see for instance Attwood 1992 and Thomas 1996). This is one of the
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most significant contributions from the field of postcolonial theory to my study: it
has highlighted the interrelationships between a whole range of texts and practices,
which were conventionally seen as specific to their own disciplinary spheres, and
subsequently implicated those texts and practices in the maintenance of colonial
domination (Barker et al 1994:2). I have already discussed the Australian settler
nation as a product of colonialism and how it remains subtly underpinned by
ideologies of colonialism, although many of these have been eroded to greater or
lesser extents in the second half of the 20th century. In Australia, critiques of
archaeological practices have focused far more on colonialism than nationalism as
such. Issues of colonialism in Aboriginal prehistory were put on the agenda by
McBryde and Mulvaney (see for instance McBryde 1986 and Mulvaney 1990), and
developed more recently into broad ranging critiques of essentialism and cultural
imperialism in archaeological interpretations and cultural heritage management
(see for instance Byrne 1993; Murray 1992, 1996d; Sullivan 1993; McNiven and
Russell 1997). In this vein, Laurajane Smith has examined the way prehistoric
archaeological knowledge in Australia has been “rendered as a technology of
government which governments and policy makers may utilise to understand and
govern a range of cultural and social groups” and, most importantly, may impact
upon the self perception of identity of these groups (Smith 1998; 1999: 109). In
other accounts, the ontological disjuncture between the practices and
interpretations of prehistory and historical archaeology has been interpreted as the
result of colonial regimes of knowledge and of the ongoing neocolonialism of
institutions and state structures (Colley and Bickford 1996; Byrne 1996; Murray
1996c; 1996d). The way in which Aboriginal prehistory has been co-opted into
nationalist discourses in Australia has also been considered (Head 1996, 1998;
Byrne 1996). The ancient indigenous past has been appropriated to provide deep
time roots for the nation, while Aboriginal spirituality has been seen as an antidote
to settler alienation as well as the source of a national uniqueness and exclusivity
(Lattas 1990). Australian prehistory has also been implicated in a most specific
kind of identity politics: the construction of Aboriginality. It could be argued that
some Aboriginal prehistory has taken on a nationalistic form of its own, counter to
colonialist nationalism, and involved in establishing the sovereignty of Aboriginal
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people. Byrne has commented on how some Aboriginal people choose to see
archaeological sites as “title deeds” to their land (Byrne forthcoming) This
resistance to neocolonialism can be seen as an integral part of nationalist
discourses in Australia where there are conflicting imaginings of the national past
and future. However, the way in which the dominant nationalist and colonialist
narratives of the past have been supported by historical archaeology has received
little critical reflection to date (but see Byrne forthcoming; Ireland 1996;
Ireland forthcoming).
Political Consciousness in Historical Archaeology: Capitalism,
Inclusiveness and Identity
“ One of the key themes that does hold historical archaeology together is that we
walk in a uniquely dangerous space of the human past, a space between often
very powerful ‘master narratives’ of cultural and social identity and much
smaller, stranger, potentially subversive narratives of archaeological material.
Archaeology does not have a monopoly on the study of the voices of ordinary
people, but it does have the ability to render familiar things strange and reveal
timeless things as transient” (Johnson 1999: 34).
Historical archaeologists have often sought, and articulated, a political role for
their research. Here I want to focus on research which problematizes the
construction of the past in the present and proclaims a political, usually subversive,
role for archaeology in showing how dominant orders are historically constructed
and not natural. Most of the work referred to here is not centrally concerned with
the issue of nationalism or the nation in an explicit way, but as I shall go on to
explain, the role of nation, nationalism and national mythologies is implicitly
critiqued within this approach. The fact that the nation is rarely the subject of
direct critique is an interesting question to which I shall return. The vast majority
of this literature comes from the United States and is Marxist in its intellectual
affiliation. Mark Leone has published on this theme since the 1970s and is
consistently explicit about the archaeologist’s responsibility to challenge the way
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capitalism uses “biology and history” to fix essential identities (Leone and Potter
1999: viii). Perhaps one of the broadest themes in historical archaeological
research has been its ability to provide a more inclusive past as a corrective to
history’s litany of great men and events of national significance. Since the 1960s
historical archaeology’s potential role as a “democratizing force”, in both giving a
past to “people without history”, and in revealing history’s systematic erasure or
distortion of events and causal relationships, has been broadly proclaimed. Glassie
articulated this as archaeology’s potential to act against the “superficial and elitist
tales of viciousness” which form “myths for the contemporary power structure”
(Glassie 1977). Jane Lydon linked broadly Marxist concerns with systemic
inequalities to historical archaeological research focusing on ethnicity (Lydon
1999: 16 and see for instance McGuire 1982) and Little demonstrated how concern
for the oppressed had been a central theme in American historical archaeology
concerning race, class, and gender (Little 1994:10). Studies of slavery and
colonialism have also aimed to “give back history” (for instance Orser 1990;
1996).
South African historical archaeologist Martin Hall has also used historical
archaeology in an actively political manner, deconstructing the myths underlying
inequitable social relations in his country (Hall 1992; Hall 1995). In the same vein,
in Australia there have been calls for the mobilisation of an historical archaeology
of indigenous people to assist in historicising recent Aboriginal experiences,
including them in the national narratives and making their past visible as a counter
to the dominant visibility of colonial heritage in the landscape (Byrne 1996;
forthcoming; Colley 1996a; Colley 1996b; Egloff 1994; Murray 1992). Lydon’s
investigation of cultural exchange between Chinese and white people in Sydney,
around the turn of the 19th century, actively sought to contribute to contemporary
race relations debates (Lydon 1999). Lydon questioned assumptions about how
cultural identity is constructed and suggested that disjunctures between the past
and the present are overstated in much Australian political debate.
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All of the historical archaeological research referred to here conceives of the past
that is studied as directly constitutive of present social conditions. Whereas the
assumed message behind Marxist critique is the attainment of ideological
consciousness, analysis is firmly grounded in the American nation state and its
current and historical social issues. In the South African and Australian contexts
politically engaged archaeology is committed to the development of new political
discourses and institutions which right past wrongs, encompass multiple identities
and cultural diversity. While Marxist archaeologists in the United States appear to
find the nation state a reasonably benign formation, and of far less importance than
the formation of international capitalism, other historical archaeologists have
rarely explored the relationship between nation, identity and the context of
archaeological research. This is due, I suggest, to the naturalised national context
of their research. The nation is accepted as the context of and for research.
Although Little points out the importance of not accepting the development of
“modern American society and culture” as inevitable, she does not pursue a
critique of the national as a context for such notions of inevitability or the
teleological effect of nationalism (Little 1994:17). Other United States based
archaeologists have investigated archaeology and nationalism overseas, focusing
on the relationship between research and particular political regimes or the “state”,
the effects of neo-colonialism and of American and First World economic
imperialism (Schmidt and Patterson 1995; Kohl and Fawcett 1995). Trigger has
argued that the “New Archaeology” was involved in American political and
economic imperialism through its denial of the worth of national traditions and its
strong anti-historicism, and that a particular local result of this was an
anthropology of Native Americans which produced only generalised
interpretations of “human behaviour” (Trigger 1989: 315). Despite the fact that
much American historical archaeology deals reflexively with the histories and
myths of the nation the relationship between archaeology and nationalism has not
been extensively theorised as it has been in Europe. Interest in global capitalism
and the concept of American economic and cultural imperialism and world
dominance appear to be related and to have made the concept of the nation less
relevant to archaeological critiques in the United States.
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In 1973 Leone declared one of archaeology’s major rationales to be the “empirical
substantiation of national mythology”, but he found that:
“archaeology in the service of national goals hardly merits condemnation; in
fact, it merits some celebration… Its role in national myth substantiation is, it
seems to me, quite inoffensive, but what is not inoffensive is the archaeologists’
unawareness of this function” (Leone 1973: 133).
The context within which Leone found this public role of archaeology to be
offensive, was in the naivete of archaeologists’ understanding of the operation of
ideology in their practice and, consequently, in its perpetuation of the dominant
ideologies which underpin social inequality. Leone identifies two legitimate
political roles for historical archaeology: first to demonstrate the operation of
ideology in the past and then to explain the roots of modern ideological
constructions; and second, to use knowledge about the operation of ideology in
society to enhance the quality of archaeological interpretations and produce
knowledge about the past which is “enlightened” and less contingent upon its
social context. In the 1980s Leone went on to expand the application of Marxism
to archaeology by investigating “critical theory” (Leone et al 1987). As Wylie
points out, his definition of critical theory was broad, encompassing “any research
program that adopts a critically self conscious attitude toward(s) its constituent
presuppositions: as they (Leone, Potter and Shackel) describe it ‘critical theory
asks of any set of conclusions from what point of view they are constructed’ ”
(Wylie 1987:297).
Leone sees capitalism as both the pre-eminent source of identity relevant in
historical archaeological research as well as to historical archaeologists as
individuals today (Leone and Potter Jr. 1999: 3). His schema therefore subsumes
nationalism as just one of the ideologies prominent in capitalist systems. While
capitalism is an “absorptive set of economic practices” it is seen as separate from
culture, although such is the duplicitous nature of capitalism that it may
masquerade as culture, through the commodification of cultural practice (Leone
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and Potter Jr. 1999:14). Leone’s work has not pursued the relationship between
nationalism and archaeology specifically, although nationalist ideologies are
implicitly covered by the overarching concept of capitalism within which he
works.
The same could be said of the work of Thomas C. Patterson who has also written
about the development of American archaeology in its social and political context
(Patterson 1995; 1999). Patterson, for instance, stresses the link between the
development of archaeology and the rise of capitalism: the commodification of
antiquities and curios and the creation of antiquities markets gave rise to the need
for expert knowledge regarding the authenticity and value of antiquities. Value and
significance could in turn be increased by the proliferation of public interest and
fascination in the people or cultures who produced the objects and this could be
generated through archaeological research and “exploration” (Patterson 1999:
158). Accounts of the rise of nationalism and archaeology, such as those produced
by Diaz Andreu and Champion (1996), Kohl (1998) and Trigger (1989), tend not
to emphasize the relationship between archaeology and the expansion of
capitalism, perhaps ignoring this aspect too thoroughly in their rejection of, or lack
of interest in, Marxist approaches. Patterson provides a dry, functionalist account
of both archaeology and the changing social and cultural milieu of the United
States through his lack of interest in nationalism and generally reductive view of
culture. In particular his purist, Marxist concept of ideology insists that he sees all
power, all operations of the capitalist state, as negative and oppressive, denying
any creativity, or any sense of the ambiguous complexity experienced by the
people in his story, and surely by he himself as part of the academic and
educational system he is analysing. While I find Patterson’s account wholly
reductive, he does raise issues which have been insufficiently recognised by non-
Marxist approaches to archaeology and nationalism. The political and economic
implications of the role of archaeology as an authorised, expert knowledge for the
capitalist system are crucial issues for the analysis of archaeology’s
unacknowledged entanglement in nationalism, colonialism, capitalism and
globalisation. Of perhaps greatest relevance to my study is the context of the
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expansion of archaeological heritage management, not just as an exercise in
nationalistic self-definition, but as the commodification of a product for local and
global markets of cultural tourism (Patterson 1999: 166).
Although an understanding of capitalism, critical theory, and the concept of
ideology, remain essential for approaching 19th and 20th century cultural history
and cultural analysis, they stop short of providing an adequate theoretical
framework for understanding the relationships between politics, culture and
knowledge. The problem with the Marxist concept of ideology, as identified by
many critics and philosophers, is that it denies agency to its ideologically
dominated subjects, and therefore does little to help us understand cultural life,
cultural difference and cultural processes in general (see for a summary Alexander
and Smith 1993: 158). My study focuses on nationalism because it highlights a
crucial regional context, but as I have been arguing, this should not be
foregrounded at the expense of other global and local contexts and their
implications in cultural and economic terms. Whereas Leone’s and Patterson’s
approach is to read this context primarily in terms of capitalist economic
relationships, I believe this leaves them with an unhelpfully reductive
understanding of cultural practice and production. The authorization of social
structures and cultural identities within the frameworks of colonialism and
nationalism are obviously interpenetrated by the global capitalist structures within
which they are formed. However Marxist concepts of ideology construe the
operation of power as always negative, restrictive and oppressive. Foucault on the
other hand, as I discussed in Chapter One, provides a theoretical means of looking
at the operation of power as also productive of culture and knowledge. In part my
critique here arises from matters of emphasis and interest. Patterson is more
interested, in his account of the rise of American archaeology, in its relationship
with the economic structures of capitalism. Leone’s interests seem broader,
encompassing historical archaeology’s ability to comment on capitalism, as both
its object of enquiry, as well as the dominant context for practice. I am more
interested in the problem of culture, and in the context, effect and meaning of
cultural practices. This leads to my interest in nationalism as an identity project
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and to archaeology, not as a bounded discipline with external and internal
influences, but as a cultural practice that is characterised by confused motives in
determining its status.
Constructing the Past in the Present
In the 1990s, interest in the socio-political context of archaeological research has
expanded into broad ranging considerations of the history and regional conditions
of archaeological practice and theory (McGuire and Paynter 1991; Murray 1993b;
Ucko 1995b; Schmidt and Patterson 1995). One the most significant examples of
this kind of research has been feminist scholarship’s exposure of the way in which
androcentric bias had been perpetuated through archaeological interpretation (see
for instance Smith and du Cros 1993; Wylie 1992; Gero and Conkey 1991).
Particularly relevant here are three edited volumes considering archaeology and
nationalism specifically (Atkinson et al. 1996; Diaz-Andreu and Champion 1996;
Kohl and Fawcett 1995). Other studies have looked at archaeology, identity and
politics in general (Bond and Gilliam 1995; Graves-Brown et al. 1996; Jones 1997;
Meskell 1999). As we have seen, in Australia critique has centred on the
relationship between colonialism, prehistoric archaeology and contemporary
Aboriginal identity politics, and also on the impact of Aboriginal concerns on
archaeological practice (Pardoe 1992; Colley forthcoming). Also relevant in this
context are changing world perspectives on the nature and meaning of “heritage”,
which has involved archaeology in many debates about the role of the past in
maintaining identities and about scholarly responsibilities towards the “accuracy”,
“authenticity” and ideological content of the pasts presented to communities
through the heritage industry (see for instance Bennett 1995; Gathercole and
Lowenthal 1990; Hewison 1987; Lowenthal 1985).
A great deal of the literature produced under the heading of “archaeology and
nationalism” has taken the form of historically constructed case studies looking at
how particular political regimes, or other national or ethnic identity movements,
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and archaeological practice have interrelated. These case studies provide a wealth
of details allowing us to appreciate the diversity of archaeological practices in the
context of local conditions (see for instance case studies in Atkinson et al. 1996;
Diaz-Andreu and Champion 1996; Kohl and Fawcett 1995; Schmidt and Patterson
1995). They also demonstrate the way in which powerful metropolitan interests
representing the “discipline” of archaeology, have attempted to impose a core of
hegemonic principles which aim to shape local pasts according to their interests.
Much of this literature is characterised by an over reliance on the concept of
nationalism as a political doctrine, seeing it as a force contained within the realm
of politics, which then intersects with archaeological practice and knowledge
claims in a number of predictable locations (Hamilakis 1996). If nationalism is
seen as an identity project, enmeshed in culture, constructed through discourse and
practice, as I have suggested, then its relationship with archaeological
interpretation, not only through political policy but also through social action,
education, literature and popular culture, can be seen to be far more complex, and
far more responsive to local historical and social conditions.
Another issue from an Australian perspective, is the concentration in the literature
on case studies concerning the “abuse” of archaeology by nationalistic regimes
(Kohl and Fawcett 1995). This leads to cautionary tales about archaeologists
“selling out” to state sponsored archaeology, and colluding in the formation of
restricted and exclusive constructions of identity. This makes it seem possible to
withdraw archaeology from the culture in which it operates by avoiding the sphere
of politics, to achieve a new objectivity. Further, this literature is structured
through the Eurocentric perspective, discussed in Chapter 1, that nationalism is an
atavistic form of collective identity which has failed to transcend pre-modern
forms of identity based on blood and other dangerous concepts. This perspective
epiphenomenalises nationalism as a unitary, negative force and fails to appreciate
the distinctive fragmentation of nationalist discourses and practices in any location.
Although often, as is the case in Australia, nationalism is implicated in neo-
colonialism, many postcolonial scholars believe that due to the on-going
aspirations towards, and reality of national governments, to withdraw from an
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active engagement with nationalism is to withdraw from effective political action
and to abandon a responsibility to contribute to an ethical vision of a community’s
future (During 1990). Further, that much theorising about postmodern,
cosmopolitan experience and identity simply elides issues concerned with real
political situations where such experience may be involuntary and the right to a
national identity, a passport, denied.
I want to consider two further issues covered by this literature:
1. The relationship between archaeological thought and modernist, nationalist
thought; and
2. The nature of archaeological theory and its potential complicity with particular
areas of ideological bias.
Modernity, nationalism and archaeological thought
Hides has convincingly argued that the way in which the past has been studied has
undergone fundamental conceptual changes since the Late Renaissance (Hides
1996). Foucault (1970) terms these changing conceptual frameworks “epistemes”
and has developed a mode of historical analysis based upon recognition of the
conditions within which knowledge has been constructed at different times in the
past. The emergence of modern, scientific archaeology, its adoption of rationalist
philosophy and systematic field practices, is generally located in the nineteenth
century, within the context of the development of nation states and new
understandings of the meaning of history (Hides 1996; Trigger 1989; Diaz-Andreu
and Champion 1996). Diaz Andreu and Champion (1996) and Trigger (1989)
therefore see the emergence of modern nationalism and the emergence of modern
archaeology as linked, primarily through the nation state’s need to legitimate the
historic origins of cultural and/or ethnic groups within the national territory. Hides
expands this understanding in a number of ways. He points out that 18th century
romanticism approached antiquities in terms of their ordering and classification,
like aspects of the natural world. Nineteenth century modern philosophy however
“defined the relationship between objects and identity historically”, through the
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empirical study of “Man” and “origins” (Hides 1996:37). Hides characterises this
re-alignment of antiquarianism to archaeology not as an improvement in
archaeological techniques, but as the result of a radical change in the epistemic
context of the researchers. What is important to note here is that nationalism and
archaeology emerged out of modernist thought and its inherent historicity. This
means that their relationship cannot simply be explained in terms of the political
influence of nationalism on archaeological interpretation, or the subjective
influences of nationalistic archaeologists. The relationship is formed at a far more
fundamental level, and that is the “modern” way of understanding the world.
Critiques of modernity therefore begin to illuminate taken-for-granted structures of
thought which link what modernism has constituted as separate entities of thought
and practice, such as “archaeology” and “nationalism”. They also hint towards the
preconceptions involved in archaeological practice that will need to be confronted
in order to deal with post-modern issues of multiple identities, consumerism and
globalisation.
Rowlands expands upon another important consequence of modern thought for
understanding archaeology and nationalism (Rowlands 1995). Modernity, he
argues, situates us as already in the future and as having transcended traditional
lifeways. We therefore see the past not as a part of us and where we live, but as a
“foreign country” (Lowenthal 1985). Archaeology is therefore constituted as the
ideal method for uncovering this alien, and longed for past. Rowlands situates the
origins of naiveté in archaeological thought within the context of nineteenth
century nationalist modes of thought. He defines naiveté here as an “unreflexive
mode of practice that takes for granted the axioms on which established work
predetermines the value of future knowledge” (Rowlands 1995:129). Naiveté is
emphasised by positivist archaeology which sees material remains simply as the
direct evidence of what happened in the past. In addition, as I discussed in Chapter
1, nationalist discourse constructs the past as the key to identity, suggests that
identity is continuous through time and over generations, and makes identity
important as the imagined shared basis for the national community. Rowlands’
work also makes very clear that the ongoing basis of archaeology’s relationship to
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nationalism is in the way it constructs, and reflects identities. This helps us draw
out, on a specific level, how it is misleading to separate internal and external
relationships between archaeology, nationalism and other aspects of cultural
identity, as is the case in the work of Trigger and other commentators discussed
earlier in this chapter.
Diaz-Andreu and Champion on the other hand, focus more on the historical
relationship between archaeology and nation states, arguing that “by the very fact
of being integrated into state and sub-state institutions and in general adapting its
findings to the frontiers of the present states, archaeology is nationalist” (Diaz-
Andreu and Champion 1996: 7). They also claim (contra Trigger who states that
nationalist archaeology is more likely in states under threat) that in secure nations
the role of archaeology appears to be “politically neutral” and “has become so
naturalised that we are hardly conscious of it”(Diaz-Andreu and Champion 1996).
Diaz-Andreu and Champion therefore focus on relationships that have been created
through the structuring effects of state institutions, such as museums and
universities. Also interestingly, they see the growth of essentialist nationalism (or
ethno-nationalism) as a cause for the expansion of non-state archaeological
associations concerned with ethnic identities such as Catalan and Celtic. The
impression given here is of a discipline deeply structured by a long historical
relationship with a political ideology, the influence of which should, and could, be
avoided in the future through critical self reflection (Diaz-Andreu and Champion
1996: 21). This is the opposite of Rowlands’ conclusion:
“the expansion of archaeology’s relation to nationalism and ethnicity in the
construction of collective identity seems certain to continue. Partly the
materiality of the archaeological record will ensure this. Partly also the creation
of alternative pasts is increasingly being used to legitimate land claims, ethnic
territories and access to economic resources” (Rowlands 1995 :141).
Theory and Responsibility
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A constant theme running through these recent discussions of archaeology and
nationalism is the ability of competing theory groups to provide archaeologists,
practicing in a range of political environments, with the means to produce
interpretations free of nationalistic bias, as well as the ability to understand the
hegemonic implications of their interpretations. Discussions centre on the
conventional three “groups” of archaeological theory: the so-called culture
historical, processual and postprocessual theoretical movements. Trigger presents
the most fully articulated thesis on the historical development of archaeological
theory and its context within broader philosophical, social and political
movements. I have already discussed some of his interpretations of culture
historical archaeology and its links with nationalistically driven research aims.
Jones has also pointed out how much culture historical archaeology appears to be
practiced in an “atheoretical” mode (Jones 1997: 24), that it is often seen as a suite
of methodologies to enable the “extraction, description, classification and
compilation of archaeological evidence relating to a particular period or amenable
to a particular kind of scientific analysis” (Thomas 1995: 349). As Ucko points
out, it is the socially embedded acceptance of culture history’s empirical methods
(i.e. gathering more and more evidence towards a fuller understanding of what
happened in the past) as pragmatic and natural ways of getting on and doing
archaeology, that serve to obscure its theoretical underpinnings (Ucko 1995a: 11).
These underpinnings include definitions of cultures as limited, homogenous
entities, that are naturally conservative and change resistant. Jones has shown how
the equation of archaeological cultures with modern concepts of ethnicity caused
an intellectual construction of prehistory as a mosaic map of cultures, which were
viewed as “distinct entities, despite the flow of ideas between them, and are reified
as actors on an historical stage” (Jones 1997: 25).
The critiques of culture history so far discussed have already implicated this type
of archaeology as being particularly “at risk” for co-option into nationalistic
agendas (Rowlands 1995; Trigger 1989; Jones 1997; Ucko 1995a). This risk can
be defined as the way in which positivist approaches to an objective, value free
archaeological record provide little scope for reflective practice, and naturalise
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some ways of doing archaeology as “normal”. A second aspect to this definition of
risk is found in culture history’s materialist definition of “culture” and “culture
change” and the way in which culture history is in itself an extension of the
Eurocentric, progressive historicism which underlies much modernist, nationalist
discourse.
In contrast to culture history, I referred briefly above to Trigger’s claims that the
universalizing concerns of processualism and the New Archaeology trivialized the
importance of regional traditions and were an ideological reflection of the United
States’ economic and political interventionism during the Cold War period
(Trigger 1989: 315). This had major implications for the archaeology of Latin
America and Africa, and for the study of indigenous cultures within colonised
nations. The use of scientistic, “New Archaeology” theories and methodologies has
therefore played a major role in diverting attention from the significance of
archaeology’s social context, and contributing to the idea of a politically neutral
discipline of universal value. I will argue in Chapter 5 that “New Archaeology”
theory has played a significant role in both Australian historical archaeological
research and archaeological heritage management (and see Smith 2000). In
particular, the concept of an objective, scientific heritage significance remains
entrenched and unacknowledged within heritage management procedures, despite
the general abandonment of this notion by archaeologists. The broader cultural
perception of the objectivity of scientific evidence, and the attribution of this value
to the “archaeological record”, has major importance for my study, as it effectively
clouds the way in which such values are constituted by what Thomas terms
“specific interests and a project of dominance” (Thomas 1994: 4).
The third group of archaeological theories, “postprocessualism”, encompasses a
broad range of contextualised approaches to archaeological interpretation which
respond to the implications of postmodernism. Several writers have focused on
aspects of the post-processual position which they contend, open it to, or even
encourages, political abuse (see for instance Trigger 1996; Kohl 1993; Kohl and
Fawcett 1995; Anthony 1996; Yoffee and Sherrat 1993 ). These archaeologists
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suggest that celebration of the political content of archaeological interpretation and
willing engagement in social issues, as advocated by Leone and Potter (1999),
Shanks and Tilley (1987a; 1987b) for instance, is ‘fraught with perils’ (Kohl and
Fawcett 1995: 6). They also find the degree of relativism inherent in the post-
processual position to be not only disabling, but dangerous. Trigger, Kohl and
Fawcett and Yoffee and Sherrat have all rejected a theoretical standpoint that
concedes alternative interpretations of the past. Trigger finds it supremely ironic
that post-processualism is, in his view, a descendent of the German Romantic
philosophical tradition. This tradition, as I discussed earlier, is implicated by many
in enabling the construction of the racially pure Aryan identity (Trigger 1996: 263
and see Anthony 1996: 88).
Sian Jones rejects that there is any evidence to implicate postprocessual
archaeology in immoral silences regarding spurious, deceitful or self-interested
interpretations of the past. In fact she contends that the opposite is the case, that it
has been scientistic, postivist archaeology that can more often be blamed for
supporting racist ideologies and encouraging political abuses (Jones 1997: 11).
Other commentators have argued that postprocessualism is only untenable to
archaeological "fascists" who rely on narrow and naive theorisations of relativism
and the way in which archaeology is related to forms of discourse such as
nationalism (Hamilakis 1996; Lampeter Archaeology Worksop 1997; Holtorf
1996; Ronayne 1998). Alison Wylie’s voice has occupied a middle ground
between the hyper-relativist and positivist positions by suggesting that
archaeological evidence can effectively constrain interpretation, and can also jolt
archaeologists from apathetic acceptance of dominant paradigms (Wylie 1992).
Wylie also uses feminist archaeology as an example of where strong political
commitments held by the archaeologist, outside the sphere of archaeology, can be
used positively and constructively to take research in new directions (Wylie 1992).
The concept of certain types of theory’s susceptibility to abuse has been dealt with
recently by Julian Thomas. Thomas was using theory derived from Martin
Heidigger, “a card carrying member of the Nazi Party”, to develop
Relationships within Culture 95
phenomenological and hermeneutic approaches in archaeology (Thomas 1996). He
attempted to answer the question: is there anything inherent in this theory that
makes it likely to promote humanitarian abuses or fascism in general? Thomas
claims to separate out the aspects of Heidigger’s theoretical program which
became involved in the dangerous politics of Nazism and shows that he is using
other, more palatable ideas. Irrespective of the success of Thomas’ arguments for
this “test case”, he does demonstrate the need for a thorough understanding of the
history of theory and interpretations in general. This debate surrounding
postprocessual theory raises several issues critical to my study. First, that
demonstrating, in specific historic circumstances, how relativism (that is the depth
to which historical and socio-cultural contingencies have permeated archaeological
interpretation) can be seen to have operated in archaeology in the past, will
engender more meaningful understandings of archaeology’s broader involvement
in culture and society. Second, is an understanding that this study and
postprocessual theory both result from reactions to the basic questioning of
objectivity in science and from competing understandings of the way in which
cultures construct objects of knowledge. Deep contextualisation of both research
questions and the subject of research has been a response to this problematic and is
the aim of my project here. As in Thomas’ work (1996), a necessary response to
this problematic is for archaeologists to be informed of the “genealogy” of the
knowledge and assumptions which they bring to bear in interpretation. My study
considers how nationalism has been involved in structuring a particular genealogy
of knowledge, and I have discussed in Chapter 1 how this knowledge is
inseparable in the Australian context from colonialism, history and cultural
identity.
Conclusions:
Relationships within Culture
Many interpretations of the relationship between archaeology and nationalism have
been structured through teleologies of disciplinarity which describe an evolution
Relationships within Culture 96
towards either an enlightened consciousness regarding social context, or a superior
level of objectivity. These explanations have conceived of archaeology’s
relationship with nationalism as either an “external” state control, or an “internal”
influence through certain theoretical precepts. These explanations repeat the
Eurocentric, modernist project of progressive historicism, in particular bolstering
the powerful position of those who appear to speak from the centre of the
“discipline”. In Chapter 1, I suggested an approach to this problem drawn broadly
from Foucault and from Thomas’ proposal for local, historical, ethnographies of
practice, focusing on genealogies of knowledge and their re-negotiation in specific
contexts. I will go on in the chapters which follow to present a range of case
histories and contextualised studies of Australian historical archaeology and
heritage management which consider many of the distinctive aspects of the
interaction between archaeology and nationalism that have been drawn out in this
chapter. The role of material culture, and of the material aspect of archaeological
evidence in general, has been raised in several contexts as the key to the distinctive
closeness between archaeology and nationalism (Diaz Andreu and Champion
1996; Trigger 1989; Hamilakis 1996; Rowlands 1995). In the following chapter I
explore the cultural process of giving value to the material remains of the
Australian historic past, a process within which discourses of archaeology and
nationalism combine to link identity with a material past. In Chapter 6 I go on to
look specifically at materiality and national origin mythology, to explore historical
archaeology’s role in authenticating nationalist narratives and expanding the realm
of the national sacred.
Another important theme discussed here has been debates over the role of theory in
structuring archaeology’s relationship with its social context. In Chapter 5 I
examine the antecedents and intellectual genealogies of theories and concepts in
Australian historical archaeology, revealing foundational discourses concerned
with nation and identity within what has often been considered an “atheoretical”
practice.
Relationships within Culture 97
The inevitably political nature of historical archaeology’s dealings in the recent,
contested past has been broadly recognised but the implications for an archaeology
of the settler nation, its colonial past and neo-colonial present, have not been
widely analysed, particularly from a perspective that acknowledges the
entanglement of discourses about the past, identity, culture, nation and
colonialism. While acknowledging the concept of capitalism as a subject of, and
context for historical archaeological research has been crucial, this has tended to
mask the complexity of the cultures of modernity and in particular the absolute
centrality of the national context for the construction of local traditions of
historical archaeology. The role of historical archaeology in particularising details
of local identities and local histories is well acknowledged and this is generally
construed as a strength and source of meaning for this kind of work. It undoubtedly
has also involved historical archaeology in the spurious silences of colonial
narratives and the “unified” national heritage. While my study certainly aims to
suggest meaningful directions for future research, as well as enriched readings of
past research, it does not aim to set out a manifesto for a non-nationalistic practice.
Its aim is however a reflexive one, one of critique and engagement with cultural
and political contexts, one that assumes the present is at least as strange as the past.
Chapter 3
Giving Value to the Australian Historic Past
“A growing national maturity led to movements during the 1960s to preserve Australia’s heritage across a wide spectrum” (Mulvaney and Kamminga 1999: 4).
Is it “maturity” that leads a nation to be concerned about the preservation of the
material remnants of its past? What indeed are the cultural processes that lead to
some aspects of the material environment being singled out as worthy of respect,
preservation and study, when this had not previously been the case? Historical
archaeology, as a practice which studies the physical remains of Australia’s past
since 1788, cannot be separated from the processes which resulted in the
attribution of value to the material remains of the colonial past. From the outset I
want to propose that the explanation for the emergence of historical archaeology,
and of heritage more generally, as the result of a “growing cultural awareness”
arising from national maturity, is an interpretation which is grounded in the
narrative mythologies of nationalism. The Australian historic, cultural and natural
environment was perceived as more valuable within the cultural milieu of a nation
engaging with its colonial history and re-acting against the psychological
inheritance of imperialism: the “cultural cringe”. However, the development of a
distinctive kind of heritage discourse in Australia in the 1960s and 1970s was
involved with many local and global discourses including environmentalism,
science, heritage conservation, professionalism, tourism, nationalism, anti-
imperialism, participatory democracy, and indigenous rights, to name some of the
most obvious (Bennett 1995; Byrne 1996; Davison 1991a; Griffiths 1996; Murray
1996a). On an even broader scale, these local and transnational discourses must be
seen within the context of globalisation, in its cultural, technological and economic
forms, and their implications for individual and group identities (Appadurai 1996).
In the context of my study, considering historical archaeology and nationalism in
Australia, I want to look at the way in which discourses of value were constructed
that attributed meaning and significance to the material remains of colonial history.
98
Giving Value 99
Although a new kind of archaeological practice for Australia emerged from this
process, the discourses of value used were not completely new but founded upon a
variety of ways of knowing the past. Recent research has shown that the heritage
movement of the 1960s and 70s was based upon traditions of environmental
concern, historic preservation, collecting, local history and national heritage which
stretched back into the latter 19th century (Bonyhady 1996; Griffiths 1996; Healy
1997). Bennett’s work however, has focussed on the nationalisation of the past in
Australia in the 1960s and 70s, seeing the period of the “new nationalism” as
creating a radical new set of “past-present alignments” in Australian cultural and
political discourse. He outlines very clearly that the significance of historic sites
and objects depends not upon their authenticity or accuracy in representing the past
as it really was, but upon:
“their position within and relations to the presently existing field of historical
discourses and their associated social and ideological affiliations – on what
Patrick Wright has called their past – present alignments” (Bennett 1995: 147
quoting Wright 1984:512).
In particular Bennett shows how the concept of the National Estate, the term
adopted by the Whitlam administration to describe Australia’s cultural and natural
heritage, serves to meld Australian cultural and natural history into a unity, a
uniquely national story which de-emphasises both internal complexities and
external entanglements, including that with Britain. The incorporation of cultural
artefacts from before 1901, when Australia became a nation, including the
evidence of Aboriginal prehistory and the geology, flora and fauna of the
continent, serves to “wrench those artefacts from the histories to which they were
earlier connected – those of Empire, for example – and thus to back project the
national past beyond the point of its effective continuity” (Bennett 1995: 148).
Bennett’s approach has been criticised for failing to adequately historicise the
heritage discourses which emerged in this period and contributed to the flurry of
(settler) heritage legislation and cultural policy created in the 1970s and 1980s
(Griffiths 1996: 195; Healy 1997: 93). He focuses on the implications of the nation
state’s construction of an autonomised past, which he suggests follows precisely
Giving Value 100
Benedict Anderson’s description of how nations take complex, globally
interwoven pasts and create a history of unfolding national unity: through the
historicisation of a territory, and the territorialisation of history (Anderson 1983:
19; Bennett 1995: 142). The more ethnographic historical work of Healy and
Griffiths does not refute Bennett’s critical role for nationalism in the 1960s and
70s, but rather it enriches our understanding of the diverse discourses and practices
this culture of nationalism was built upon. A focus on state cultural policy and the
large state cultural institutions such as museums may seem to overstate the “real
life” effects of the government’s heavy-handed nationalistic rhetoric. However as I
shall argue in the following chapters, the nation and its history is consistently,
almost unquestioningly, articulated through heritage discourses as the most
important source of community identity. By focusing on the attribution of value to
the material remnants of the national and colonial pasts, which are now constituted
as historical archaeological sites and objects, I want to explore the genealogies of
some of the concepts and knowledge that enabled this nationalisation of the past.
Several accounts of the emergence of historical archaeology, and of the character
of its practice, have been written and they form an important basis for my study
(see for instance Birmingham and Murray 1987; Jack 1985; 1996; Murray and
Allen 1987; Connah 1988; Temple 1988; Stuart 1992; Egloff 1994; Lydon 1995b;
Mulvaney 1996; Paterson and Wilson 2000). However I must make it clear that my
aim in the next four chapters is not to produce comprehensive histories or
generalised descriptions of historical archaeological practice in Australia. Rather I
will draw on a range of historical, ethnographic and empirical data to provide
“thick descriptions” of aspects of archaeological practice located in specific
cultural contexts. Within this framework I am particularly interested in drawing out
foundational discourses which have allowed the category of historical archaeology
to be articulated. The (on-going) re-imagination of the nation has been central to
the development of a rationale for, and the foundational structures of meaning
within, historical archaeology. This does not mean however that this process of
“building a discipline” was homogenous, simple or completely directional, in
terms of a linear concept of maturation. As I have outlined, my purpose in this
Giving Value 101
chapter is to explore discourses of value, but first I want to expand upon the
context and history of historical archaeology in Australia as a background to my
central discussion.
In 1974 the first university courses in historical archaeology were introduced at the
University of Sydney through the determination of an archaeologist, Judy
Birmingham and a historian, Ian Jack. The establishment of this course was not
universally supported; in fact Birmingham and Jack acted against the wishes of
their respective departmental heads. Helen Temple has investigated this history of
historical archaeology in NSW and claims that the lack of prestige accorded to
historical archaeological work by Australian archaeologists who worked overseas,
has had a prolonged effect on the practice and its practitioners (Temple 1988: 55).
The story of historical archaeology in Australia is often articulated as the quest for
academic and disciplinary recognition for a practice carried on mostly outside the
academy, in the context of heritage management. Similar concerns regarding the
prestige accorded to historical archaeology in the USA have been voiced, and
worldwide, “the archaeology of the recent” still appears to be an oxymoron to
many (Orser 1996: 2). But perhaps it is salient to point out in the Australian
context that although Near Eastern and Classical archaeology had been taught at
the University of Sydney since the 1940s (O’Hea 2000: 75), the first PhD in
history at an Australian university was granted in 1947 and the first chair in
Australian history was created in 1949 (Griffiths 1996: 213). John Mulvaney
taught the first course in the prehistory of the Australian region in 1957 (Mulvaney
1996: 3). This process of valuing, professionalising and institutionalising the
Australian past has been spectacularly condensed.
Also in 1974, the Hope Inquiry into the National Estate reported to the federal
government for the first time on the nature of Australia’s heritage. Historic sites
(including the concept of historical archaeological sites) were recognised in this
report and it recommended that the States introduce legislation to protect them
(Hope 1974: 176). So what had lead up to these two critical dates in the
formalisation and institutionalisation of historical archaeology? Mulvaney draws
Giving Value 102
attention to the expansion of Australian universities through the late 1950s and
1960s which drew numbers of overseas trained archaeologists to Australia and
expanded the teaching of archaeology in general (Mulvaney 1996: 3). An
expansion in the teaching of archaeology not only saw some archaeologists
become interested in the research questions raised by Australian historic sites (see
for instance Allen 1973; Birmingham 1971, 1976), but also a demand for student
training in the field (Jack 1985: 157). Further, as I have discussed to some extent in
Chapter One, Mulvaney and others acknowledge the context of emerging
Australian cultural issues, including heritage, history, environmental conservation
and urban amenity (Mulvaney 1996). The 1960s saw a range of activities that built
up a constituency for and awareness of historical archaeology. Mulvaney
encouraged Campbell Macknight and Jim Allen in their postgraduate research into
historic sites in Arnhem Land (Allen 1969; Macknight 1976). Judy Birmingham
and her colleagues at the University of Sydney involved students and volunteers in
excavations at Irrawang, north of Sydney, and Wybalenna, on Flinders Island off
Tasmania (Birmingham 1976, 1992). In Victoria, Bill Culican from the University
of Melbourne led volunteers from the Archaeological Society of Victoria in
excavating the Fossil Beach Cement Works on the Mornington Peninsula (Culican
and Taylor 1972). The Australian Society for Historical Archaeology was formed
in 1970 with an aim of encouraging public interest in the subject, and it remains a
non-professional society which is open to any devotee (Temple 1988: 60).
Following the Hope Inquiry into the National Estate, a Project Co-ordination
Committee on Historical Archaeology was established to advise on how to develop
a comprehensive list of historical archaeological sites in Australia (Allen 1978).
The thematic approach developed by this committee would be influential in
heritage management through the decades to come. Although the Commonwealth
established its Australian Heritage Commission in 1975, and initiated the Register
of the National Estate and the National Estate Grants Program, the “national
parliament (did) not have plenary powers to legislate in respect of all matters for
the whole of Australia” (Allen 1978: A7). This legislative issue, sometimes
referred to as “State’s rights”, is perhaps one of the defining characteristics for
Australian political history through the 20th century. It means that although
Giving Value 103
definitive statements about heritage were made by the Commonwealth through the
creation of the Australian Heritage Commission, its power over the States was very
limited and heritage conservation work therefore developed in highly regionalised
traditions. Tasmania for instance, formed an important focus for early heritage
conservation projects, particularly on convict sites such as Port Arthur which I will
discuss in Chapter 5. However heritage legislation to protect historic sites was not
passed in Tasmania until 1995 (Historic Cultural Heritage Act 1995). The
development of legislation by the States specifically designed to protect historical
archaeological relics occurred first in South Australia in 1965, in the Aboriginal
and Historic Relics and Preservation Act. Although in Victoria the Archaeological
and Aboriginal Relics Preservation Act 1972 was used to control activities on
historical archaeological sites, it was not initially intended for this purpose and its
use on historic sites was limited (Pearson and Sullivan 1995: 71; Stuart 1987: 11).
In NSW the Heritage Act 1977 resulted in a boom in urban historical archaeology
in particular, as compliance with, and tenacious administration of its
archaeological provisions was undertaken through the late 1970s and 1980s
(Temple 1988; Birmingham 1990; Lydon 1993; Johnson n.d.; NSW Department of
Planning 1989). However excavation only accounted for a small proportion of the
work done by historical archaeologists, most of whom, from the 1970s to the
present, have worked in government heritage agencies or as free-lance consultants,
with a small, but recently expanded, university base (Mackay and Karskens 1999:
110). Survey, historical and archival research, detailed structural recording and
building analysis concerning industrial sites and vernacular architecture, industrial
processes reconstruction, landscape and urban environment studies all constitute
important research methodologies in Australian historical archaeology. Amateur
and academic interest in industrial archaeology has been an important focus for
historical archaeology and below I will look at the activities of the NSW National
Trust’s Industrial Archaeology Committee formed in 1968 (and see Paterson and
Wilson 2000: 84). Overall subject trends in historical archaeology have recently
been analysed by Paterson and Wilson based on a review of published material and
theses (Paterson and Wilson 2000). I will look at research themes and theoretical
Giving Value 104
issues in detail in Chapter Five, in general terms however, the convict period, 19th
century urban sites, sites associated with the Chinese, pastoral, mining and other
industrial sites have been some of the major foci for historical archaeological
research. While sites of Aboriginal and settler contact were an early interest for
historical archaeology (see for instance Allen 1969 and Birmingham 1992 on the
Wybalenna project undertaken in the 1960s) this subject appeared to remain almost
dormant until a marked florescence in the later 1990s (Colley and Bickford 1996;
Murray 1996; and on new approaches to this subject see Harrison and Paterson
2000; Torrence and Clark 2000). The issues associated with this florescence will
be taken up specifically in Chapter 5.
Valuing Things
Griffiths and Davison have argued that what was new about the heritage movement
of the 1960s and 70s was not its nationalistic focus, as heritage and nationalism can
be seen as strongly linked in the 19th century, but the redefinition of heritage as a
material rather than a spiritual concept (Davison 1991b: 7; Griffiths 1996: 195). A
material heritage obviously requires collecting, curation, conservation and
empirical analyses in ways that are significantly different from spiritual, religious,
literary, linguistic and political heritages. Lowenthal succinctly defines the origins
of the desire to preserve material things:
“The urge to preserve derives from several interrelated presumptions: that the
past was unlike the present; that its relics are necessary to our identity and
desirable in themselves; and that tangible remains are a finite and dwindling
commodity” (Lowenthal 1985: 389).
Heritage conservation claims a crucial role for the material relics of the past as
vehicles for tradition in culture. It claims that without the presence of visible,
material reminders of the past, cultural continuity will be impaired, implying the
loss of distinctive, historically based identities. In many ways, heritage
conservation sees the material things themselves as the vessels of cultural
meanings that remain static over time. In a similar vein, archaeological
Giving Value 105
epistemologies see the materiality of the data as the physical embodiment of
research potential: a thing, as long as it exists, can be analysed in endless new
ways. As Lowenthal shows most preservationist discourses have a relationship to
experiences of accelerated social and environmental change. The impact of two
world wars, industrialisation, urban redevelopment and scientific progress in the
twentieth century have all contributed to the rise of preservationist discourses,
however as Lowenthal, and in the Australian context Griffiths, have pointed out,
earlier traditions of environmental concern and preservation movements are to be
found throughout the western world (Griffiths 1996; Lowenthal 1985, and also see
Schama 1996 and Grove 1995).
Historians of the museum agree that there were no major museum collections of
historic objects in Australia before the First World War, despite the fact that large
museums were established throughout Australia in the 19th century. This fact has
been interpreted in different ways: as an absence of interest in history, as a feeling
that the history of Australia was insubstantial and lacking in heroic content, or as a
focus on the youth of Australia, which meant that history was yet to happen (Healy
1997:87). Healy and Griffiths suggest however that there were some significant
historic practices in 19th century Australia, but that they are less recognised now as
they no longer conform to “the strange late-twentieth century habit of imagining
national histories as the primary historical category”(Healy 1997: 87). The fact that
there was only minor interest in Australian historical objects in museums in the
19th century, but that this interest grew steadily throughout the 20th century,
following the creation of the nation in 1901, suggests that nationhood and
nationalism created a new form of historical consciousness in Australia. While this
interpretation is undoubtedly correct as far as it goes, how was social memory
enacted in the absence of the national context? Which aspects of these earlier
traditions did the encompassing concept of national heritage absorb and recast as
national, which did it leave behind, and what might be considered as new?
The collection of documents concerning Australia’s history was a practice that was
enthusiastically pursued through the 19th century. Healy interprets this concern
Giving Value 106
with documentary evidence as a prevailing sense of modern historicism which
emphasised the role of history writing and documentary sources – in Europe, Healy
claims, objects were collected and valued as relics of pre-modern times, in the
spirit of 18th century antiquarianism (Healy 1997: 91). This was simply not
relevant to a nation born into science and modernity, except, perhaps, for the
curious relics of Australia’s prehistory. The urge to collect and categorise
indigenous cultural objects was a significant feature of 18th and 19th century
colonialism (Griffiths 1996; Thomas 1991; Thomas 1994; Neville 1997). It is
usually seen as connected to a heterogeneous range of colonial and scientific
collecting practices: “explorer’s curiosities, as a part of missionary work, settler
mementos, ethnological specimens, artefacts of technologies and scientific
evidence” (Healy 1997: 96 and see Thomas 1991). Colonial interest in Aborigines
was partly construed as an extension of interest in the natural environment, and
partly as a chance to observe a relict stone age, evolutionary “specimen”. Such
colonial practices encompassed a huge range of motivations, interests, human
relationships and negotiations (Griffiths 1996; Mulvaney 1989; Thomas 1994).
However in the Australian context it has generally been accepted that these
practices were in no way historical. The significant issue here, drawn from the
work of Healy and Griffiths, is that this collecting can be seen as historical in some
ways, not to do with Aboriginal history but more to do with a white “history and
geography of possession”, a collecting practice linked to white historical narratives
of progress, evolution, technology and settlement. This 19th and early 20th century
antiquarian collecting of Aboriginal material culture therefore bears no relationship
to the interest in the “Australian people” which was developing through the 19th
and 20th centuries (and from which Aborigines were obviously originally
excluded). Although interest in “Australian people and cultural identity” now
seems to be the main rationale of historical museum collecting, indigenous object
collecting can be seen as a practice which was performed in the settler community
as a material expression of local history, ownership and at times a deeply felt
passion and attachment towards their colonial territory. This aspect of this practice
is less obvious in the context of the great colonial museums where collections
might be displayed taxonomically alongside plants, animals and minerals. At a
Giving Value 107
local or individual level however, the objects’ context within these imperial
narratives is replaced with a local historical and environmental context. If we look
at the rage for collecting indigenous objects in this way, then it is perhaps this 19th
and early 20th century amateur collecting that is the colonial precursor to the new
forms of “Australiana” and local history collecting which grow enormously in
popularity in the second half of the 20th century.
Healy also considers the practice of collecting by local (settler) families and
communities, through the later 19th and 20th centuries, of items related to the
foundational histories of their districts. He argues that these collections were not
antiquarian in nature, nor tied to larger narratives of empire, state or nation, rather,
they acted as “mnemonic devices - collected so that intimate stories of beginnings,
of place and of family, could be told” (Healy 1997:104). As we have seen an
antiquarian interest in objects from the past requires a significant sense of rupture
between the present and the past, a sense of threat to the survival of its relics, and a
belief in a historically continuous identity. The 1975 Pigott Report into Museums
in Australia reports a proliferation of local museums in the 1960s and links this
with an intense interest in a “separate” Australian identity and with the “new
nationalism” (Report of the Committee etc 1975). What was new about this
nationalism, claims Griffiths, was this kind of local expression (Griffiths 1996:
220). Indigenous objects, such as stone tools and grind stones, often form the
“baseline” for local, pioneer museums – they document the march of progress, the
modernisation of the land and the absence of the people who produced them in
“prehistory” (see for instance the Gulgong Pioneer’s Museum collection illustrated
in Baglin and Wheelhouse 1981: 124 and see Mauldon and Witcomb 1996 on
Aboriginal material in local museums). As Aboriginal archaeology was
professionalised, collecting by amateurs made illegal, and Aboriginal groups began
to successfully assert their ownership of their cultural heritage, the settler’s
“antiquarian imagination” is increasingly captured by the material relics of colonial
history. However, according to the Pigott report at least, from the 1960s, these
local stories of origins were recast in terms of nationalist narratives, asserting not
just a local, but an “Australian” identity.
Giving Value 108
We can look at the preservationist’s concern for relics and historic objects in the
activities of the non-government organisation, the National Trust of Australia
(NSW) in the 1960s and 70s. Following the model of the English National Trust,
the NSW organisation was an amateur group. The NSW National Trust was
launched in Sydney in 1947, making it only the third of such organisations to be
created worldwide after England and Scotland (Anon. 1987: 9). While primarily
associated with the preservation of Australia’s famous examples of Georgian
architecture, the origins of the National Trust movement in NSW are to be found in
broad-based environmental concerns. The Trust’s founder Annie Wyatt had been
involved with The Tree Lover’s Civic League and the Forest Advisory Council
since the 1920s (Anon. 1987: 9). In 1943 Annie Wyatt wrote:
“I am convinced that had we had such an institution (as the National Trust) in
Australia the nation would already have been richer … It is only by cherishing
such treasures that we can hope to evolve a National Soul” (Anon 1987: 9).
The escalation of interest in these issues is reflected in the growth of membership
of the Trust: from 500 members in 1953 to 2000 in 1960, 10,000 in 1968 to 20,000
in 1973 (Anon. 1987: 10). The purview of the Trust was broad, covering
landscapes and natural areas, buildings, Aboriginal “relics” and other objects.
From the outset the Trust aimed at influencing governments especially in the
creation of conservation and planning legislation, and it chose influential barristers
and judges to lead the organisation (Anon. 1987: 9). The Trust was heavily
influenced by the scope and policies of the National Trust in England and it acted
as an important source of communication between Australia and the United
Kingdom on conservation issues. The Trust Bulletin of the 1960s frequently
mentions member’s visits to Europe and the U.K., as well as talks from visiting
British heritage experts. By the 1960s the Trust had a broad range of advisory
committees covering buildings and landscapes, but also relics, sites and objects,
covered by the Aboriginal Relics Advisory Panel, the Portable Antiquities
Advisory Panel, and the latest to be formed in 1968, the Industrial Archaeology
Committee. The roles of these panels and committees was to be fundamentally
Giving Value 109
disrupted over the following decades which saw the creation of heritage legislation
and government institutions concerning heritage. However in the 1960s they
reflected these older traditions of environmental concern, preservation interests and
colonial collecting with which we are here concerned. The re-structuring of the
national past interrupted the role of the Trust in NSW and it had to re-group in the
1980s to bring itself into line with new lines of policy and pressures for
professionalisation in heritage (Temple 1988: 43).
The National Trust’s role in lobbying for the protection of Aboriginal relics has not
been widely acknowledged in recent reviews of the creation of Aboriginal heritage
legislation (see for instance Byrne 1996 and Smith 2000). The National Trust,
following the English Trust, was broadly concerned with the quality of the
environment. Aboriginal sites and relics were seen as a unique and scientifically
significant aspect of the environment, and it was within this context that they came
within its area of concern. The chair of the Aboriginal Relics Panel was F.D.
McCarthy, the Curator of Anthropology of the Australian Museum, who had been
involved in lobbying governments for protection of Aboriginal relics since the
1930s (Smith 2000: 110; McCarthy 1962: 4). The National Trust had been
delegated some responsibilities for protecting Aboriginal relics in NSW through its
Act of Incorporation in 1960. The concept of Aboriginal relics as a component of
the national heritage is clearly articulated for the Trust’s membership in 1962 by
McCarthy:
“The need for the protection of aboriginal relics in situ is recognized by most
citizens, apart from the vandals. Engravings and paintings in particular, stone
arrangements and carved trees, illustrate the mythology and art of the now
extinct or civilized Aborigines. They are the work of the first people to occupy
Australia, and they fill an important niche in our national culture. But protection
of such relics is difficult in a young growing country in which the white man has
not lived long enough to establish a tradition or public conscious about national
relics, where the people as a whole are too busy working and enjoying themselves
to think seriously of relics, while the Aborigines themselves are still a social
problem” (McCarthy 1962: 4).
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In this article McCarthy refers not only to vandals, but also to the increasing pace
of urban expansion and development as the major threat to the conservation of
relics. Whereas in archaeological and anthropological fora the threat from
untrained amateurs and treasure seekers is often stressed, it is interesting that in
this context McCarthy stresses the aesthetic and landscape significance of
Aboriginal relics. Byrne (1996) and Smith (2000) have recently questioned the
central importance accorded to archaeologists in achieving protective legislation
for Aboriginal sites, arguing that it was more the growth of heritage discourse that
changed community receptivity to the issues they were raising. What is of concern
here is that, as Bonyhady has clearly outlined, Aboriginal sites and relics had been
part of this discourse of environmental concern since the turn of the 20th century
(Bonyhady 1996: 158). It hardly needs restating here that, throughout that period,
Aboriginal antiquities were incorporated within a concept of a national inheritance,
the Aborigines themselves not being seen as taking an active role in the national
future. We see in the later Hope Inquiry (1974) a grouping of Aboriginal
archaeological sites and historic (archaeological) sites with other areas of special
scientific interest, such as caves and other geological formations, as a category of
the National Estate, perhaps influenced by the relatively early South Australian
legislation (1965) which covered both Aboriginal and historic relics (Hope 1974:
35). This legislation and the Hope Inquiry both reflect this tradition of seeing
archaeological sites as part of the natural environment and in the context of
science. The growing impact of Aboriginal rights movements and the re-claiming
by Aboriginal people of their cultural heritage is a process that was already
underway when the Hope report was prepared, a process with which its authors
appear to have had all sympathy. But the Hope Inquiry did see the past as radically
separated from the present, archaeological sites are clearly not aspects of
contemporary culture, but belong in the domain of the scientist for the benefit of
universal knowledge. This situation, which is certainly not specific to the Hope
Inquiry but is a feature of heritage discourses developed in Europe and the US in
the 1960s, has a critical impact on the practice of historical archaeology, which I
will explore further in Chapters 4 and 5. Indigenous involvement in heritage, and
the specialisation of prehistory and anthropology, has increased the separation of
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Aboriginal heritage management to within specialist agencies. As indigenous
involvement and control of heritage has increased so, necessarily, has its
incorporation within nationalist discourse to produce what Byrne has termed the
“deep nation” (Byrne 1996). As Smith points out, to allow otherwise would be to
allow a questioning of the unity and legitimacy of the nation (Smith 2000).
In 1969 McCarthy’s concerns were finally reflected in amendments to the NSW
National Parks and Wildlife Act and advisory activities changed focus to that
organisation. The incorporation of Aboriginal heritage within an organisation
chiefly concerned with environmental management and flora and fauna protection
reflects the tradition of seeing Aboriginal sites and relics as part of the
environment. In this decade then we see a fundamental change in traditions of
environmental concern and the new discourses of heritage. Aboriginal sites and
relics become a specialist area of heritage, an area professionalised by the
expanding discipline of Australian prehistory. Historical archaeological sites might
have been managed together with Aboriginal archaeological sites had the
categories of the 1974 Hope Inquiry been translated into legislation. That is, had
their archaeological character, or the use of archaeological methodologies, been
seen as a more important commonality than the cultural differences represented,
then perhaps we would have seen more heritage legislation such as the 1965 South
Australian Aboriginal and Historic Relics Act. However an overwhelming trend
towards separation has been the case. In Victoria for instance, the Victorian
Archaeological Survey (VAS) was involved with historical archaeology and
prehistory through the 1970s and 1980s, providing an unusual opportunity for
archaeologists, including maritime archaeologists, to work within a single heritage
management agency. However in the 1990s, changes to legislation saw the
termination of VAS and the creation of a new Heritage Act 1995, to deal with
historic cultural heritage, very similar to NSW’s Heritage Act 1977. Aboriginal
heritage issues were then managed from within Aboriginal Affairs Victoria. This is
one area then, where we can see the results of a transformation in the concept of
the national heritage and the resulting re-focusing of the National Trust away from
an interest in Aboriginal sites as part of the landscape, towards a more defined
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engagement with settler history. Just as Aboriginal sites were an aspect of a
treasured landscape so were historic buildings, however the need to manage, study
and protect this landscape through legislation required its dissection into specialist
categories.
I will now turn to another area of Trust activity in the 1960s where we can see the
operation of discourses of value closely linked to historical archaeology. I have
already mentioned briefly the rise in local history collecting in the 1960s and its
formation around popular national narratives of pioneering. Concurrent with local
history collecting was a growing professional interest in Australiana collecting. A
member of the National Trust’s Portable Antiquities Panel, the Old Government
House and Experiment Farm Cottage Committees, and the later Curatorial Panel,
was Kevin Fahy, who reminisces here about the rise of interest in Australiana:
“ ‘The whole business of collecting Australiana emanated from what the National
Trust was doing at Experiment Farm Cottage and then Old Government House in
the 1960s and early 1970s…When I was at university though (in the 1950s)
archaeologists were all interested in prehistory and classical archaeology.
Nobody had thought of exploring the Australian environment for evidence of what
had happened here…’ ” (Anon 1985: 8).
Fahy, a graduate in history and archaeology from the University of Sydney, used
his skills in material culture to pursue what he saw as the neglected subject of
Australian arts and crafts. The Committees of which he was a member oversaw the
sourcing and purchasing of items to furnish and decorate the two historic
properties mentioned above, owned by the National Trust and located in the west
of Sydney. In 1964 the National Trust launched a campaign called “Towards a
National Historical or Folk Museum” encouraging members to donate items of
Australiana (Anon. 1964: 6). The Trust’s policy in the 60s was to develop a series
of museums representing the major periods of Australia’s early colonial period.
The Georgian period was to be represented at Old Government House in
Parramatta, Regency at Elizabeth Bay House and Early Victorian at Lindesay (two
mansions close to the harbour in Sydney’s eastern suburbs). The Trust intended to
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house the “folk collection” in a country property (pers.com. Ian Stephenson). Its
aim was to show more about how “ordinary people” lived in contrast to the very
grand mansions the Trust owned in Sydney. The cause of the folk collection was
taken up by Mrs Jessie Scotford who had traveled to Scandinavia to look at their
folk museums. Mrs Scotford collected mostly textiles and costume (pers.com. Ian
Stephenson). The Trust’s grand museums vision did not come to fruition, although
it still owns and opens to the public a range of properties. This was partly due to
the growing professionalisation and compartmentalisation of heritage, including
museums, as legislation and state institutions controlling heritage were introduced.
Community based activities were directly impacted by the huge new commitments
made by the state in matters of cultural heritage. Sydney’s new Powerhouse
Museum (formerly the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences) opened in 1988
after developing new “social history” collections and the Historic Houses Trust of
NSW was created in 1980 to take over the management of Elizabeth Bay House
(O’Brien 1998). The grand programs initiated by the Trust in the lead up to the
celebration of the Bicentenary in 1988, were perhaps more than the structure and
administration of this kind of community organisation, with large numbers of
consultative committees, could accommodate, and the NSW government appointed
an administrator to sort out an accumulation of debt (Davison 1991a: 27). However
in the 1960s the Trust was the focus for heritage conservation in NSW (Temple
1988: 43). It is also clear that rigid distinctions between heritage issues were not
made, it was a process of valuing the local, in ways that were inspired by all kinds
of heritage projects around the world, from Iron Bridge Gorge in Britain, to
Scandinavian folk museums. But the local was clearly seen as the national, and
represented by an entwinement of history, culture and environment.
An area of particular interest to Australiana expert Kevin Fahy was Australian
ceramics (Fahy 1967). Ceramics were also a specialist area of interest for Judy
Birmingham, mentioned earlier in her role as one of the initiators of historical
archaeology courses at the University of Sydney in 1974. Birmingham, a Lecturer
in Near Eastern Archaeology at Sydney University who had arrived in Sydney
from the UK in 1961, was also a founding member of the National Trust’s
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Industrial Archaeology Committee. In a 1985 Trust Magazine feature Fahy
recounted his nurturing interest in the new area of historical archaeology:
“Kevin was one of the pioneers of historical archaeology in this country. He
proved his point by locating traces of the old Irrawang Pottery… From those
beginnings he says, historical archaeology here has gone from strength to
strength. And at the same time Australian antiques have become more highly
valued for aesthetic as well as historical reasons” (Anon. 1985: 8).
The Irrawang site referred to here was excavated by Judy Birmingham and
students from the University of Sydney from 1967 and throughout the early 1970s
(Birmingham 1976). The site was of particular interest as it was an early (1840s),
entrepreneurial attempt at supplying cheap, domestic pottery to the New South
Wales market. Perhaps of greatest interest to Birmingham were the issues of
industrialisation and the process of adapting technologies to the colonial situation,
interests she was to pursue over the next two decades both academically and with
the Trust’s Industrial Archaeology Committee (see for instance Birmingham 1976;
Birmingham and Jeans 1983). In Birmingham and Fahy’s review of early
Australian pottery we can appreciate the great curiosity that developed as these
kinds of questions about Australian history and material culture were asked for the
first time (Birmingham and Fahy 1971). The Newsletter of the Australian Society
for Historical Archaeology, which started in 1971, shows that connections were
sought out with all manner of experts and members published brief snippets of
research as they went along. Such information sharing is no longer possible in the
professionalised and commercialised field of historical archaeology.
We can see in this local situation, some of the activities and relationships that were
beginning to combine to enable notions of value to be articulated for the material
relics of Australia’s history. It is evident that archaeological discourses were a part
of this valuing process, and I will turn to this aspect next. However it is important
to see that it was not archaeological discourses alone that were constitutive of
concepts of value around Australian historic sites and relics. Nor was the
relationship between archaeology and aspects of nationalism created through the
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controlling power of institutions or nationalistic individuals. In this case we see
material things and Australian identity becoming linked in new ways through a
range of discourses: the beginning of a process which will eventually link
Aboriginal cultural material to contemporary Aboriginal identity, and the
development of a belief that the objects created by settlers told a story about
learning to live in a new land and the sort of men and women this created.
An Archaeology of Value
Tim Murray wrote recently that we know that “Aboriginal sites and contexts were
protected before European ones (in legislation), but existing research has not
explained why this happened, nor what this might mean for the relative
significance of the two types of cultural heritage” (Murray 1996a: 729). The
answer to this lies in the linking of a material heritage to identity. Alain Schnapp
has argued that in contrast to most other parts of Europe, French archaeology
hardly developed in the 19th century and a law on antiquities was not passed until
1941 during the Vichy regime. He explains this time lag behind other parts of
Europe by the fact that antiquarian intellectual activity in France and about France
concentrated on history and culture, rather than on issues of race or ethnie, which
were the focus for archaeological and antiquarian studies in Germany and
Scandinavia for instance (Schnapp 1996: 49). This explanation for the taking up of
modern archaeological and preservationist practices has some interesting parallels
with the Australian context. Intellectual interest in the nature and definition of
“Australianess” has also been essentially the domain of the historian, political and
cultural commentator. Although the newly created nation of 1901 unambiguously
declared that it was founded on race, the definition of race was usefully
ambiguous: described as British or even more broadly as “the white race”.
Historical, literary and artistic projects of the late 19th and through the 20th
centuries, as we have seen, concentrated on how the combination of history and
environment forged a new kind of people from British stock: people who were
“racially” British but possessed of a unique, new Australian character. The
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intellectual interest here was in understanding the historical development of a
“character” and in its cultural expression. Issues of race and ethnicity have always
been central to the Australian nation, a nation of migrants, but these issues were
not linked to Australian soil, but to the historic territories of Asia and the Old
World. Of course with the Mabo High Court decision in 1992, issues of race and
land have become legally linked in the context of the national territory, making the
archaeological and anthropological authentication of the histories of traditional
owners more politically contentious than ever before. However what some have
described as the relative “lateness” of the passing of settler heritage laws in
Australia may relate to the fact that interest in the cultural patrimony in Australia,
as in France, centred on issues of settler cultural and historical identity within
which racial and ethnic difference was not incorporated. It was the rise of
preservationist concerns that encouraged the exploration of issues of
“Australianess” in a material and environmental context, and as we have seen in
this chapter so far, the material culture of settler Australia was a mystery to be
researched in the 1960s. However it has been comprehensively documented how
prehistoric archaeology was built upon amateur traditions of collecting and
antiquarianism, colonial science and anthropology in a way in which settler
heritage obviously was not. The lobbying of prehistorians and anthropologists such
as McCarthy, stressed the world class scientific importance of ancient sites, not
their importance to Aboriginal people as a cultural heritage. In fact, if the concept
that Aboriginal sites and relics might be related to contemporary Aboriginal
identity had been more developed in the 1960s, then perhaps governments would
have been far more conservative in passing legislation to protect indigenous sites,
and we might have seen settler heritage protected before indigenous heritage.
Historical archaeology may have formed around an archaeological epistemology
and methodology, but its evidence was created through the linking of identity,
environment and material remains as a cultural heritage. The idea of a material
heritage gave archaeological methodologies, such as survey, description and
classification, an obvious and useful role in the newly defined heritage movement.
Griffiths claims that an “archaeological sense of the past”, a belief that scientific
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methodologies may be used to recover material remnants and decode their
meaning, is integral to the nature of the modern preservation movement (Griffiths
1996: 196). Indeed the growth and popularisation of archaeology in the 1950s in
Britain and the USA for example, should not be seen simply as the result of a
growing interest in the past, but as a discourse which has shaped notions about how
the past could be known (see for instance Daniel 1981: 121). This linking of
materiality with heritage ensured that archaeology as a practice became more
deeply involved in the discourse of heritage, and of course in the doing of heritage
management work, than was the case with the related disciplines of history and
anthropology (Byrne 1996: 101).
While some of the earliest historical archaeological exercises were based on
excavation (see for instance Allen 1973; Birmingham 1976, 1992; Culican and
Taylor 1972), the 1970s saw a concentration on survey and inventory work, much
of it carried out with Commonwealth National Estate Grant Funding, a program
that will be considered in Chapter 4. This practice was based on the concept that
the database of historical archaeology was not only unknown, but also under threat
from development, modern progress , “cultural globalisation”, or perhaps more
specifically, Americanisation. Unlike its role with Aboriginal relics, the NSW
National Trust’s Industrial Archaeology Committee, formed in 1968, has remained
active to the present. After initial meetings in 1968, the Committee published a
“statement of purpose” in 1969. Surveying, recording, making recommendations
for preservation and raising public awareness about “the part played by certain
industries in the history of the State”, were the main aims of the group (Anon
1969: 3). As I outlined in Chapter One traditions of Australian historiography had
stressed the centrality of pastoralism and mining in not only successfully
establishing Australia as a nation, but also in forging a national character.
Contemporary (1960s) histories and historical geographies continued to focus on
industrialisation and economic structures as a framework for analysis of the
Australian historical landscape (see for instance Blainey 1963, 1966; Butlin 1964;
Jeans 1972; Perry 1963 and the later Linge 1979). Influenced by the British
practice of industrial archaeology and its methods (Anon 1989: 10), the Industrial
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Archaeology Committee was not dominated by archaeologists, although one or two
have always been members. Its membership has been diverse including academics,
engineers, architects, as well as non-professional amateurs with interests in
technologies and conservation. The archaeologist Judy Birmingham was a
founding member and chair of the panel between 1974 and 1984 (Anon 1984). The
committee initiated its aim of surveying and recording industrial sites and relict
technology by sending out a questionnaire to local historical societies all over
NSW, asking them for information about important industrial sites in their area.
The aim was then to classify the sites according to the Standard Industrial
Classification, a system devised for industry by the Central Statistical Office in the
UK (National Trust Annual Report 1969/70: 21). As well as surveying and
recording sites, the Committee from the outset became involved in the
conservation of individual sites under threat. The restoration of Segenhoe Mill at
Aberdeen, NSW, was a focus for the first few years of the Committee (Annual
Reports 1969/70 – 1972/73). With the support of staff later employed by the Trust,
the Committee’s work was eventually “pulled together” and published as the
Industrial Archaeological Sites List in 1980 and stage 2 in 1983, listing over 1400
sites which the Committee believed to be of significance.
Interests in industrial heritage represented in this committee were from a broad
range of perspectives, but a general or “umbrella” conviction, which we see
continually drawn out is the crucial importance of Australia’s industrial
development to its success as a modern, developed nation:
“The NSW Trust has been conscious for many years of the importance of
industrial development in our history. In less than 200 years Australia has
progressed from a convict colony to a nation of 14 million people with one of the
highest living standards in the world” (Anon. 1979: 3).
The link between these narratives of industrial progress and their formative effect
on Australian identity was accepted as a given:
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“These (industrial) sites illustrate first the convict beginnings of our colony, then
a range of 19th century rural industrial sites… the foremost activity in the
formation of the Australian character. Mining sites, settlements and landscapes…
comprise the second formative activity, especially for Australia’s economic and
social structure…” (Birmingham 1983: 141).
I will look at the implications for archaeological research of these discursive
relationships further in Chapter 5. Here I want to focus on the foundational
knowledge that underlies historical archaeology and its concepts of value. The
Industrial Archaeology Committee reflects the assumption that the key or the
essence of the Australian historic experience was reflected in men’s work in the
bush. A major activity for the group was weekend trips to survey sites found
abandoned or traditional technologies still in use. The Trust Bulletin and later
Magazine published regular articles on the activities of the panel often stressing
their swashbuckling adventures in the bush (Figure 3.1). This was also no doubt an
interesting juxtaposition with the Trust’s more genteel activities relating to their
Sydney mansion houses and the notoriously “establishment” Women’s Committee.
The Industrial Archaeology Committee’s Australia is the Australia of Ward’s
“legend” and knowing this past was a way of learning more about the Australian
character (Ward 1958). An archaeological methodology was a means of grappling
with this sort of empirical evidence- but an archaeological epistemology was not
needed to explicate the value of these places – as that was implicit in their
Australianess, their character and often in their setting and location in a landscape.
This fairly new concept of industrial archaeology, derived from Britain, saw
technology as the defining characteristic of Britain’s past in the context of the
industrial revolution. Such an emphasis on technology was a feature of much
archaeology at the time, not just that of the modern period. The classifications of
stone, copper, bronze and iron ages, in the context of cultural evolutionism, reflect
the long archaeological tradition of using technology as the most reliable, and
empirically interpretable, indicator of change and development through time
(Trigger 1989: 392).
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As I mentioned earlier, courses in historical archaeology were first introduced at
the University of Sydney in 1974. What was it that attracted students to this type of
archaeological study at this time? Kate Holmes recounts that she went to England
to get experience in archaeological field work in 1974 and 75 and found the later
medieval sites she worked on there far more interesting than earlier periods. She
thought that this was to do with the familiarity and interpretability of the structures
and objects encountered. This work inspired Kate to go back to Australia and start
a Masters degree in historical archaeology with Judy Birmingham, Ian Jack and
Dennis Jeans at the University of Sydney.
“I felt Australian history was badly taught at school and even at university, I
really wanted to learn about the lives of ordinary people in the past and historical
archaeology seemed to be the way to do this… Australian archaeology had far
more resonance for me personally than classical archaeology. I wasn’t
disillusioned (with the latter); it just meant more to me personally. Also the
general public were so interested and I felt that we could really explain things to
people” (pers.com. Kate Holmes).
Richard Morrison described the attraction of the new field of historical
archaeology in the mid 1970s;
“…there was nothing in the library! I was very keen on the practical skills, field
experience and on the multidisciplinary nature of historical archaeology. I
enjoyed photography and architectural recording and I could use these things to
interpret the environment around me. I rejected the fine arts, ‘booty and loot’
approach of classical archaeology. I was very interested in politics and
conservation, and liked what I saw as the more democratic nature of historical
archaeology” (pers.com. Richard Morrison).
An active engagement with one’s environment seems to emerge here as an
important part of the attraction to study historical archaeology. We could interpret
Kate Holmes’ identification with objects from the past as feeling a link between
them and her own experience of the world, which allowed her to “understand” the
past in a more coherent way. The emphasis on field work and practical skills also
attracted many students, recalled Richard Morrison, although he remembers other
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students explaining to him that Australian historic sites were a training ground for
“real” archaeological projects overseas (pers. com. Richard Morrison). Political
engagement is another theme that emerges here. Classical archaeology was seen as
totally removed from the real world and from the issues about environment,
identity and the political order which were rallying points for students in the 1960s
and 70s. Helen Temple recalls that, having just completed an Honours thesis on
gold funereal mouth bands of the Late Bronze Age, and about to enroll as a
postgraduate studying Pompeiian wall painting:
“ I woke up one morning and thought that this was not making a real
contribution… I wanted to contribute to the community - the Australian scene
was neglected and it seemed very important to me that this was an area where I
could make a real contribution” (pers.com. Helen Temple).
Helen Temple stressed the very strong feeling that the community was taking
action in a new way in the 1970s. Ideas about the value of cultural heritage had
been growing for some time but the sense of action and achievement was a heady
mixture that created enthusiasm amongst the first team at the NSW Heritage
Branch in 1977. Helen Temple, as a young graduate, was the first historical
archaeologist employed to advise the Heritage Council after the creation of the
Heritage Act in 1977. She recalls:
“we were all a bit bolshie! No one was afraid to be confrontational at that time,
and this included senior management and the Minister. In 1979 the Minister Paul
Landa stood in a muddy trench, in his Gucci shoes, in front of a bulldozer,
declaring the rights of archaeologists to investigate the site of Sydney’s first
gaol…We weren’t concerned about disciplinary boundaries, we all worked
together. Historical archaeology was perhaps viewed more broadly then and
generally cultural heritage was seen as a multidisciplinary issue. My experience
today is that the view of historical archaeology has really narrowed to issues of
excavation” (pers.com Helen Temple).
The breadth of issues encountered, and the multidisciplinarity of the approaches
developed to deal with them, emerges as another important theme in the attraction
to historical archaeology. In many ways we can interpret this as an experience of
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camaraderie between individuals, all working in the context of a dynamic heritage
movement. In other ways however, as Temple suggests, there are aspects of the
history of heritage management in Australia that suggest notions of historical
archaeological value, and the role of the historical archaeologist, have been
significantly curtailed as disciplinary boundaries have become more regulated,
refined and entrenched in heritage management. This is an issue I will take up in
the investigation of historical archaeological practice in Chapter 4.
Conclusions: Structures of Value
“Making and lauding difference is the very essence of heritage, an enterprise half
historical, half divine” (Lowenthal 1996: 181).
The rise and rise of the heritage movement in the late 20th century has established
powerful western discourses of value and authenticity in transnational, if not
global, networks. As several critics have suggested, this movement should not be
seen as a radical departure in terms of interest in the past, as it embodies the
historical consciousness(es) of modernity, but it can be seen as a new form of
practice, governance and a new site for the hegemonic deployment of forms of
expert knowledge (Smith 2000). I have argued that long traditions of
environmental concern included Aboriginal sites and relics as an aspect of a
treasured natural environment, and that the NSW National Trust’s role in the
conservation of indigenous sites reflected this tradition. However the 1960s and
70s in Australia saw the coalition of a number of discourses which linked cultural
identity to a material inheritance of things and places. One of these discourses was
archaeology. Historical archaeology derives its concepts of value and significance
from a process which historicised the settler nation, valued the material remnants
of the settler past and linked them to a historically continuous identity. This is not
to say that, as a practice, historical archaeology has not absorbed ways of
constructing meaning and attributing value from other fields of discourse; it is
obvious that it has. However the idea that the material remains of the recent past
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are worth studying and preserving at all, is one which has been established within
the community predominantly through the discourse of national heritage and
identity, rather than through discourses concerned with the universal value of
knowledge.
The environmental conservation movement which emerges in Australia in the
1960s has been described as a “a fusion of romanticism, nationalism and science,
but … also an attempt to reject colonialism” (Morton and Smith 1999: 172).
Davison plays down the central importance of nationalism as a cause for the
heritage movement stating that Australians were following wider trends, that the
National Estate might be just as well seen as a creation of UNESCO as a symptom
of nationalism (Davison 2000: 119). It is clear that Australia was involved in
wider, western, transnational preservation and environmental discourses but to
focus on the need to identify a single pre-eminent cause for Australia’s heritage
movement is to impose that linear, progressive framework which many scholars
today question as an appropriate framework for historical explanation. I am not
suggesting here that nationalism was a pre-eminent cause of the heritage
movement, a single cause is not realistic in what I have already described as a
discursively complex, fragmented cultural landscape. Today environmental
conservation and settler heritage movements have many diverging aims, however
the role of nationalism as a foundational basis for attributing value to history and to
the materials and landscapes which represent that history or prehistory in some
ways, appears to be of central importance, and of even more interest, locally
distinctive. The fact that the Australian landscape and settler identity are linked,
both in the past and in the present, has been accepted within environmental and
heritage conservation movements as a self evident, spiritual association, rather than
a historically constructed idea. Although significant attention has been paid in the
last decade to what has been termed “intangible heritage” and “social
significance”, heritage management retains a robustly fixed system whereby
heritage values are managed through land management and the conservation of
sites and objects. A distinct focus of many nationalist and culturalist movements
around the globe has been an interest in folklife and cultural traditions (Appadurai
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1996: 15; Handler 1988; Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). However in Australia,
concepts of settler folklife, culture and tradition have not been developed in
tandem with the conservation of things. While there have been some folk life
movements in Australia these have focused on song and story telling and not
material culture and their overlap with main stream heritage movements has been
minimal (pers.com Linda Young). In 1986 the federal government announced a
Committee of Inquiry into Folklife in Australia which found that:
“Community and government concern for heritage protection in Australia has so
focused on material heritage –‘the things you keep’ – that the essential intangible
elements of our heritage, our folklife in all its myriad forms, have been
neglected” (Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Folklife in Australia 1987).
Concerns about the inclusiveness of heritage arose early in the history of the
movement, starting with Aboriginal rights to cultural heritage and moving into
concerns for the heritage of non-Anglo communities. It was recognised that
cultural difference needed to be understood to some extent to enable that
community’s heritage to be identified and managed. But why hadn’t this always
been an issue? Why was the white, Anglo-settler heritage so evident that its
cultural construction was not even questioned? The answer lies in the significance
of the category of national identity during this period of the development of
heritage management. The historical narratives which dominated popular
understandings of Australia’s 19th century colonial and early 20th century national
pasts were overwhelmingly the narratives of national development. The history and
identity of the white settlers was national identity and the history of the nation, the
equivalence was taken for granted. Within this context methodologies were not
required to understand the cultural construction of value, the value was historical
and national. This seems to be one of the reasons why concepts of folklife and
tradition were not developed alongside material heritage management, as they have
been to some extent in the United States (see for instance Glassie 1977; Hufford
1994). The other major thread in explaining the relative absence of folklife and
traditional culture in settler heritage discourse is the locating of national identity in
the Australian landscape, in places and things. Landscape and place are in fact
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constructed as the holders of tradition in Australian heritage discourse; the role of
tradition in community life has been under-conceptualised.
The role of nationalism as a foundational discourse for Australian heritage has
been underplayed because of a concentration on overtly nationalistic behaviour or
cultural expression, with associated negative connotations. However Ghassan
Hage’s study of multiculturalism in Australia shows how fundamental the national
context is to identity construction and cultural practice (Hage 1998). Hage also
finds that in Australia “ethnicity” and “culture” are ascribed only to minorities in
multicultural discourse while the white, mainstream cultural identity is completely
nationalised, masking any understanding of cultural difference within white,
Anglo-Australia. He develops terms such as practical nationalism and national
belonging to describe everyday modes of behaviour and cultural practice which are
not generally understood as overtly nationalist, but are subtly embedded in social
relations. In a similar vein I introduced the concept of the habitus in Chapter One,
Bourdieu’s term for an “embodied history”, as a useful one to describe the way
images of the nation operate within culture and in social relations in common and
everyday ways.
Donald Horne claimed that the period of the “new nationalism” was far more about
identity than about what people at the time would have articulated as nationalism
(Horne 1981). It was experienced as a “cultural awakening” which Horne thought
in many ways did not deserve the tainted term “nationalism” which then, as now,
was associated more with chauvinism, racism and warfare. Archer also suggests
that the debate about nationalism in Australia has floundered upon confusion
between nationalism and “Australianess” (Archer 1990: 90). Archer is using the
term “Australianess” here as a description of Australian cultural identity and
cultural practices, while he defines nationalism as a political doctrine. In both these
cases nationalism is read as a negative form of cultural chauvinism, and of course
this type of national expression is easy to find examples of. The activities I discuss
in this chapter show how a complex amalgam of beliefs and influences were
brought to bear in the articulation of a new form of value for the material relics of
Giving Value 126
the Australian historic past. A crucial part of this process was their incorporation
within a concept of the nation, and valuing this concept as a source of history and
of identity.
Chapter 4
Practice makes Perfect? Doing Historical Archaeology in Australia The aim of this chapter is to investigate Australian historical archaeological
practice in the context of relevant policy, legislation and institutional frameworks,
and consider the role of nationalist discourses as constitutive of, or constituted
through this field of cultural production. In Chapter One I introduced the concept
that it is through their incorporation into institutional structures that discourses;
nationalist, colonialist and otherwise, have their most significant effects on day to
day life, as the basis for public policy. I also raised the issue that a feature of the
interaction between discourses and institutions is that institutional administration
tends to become “blackboxed” (Latour 1987 and see Kendall and Wickham1999:
140). This is Latour’s term for the way institutions tend not to analyse the rationale
for proceeding in a particular way, and the procedures become accepted as the
natural way of doing things, giving the appearance of a coherent practice (Latour
was concerned with the application of technology in society). These concepts will
also be investigated further in Chapter 5, where I move from issues of practice to
explore archaeological theory and interpretation, highlighting foundational
concepts which have formed a basis for historical archaeological knowledge
production.
In this analysis the role of government is crucial, but I don’t wont to focus on
government exclusively. This is because I am interested in demonstrating the
complex relationships between governments, institutions and policies, and other
fields of cultural production. I am therefore highlighting the context of practice
over the legal codification of heritage management. Rather than looking in detail at
the legislative protection for historical archaeological sites and the way in which
such provisions have been implemented, I have chosen two case studies of practice
128
Practice makes Perfect 129
which show the development of accepted modes of practice, procedural methods
and fields of interest. Legislation, policy and procedures therefore form a hierarchy
of formally codified institutionalised practices. Giddens has noted that it is often
the least formal “rules”, the rules which are subjected to the least scrutiny and
interpretation, which have the greatest structuring effect on practice (Giddens
1984).
This chapter concerning heritage and archaeological practice could also easily have
centred on the role of Australian party politics, and the contrasting nationalist
visions of the Labor and conservative sides, in shaping the history of heritage
management, and therefore aspects of archaeological practice in Australia. For
instance the history of heritage legislation affecting historical archaeological sites
and relics in Australia, as shown in Figure 4.1, is really only explicable in the
context of the different political histories of each State, the nature of the
parliamentary debates and the issues being confronted in them at the times the laws
were drafted and introduced (Yelland 1991: 45). While I will acknowledge and
analyse this political history to an extent, an aim of this thesis is to argue that most
analyses of the relationship between archaeology and politics fail to adequately
contextualise their accounts in understandings of the relationship between forms of
expert knowledge, foundational histories, nationalist discourses and the strategies
of governments and other areas of cultural practice. This is particularly important
in a consideration of Australia because of the way colonialism is embedded in
Australian nationalist discourse. The coherence of doctrines of progress and
development, of an unfolding national history, are underlain in Australia by
entrenched forms of colonial knowledge. While many aspects of nationalist
discourse in Australia are increasingly anti-colonial, this anti-colonial discourse is
often superimposed over undeconstructed colonial knowledge.
Another reason for not focusing this analysis on the role of government is to avoid
the inherent danger of overstating the authority of the state and its policy agenda.
The field of heritage is remarkable for its versatility and mutability. While tracing
the threads of political uses of the past in support of “dominant ideologies” is a
Practice makes Perfect 130
fairly straightforward matter, and is of course a necessary critique, a total focus on
this issue ignores the situational appropriation, reworking of and resistance to these
“ideologies” at local levels ( Bartu 1999: 92; Herzfeld 1991). The “blackbox”
concept is also crucial for a consideration of historical archaeological practice,
institutions and nationalist discourse because it flags the complex relationship
between intellectual critique, individual interests and institutional structures,
policies and procedures. Heritage is not just a discourse of value, but a complex
web of national and State bureaucracies. Bureaucracy is resistant to change on a
broad scale; it has a vested interest in structuring diverse issues to fit established
management structures. Bureaucrats, with a charter of ensuring legislative
compliance, create management systems based on an analysis of issues, but if
issues change, the system tends to obscure it by constraining and contriving input
to fit its structure. The relationship between intellectual critique, public policy and
its procedural implementation is therefore not straightforward and there is the
tendency for change to be shallow rather than systemic.
This chapter is made up of three components. First I review the framework of
institutionalised practice for historical archaeology in Australia and the legislation,
policy and procedures which archaeological discourse has been both constitutive
of, and constituted through, in complex local histories. As I have already outlined,
most historical archaeology in Australia is practiced outside the academic context,
and because I argue that historical archaeology developed as a result of the linking
of material relics with discourses of heritage and identity, my main interest here is
the heritage management context of historical archaeological practice. However it
should be noted that there is no clear distinction between “pure” and “applied”
research in Australian historical archaeology. The legislative and professional
framework applies equally to research archaeology carried out in an academic
context. In some States permits are required to excavate, consultation may need to
be undertaken, or various conservation objectives may need to be met by academic
research projects. Similarly archaeology undertaken as compliance with legislation
and in a commercial environment may fulfil research objectives. Colley has
recently noted how the term “public archaeology” seems to imply that academic
Practice makes Perfect 131
research is isolated and separate from its public context and that this is misleading
in the case of Australian archaeology (Colley forthcoming). The aim of this section
is therefore to introduce the major policy and procedural frameworks for historical
archaeology and this is relevant not only to the following discussion of practice,
but also for the investigation of theory and interpretation in Chapter 5.
The first detailed case study of practice concerns historical archaeological projects
funded under the National Estate Grants Program between 1974 and 1998. The
data presented here is a unique collation of historical archaeology projects on a
nation wide basis. This provides a rare opportunity to look at how practice
proceeded, at a comparative national level, in the context of the national policy
framework, and also in spite of this framework. The second case study considers
one of Australia’s largest conservation projects at one of its best known historic
sites: Port Arthur in Tasmania. Between 1979 and 1986 federal and State funding
was provided for the conservation, restoration and interpretation of this site which
contains some of the most spectacular remains from the convict system in
Australia. The project team developed distinctive practices based upon
archaeological and conservation philosophies, which I will argue, have been
influential in Australian historical archaeology. A particularly prominent theme in
this archaeological practice was the appeal to the materiality of archaeological
evidence as an “antidote” to the ideological manipulation of the heritage industry,
in particular the work of restoration architects.
Legislation, Policies and Procedures
I discussed in Chapter 3 that Aboriginal sites and relics were generally protected
by legislation earlier than the sites and relics of settler culture in Australia. This
related to the objectification of Aboriginal sites and relics as an important scientific
heritage and their association with the custodianship of archaeology. I argued that
the language of concern which developed around these sites in the early to mid 20th
century did not stress the relationship between indigenous sites and relics and
indigenous cultural identities, although these issues were certainly inserted into this
Practice makes Perfect 132
discourse in more and more emphatic ways from the 1960s. However, the
discourse of national heritage, particularly settler heritage, which also develops
from that time is centrally concerned with settler identity, with cultural
distinctiveness and its roots in a unique national history.
Yet even in its concern with the nationally distinctive, Australia’s heritage
movement was not nationally unique or entirely locally inspired, but closely
involved with broader transnational movements for cultural preservation and
environmental concern, as exemplified in the local influence of the activities of
UNESCO and preservation movements in Europe, Britain and the United States
(Davison 1991a: 5; 2000: 119). So while the spread of the western heritage
movement can be seen as an effect of globalisation, it is important to recognise the
significance of the concept of the nation in providing a framework for the local
expression of these broader, western concepts of valuing cultural and natural
inheritances. Bennett’s work in particular has shown how in the Australian context
the development of the public sphere of heritage emphasised Australia’s national
separateness, and de-emphasised its internationally involved history of colonialism
and migration (Bennett 1995: 141).
Several theorists have provided frameworks which are useful for analysing the role
and meaning of heritage policy and legislation in culture. Foucault’s work on
governmentality (1991) has informed Laurajane Smith’s analysis of the
development of Aboriginal heritage legislation in south-eastern Australia (2000).
Foucault distinguishes between “technologies of government” such as bodies of
expert knowledge, and “techniques of government” such as forms of surveillance
and methods for ordering activities and their locales (Dean 1994: 188). This is
useful for thinking about how heritage works in Australia. The knowledge created
and authorised through “fields of expertise” such as archaeology, anthropology,
history and also heritage, as a new field of expertise in itself, is deployed within
governmental techniques concerned with urban and social planning and land
management generally. Foucault’s framework establishes a basis, which I have
already drawn on extensively in this thesis, to investigate the relationship between
Practice makes Perfect 133
archaeology and politics and society, more profoundly his approach shows that
archaeology, as an authorised form of expert knowledge, is implicated in
power/knowledge alignments. As I discussed in Chapter 3, Byrne and Smith have
recently questioned the central role archaeologists have often claimed for
themselves in the development of heritage legislation to protect Aboriginal sites
and relics in Australia (Byrne 1996; Smith 2000). Both are concerned to show how
archaeology was not “innocent of power” in this process, as might be implied by
explanations of archaeologists acting simply as “custodians of the past”. Referring
to Foucault’s concept of the roles of expert knowledge in techniques of
governmentality, Byrne and Smith claim that in using the discourse of national
heritage to authorise archaeology as a profession, the discipline aligned itself with
the state, and facilitated the “modes of liberal governance” which have served to
de-politicise challenges to the legitimacy of the nation caused by growing
recognition of Aboriginal prior ownership of the national territory (Smith 2000:
116). This of course challenges the conventional accounts of archaeologists’
commitment to the conservation of the national heritage, the position epitomised
by the historical reviews of John Mulvaney (see for instance papers in Mulvaney
1991b). While I agree with many of the insights provided by Byrne and Smith they
fall short of Foucault’s aims in a number of ways. Their criticisms are constrained
by seeing the operation of power as exclusively negative: Byrne suggests
archaeology is “diminished” by its naive complicity with nationalist and colonialist
discourse, while Smith suggests archaeologists are culpable of self-interested
power-seeking in the arena of heritage management. Naive and self-interested
archaeologists may be, but this does not acknowledge the complexity of the social
and cultural context archaeological knowledge is involved in. Archaeological and
anthropological discourses have not simply been influenced and appropriated by
nationalism and colonialism, they also have provided seeds for their critique, as
Thomas (1994) and Appadurai (1996) have argued. Further, the authorisation of
archaeology must be seen to have been creative of knowledge which may have
both positive and negative effects in society in a way that is totally dependent on
the context of the consumption and deployment of this knowledge. This theoretical
perspective also needs to be applied to the field of heritage to recognise that it is a
Practice makes Perfect 134
discourse that it is deployed differently in different contexts, by different
individuals and groups in the community.
The following discussion outlines a range of ways to think about the relationship
between heritage legislation and policy and nationalism. Handler suggests that in
Quebec the patrimoine (a term he equates closely with cultural heritage) is
imagined as the property of the nation, and the nation is thus conceptualised as a
property-owning “collective individual”. He points to how this has required an
“objectifying logic”, allowing any aspect of culture to be imagined as bounded and
as the property of a similarly bounded group (Handler 1988: 141). While these
concepts are pertinent to an analysis of heritage legislation in Australia, here,
unlike Quebec, aspects of settler cultural practice, tradition and folklife, have
rarely been seen as encompassed within the definition of heritage, an issue I
referred to in Chapter 3. In Australia the discourse of heritage and the existing
heritage management framework, is firmly fixated on land and place, with a
secondary emphasis on things, or what is sometimes termed “portable” or
“movable cultural heritage” (in for instance the Commonwealth Protection of
Movable Cultural Heritage Act 1986). Although some murmurs have been made at
the level of the Commonwealth government about a perceived need to link heritage
conservation as it is practiced to policy concerning Australian “cultural life”,
initiatives have not yet been forthcoming (Hill 1999: 10). While Handler’s concept
of the cultural objectification effected by heritage policy is relevant to
understanding its implications in Australia, this process appears less problematic
when applied to places and things, then when it is applied to the intangible
categories of cultural beliefs, practices and traditions. This is because places and
things are already established as commodities and their ownership, whether public
or private, is accepted as natural.
Bonyhady has outlined the tradition in Australia of understanding heritage as real
estate, as the term “National Estate” implies (Bonyhady 1996). He argues that of
all the terms used to describe public lands in the late 19th century, when there were
debates about the management and alienation of Crown lands, the term “National
Practice makes Perfect 135
Estate” was used to carry the strongest preservationist sentiment (Bonyhady 1996:
147). This reflects the power of the concept of the nation to imply a heightened
sense of community and joint responsibility, a sense that was not effected by the
terms public, crown or colonial lands. It must be remembered of course that this
usage predated the federation of Australia and the use of this term was therefore
particularly evocative of the sense of ownership, sovereignty and future destiny
which is inherent in the concept of the nation, but perhaps lacking in the concept of
a colonial dominion. Conservationist discourse engages with nationalist discourse
as a vehicle to achieve its objectives. The possessive pronouns of heritage
discourse (our cultural heritage, the places we want to keep) create the “imagined
community” of the nation. Conservation’s inherent sense of a responsibility to
future generations can be married with nationalist discourse’s focus on the future,
the notion of a national identity that is not only historically continuous but the
basis for ongoing cultural distinctiveness. It is of course misleading to speak of
conservation and nationalism as separate discourses in this way as they have
undoubtedly been mutually constitutive, but I do so in order to highlight how their
recent, overt marriage in the discourse of heritage in Australia has been particularly
distinctive.
Many commentators have pointed to the objectification and commodification of
culture enacted by the heritage industry, and the implications of this process in
terms of the ossification and reification of cultural practices as authentic, complete
and unchanging. The same process applies to the reification of the meaning of
places, and the concept that values are intrinsic to places and things, rather than in
the cultural practices that construct them as meaningful. Alternatively, the effect of
heritage legislation in Australia is also to interfere with the free market commodity
value of places and things by legally codifying their non-monetary cultural value.
Kopytoff has discussed how all societies have means of intervening in the
commoditisation of certain things, a process he terms “singularisation” (Kopytoff
1986: 73). He notes that singularisation by the state is a means by which the
“sacred power” of the state is expanded, while singularisation is also a process
groups within a community use in conflicts over class and identity. Heritage
Practice makes Perfect 136
obviously fits well within Kopytoff’s notion of singularisation. In liberal
democracies therefore heritage management and its codification in legislation is
seen as a formal means of conflict management between the singularisation
activities of different community groups. In the need to manage conflict it is
obviously in the state’s best interest to promote a broad vision of heritage and to
suggest that the nation encompasses the cultural values of all groups, while also
representing the overriding group, whose best interests must be safeguarded. In a
similar vein, Byrne (1999a) and Hamilakis and Yalouri (1996) have taken
Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital to analyse the deployment of antiquities and
heritage sites by groups involved in nationalist projects. Bourdieu’s analysis
focused on how taste, style and manners transform economic capital into a
symbolic or cultural capital used by individuals to improve their position in society
(Bourdieu 1977; 1984). In similar ways groups or individuals may use antiquities
to legitimise their authority by linking it, in a subtle way, to the values and
identities represented in contemporary culture by those historic objects or sites. Of
particular interest to Byrne and Hamilakis and Yalouri is the way symbolic,
cultural capital masks the ways in which power is actually maintained, for instance
the construct of an aristocratic genealogy may mask the fact that power is actually
maintained economically or through the control of land. Heritage discourse may
therefore be deployed as part of any these processes, possibly simultaneously: for
instance in Australia the concept of “wilderness”, and the need to conserve it, has
been used to singularise a certain type of land and construct it as part of the
nation’s sacred trust. The valuing of sites associated with convicts, on the other
hand, can be seen as involved in some Anglo-Celtic Australian communities’
accrual of cultural capital, raising their social status as early settlers with an
important role in establishing the nation. The overarching discourse, encompassing
all such situations, tends to enfold these class and community contests within a de-
politicised discourse of national heritage: a technique of government based upon
expert knowledge and practices which construct a unified, jointly owned, national
past.
Practice makes Perfect 137
The Hope Report
A key national policy statement about heritage was the 1974 Committee of Inquiry
into the National Estate, known as the Hope Report. As I outlined in Chapter 3 the
Hope Report identified historic sites, along with Aboriginal archaeological sites
and other sites of “scientific interest” as a distinct component of the National
Estate, distinguished through their scientific and archaeological research
significance. This Report defines historical archaeological sites primarily as the
evidence of industry, technology and agriculture. It also mentions tools and
equipment associated with traditional crafts as being “of great importance to the
documenting of Australian history” (Hope Report 1974: 176). Historical
archaeologists, through the Australian Society for Historical Archaeology founded
only a few years earlier in 1970, had effectively lobbied the Committee of Inquiry
regarding their interests, stressing in particular the need to develop a systematic
approach to the identification and conservation of sites (Hope Report 1974 and see
Mulvaney 1996). Also of interest is point 5.59 (Hope Report 1974: 176) which
suggests that greater co-ordination between the States was required to ensure a
consistent approach to management and that the roles and rights of various
organisations involved in this needed to be clarified.
These points reflect the desire to articulate boundaries for historical archaeology,
both in terms of a methodology perceived as scientific due to its consensual
consistency and also in terms of establishing links with, and power bases within,
appropriate institutional bureaucracies. While the strong influence of British
traditions of industrial archaeology and of contemporary American cultural
resource management literature is evident in these policy developments, shaping
the “database” of Australian historical archaeology, the process about which the
Hope Report was a crucial policy statement, was a process defined by the
colonialist narratives of national development. The definition of “historic sites”
was based on narratives concerning the opening up and industrialisation of the
Australian land. It focused strongly on the role of the ordinary man, the drovers,
Practice makes Perfect 138
miners and farmers who were attributed key roles in the national mythologies
which I discussed in more detail in Chapter 1 and will look at again in the context
of historical archaeology in Chapter 5. The Hope Report, as one of the key
examples of policy from the Whitlam era, represented a radical departure for
Australian governments in the field of cultural policy (Bennett 1995: 143). These
policy changes represent significant challenges to colonial structures in Australian
public life however the definition of settler heritage, particularly that which falls
into the domain of the historical archaeologists, strongly reinforced the colonial
construct of the development of the Australian nation.
The Hope Report’s singling out of the special component “scientific heritage”, as
distinct from natural and cultural (or built) heritage, is interesting. Whereas the
cultural values of the “built environment” are closely located within the
community, citing historical, architectural and social values, scientific values are
located in their own specialist province, presumably the province of scientific
researchers (Hope Report 1974: 35). However by virtue of their incorporation as an
aspect of the National Estate the ownership of scientific resources is not vested in
scientists, but in the nation. The scientific aspects of heritage are seen as an
important form of cultural capital for the nation. The highest form of scientific
significance is that which is seen as internationally significant. The oldest human
remains, the oldest rock art, like the rarest fossils or geological formations,
attribute special status to the nation which owns them. Therefore scientific
significance is conceptualised as more closely linked to abstract notions of the
nation as an entity in a world context and the universality of scientific knowledge,
than other forms of heritage significance which are more for and about the
“imagined community”. Due to its historical nature, historical archaeology would
never sit easily within definitions of science, and this is perhaps one of the reasons
it would remain nationally confined, as a heritage practice concerned with local
identity, rather than as an internationalising discourse which could promote the
nation and deliver cultural capital in the form of “world class” scientific
discoveries. Such issues however have centrally concerned Australian prehistory’s
focus on origins and antiquity, as Murray has pointed out (Murray 1992: 4).
Practice makes Perfect 139
Even though the concept of scientific significance remains integral to
archaeological significance in the heritage management framework a distinct
branch of “scientific heritage management” did not develop. This was in fact
already prefigured in the recommendations of the Hope Report. Indigenous cultural
heritage protection was seen in the Hope Report as requiring a higher level of
Commonwealth government involvement than settler heritage, and it produced a
strongly worded recommendation for uniform national legislative protection for
significant Aboriginal sites. Recommendations for settler heritage legislative
protection were directed towards State governments. The work of listing and
inventory, it proposed, should be supported by the Commonwealth and by the
continuing work of the community, particularly the National Trust. Therefore
while the Report conceptualised historic sites and Aboriginal archaeological sites
as scientific and archaeological, its recommendations immediately separated
historic sites from Aboriginal archaeological sites in terms of their future
management requirements.
Procedures and Legislation
Figure 4.1 outlines the introduction of “purpose built” settler heritage legislation in
Australia which have some provisions relevant to historical archaeological sites.
By the term “purpose built” I am suggesting that some of the earlier laws and
ordinances around Australia which may have been applied to historical
archaeological sites and relics were not developed with this purpose in mind.
Although this could be said of Victoria’s Archaeological and Aboriginal Relics
Preservation Act 1972, it was habitually used as a mechanism to authorise
historical archaeological activity and a High Court decision in 1982 confirmed that
this use was legal (Pearson and Sullivan 1995: 71). The Australian Heritage
Commisssion Act 1975 was created as a direct response to the Hope Report. Due to
the Federal Government’s limited powers to enforce federal legislation over the
States, this Act only regulated the activities of the Federal Government itself. In all
other matters it is an advisory and educational piece of legislation, that focuses on
Practice makes Perfect 140
the maintenance of the Register of the National Estate. This Register has been the
only nationwide heritage register which encompassed historic, natural and
indigenous heritage. Also of importance here is the fact that the Register of the
National Estate made no distinctions, as many other listing systems around
Australia have done, on the “level” of heritage significance, such as local, State or
national significance. However this is likely to change with a proposal currently
before government to introduce a new “National Heritage List” and a reformed
heritage management regime, which I will return to shortly (AHC 2000).
Figure 4.1 shows a cluster of early legislative activity in the south-eastern States
and at the level of the Federal Government, while throughout the 1980s
governments in Tasmania, Queensland and Western Australia resisted pressures
from activists and the Federal Government to introduce settler heritage legislation.
Yelland notes that the similar legislation introduced by Labor Governments in
NSW and South Australia follows directly in the tradition of the Hope Report and
the Heritage Commission Act. Both the South Australian and NSW Acts were
designed to act in concert with planning legislation. Rather than this broad brush
development control approach, other Acts focused on the protection of “listed
places” (Pearson and Sullivan 1995: 38).
The most comprehensive recent analysis of heritage legislation in Australia is
Pearson and Sullivan (1995). They have analysed the complex array of federal and
state legislation into different types of legislative mechanisms (and see Parrott
1990). Following these studies, and my own reviews of legislation and procedures,
I suggest that the main legislative mechanisms used to the trigger historical
archaeological work can be summarised as follows;
1. “listing” or “registering” a heritage place, so that various regulations are
triggered for proposed activities which affect the place;
2. legislating to impose “environmental impact assessment” procedures, which
therefore trigger assessments of archaeological significance and perhaps also
some mitigative measures such as rescue excavation; and
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3. requirements for the discovery of archaeological relics to be reported and acted
upon under the direction of the authority administering the Act. Responses here
might include a direction to stop work or the need to undertake rescue
excavation.
From this summary I can draw out 4 generic categories of historical archaeological
procedures which are enshrined in this legislative framework:
1) listing and inventory (identification of heritage);
2) significance assessment;
3) physical assessment (including strategic management plans based upon such
assessments); and
4) rescue excavation (and other forms of recording and interpretation of
archaeological data).
I do not propose that this summary covers all forms of historical archaeological
practice in the heritage management framework. It clearly does not. However it
does indicate the institutionalised framework for historical archaeological practice
and the range of procedures which are embedded in this framework. These
procedures are broadly analogous to archaeological heritage management
procedures around the world and there is a large international literature on their
description, definition and implementation (see for example Cooper et al 1995;
Cleere 1989; and in Australia Smith and Clarke 1996; Pearson and Sullivan 1995).
The case studies that follow concentrate on work that falls into categories 1. listing
and inventory, 3. physical assessment and 4. rescue excavation and recording. I
will discuss significance assessment in more detail in Chapter 5, however all
procedures and actions in historical archaeology involve some implicit decision
about significance. Looking at established practices and procedures will help to
bring out what some of the more implicit decisions about significance are in
historical archaeology. Central to these implicit concepts of significance and value
is the framework of the nation, as we shall go on to see.
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The Burra Charter and Heritage Policy
The most influential policy in Australian heritage management since its
introduction in 1979, has been The Australia ICOMOS Charter for Places of
Cultural Significance, known as the Burra Charter, after the town in South
Australia where it was adopted. Australia ICOMOS is the local chapter of the
International Council on Monuments and Sites which is an affiliate of UNESCO.
The Burra Charter was updated in 1981, 1988 and most recently in 1999. It is
interesting to note that although archaeologists were heavily involved in the
drawing up of the original Charter, few were involved in the most recent process of
amendments (pers.com. David Young). One of the most influential aspects of the
Charter has been its definition of cultural significance. The charter introduced four
categories of “cultural significance”, a term used interchangeably around Australia
with heritage significance, although these terms do tend to separate around
concepts of heritage as only material things, while “cultural” maintains the broader
notion of material and non-material culture (see for instance Colley forthcoming;
Bonyhady 1996). The four categories of significance are historical, aesthetic,
scientific and social. Although federal and State legislation around Australia
include many variations upon these terms, most concepts fit within the umbrella
definition of the Burra Charter (Byrne et al 2001: 149).
Archaeological significance is noted as an aspect of scientific significance, which
in turn is defined as the research value of a place. The distinctive aspect of the
Burra Charter is that although its successive refinements have been devised to
temper its “fabric bias”, it retains its definition of significance as “embodied in
place”. This concept fits in well with materialist definitions of archaeological and
scientific significance, but it sits less well with current critiques of culturally
constructed meanings, value and knowledge (Tainter and Lucas 1983; Byrne et al
2001). These issues are taken further in Chapter 5, however it is important to note
here that materialist or “intrinsic” definitions of significance are part of the
rationale for most of the practices and procedures I will go on to discuss. I argue
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here that the Burra Charter, in the context of other ICOMOS initiatives, such as its
Code of Ethics of Co-Existence in Conserving Significant Places (discussed further
below), shows that it attempts to deal with tensions between a modernist
commitment to universalism and a postmodernist commitment to pluralism. This
tension is a feature of heritage discourse generally. Can we align these modernist
discourses with nationalist discourses? I will go on to argue that to some extent this
is possible, however nationalist discourse is flexible and its constitution through
the field of heritage is a good example of this.
The Burra Charter was originally designed to articulate the standards for a
professional conservation practice in Australia. It was based on the 1964 ICOMOS
Venice Charter. Max Bourke points out that:
“Australia ICOMOS pioneered the important intellectual notion that the
conservation, identification and protection of cultural artefacts had a local
methodology and lexicon... Although intellectually an heir and successor to the
Venice Charter it was distinctly Australian” (Bourke 1992: 42).
Bourke’s view of cultural heritage was as a universal scientific value and that the
process to assess this value should likewise be scientific, rational and apolitical
(Bourke 1992). Many of these aspirations are dealt with in the Burra Charter. The
key aspects of the charter which will concern us here are; its identification of
processes which must be undertaken by professionals; its philosophy of
authenticity, which is expressed in procedures for minimal intervention in fabric;
its concept of archaeology as a recording mechanism for fabric; and its emphasis
on recording and archiving all changes to a heritage place.
The fabric bias of the Burra Charter was broadly critiqued and this led to its
comprehensive review of 1999. This review added the category of “spiritual” to the
four categories of significance, and added further provisions for involving the
community in the heritage process and for the definition of social value. These
issues reflect the major policy trends in heritage over the period of the case studies
I go on to present below. As I mentioned above, ICOMOS adopted its Code of
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Ethics of Co-Existence in Conserving Significant Places in 1994. It aimed to
establish the principle that competing cultural values need not be resolved through
heritage management, but should be able to co-exist. This code of ethics relates to
both multicultural and indigenous cultural rights discourses as they were expressed
and developed through the 1980s in Australia. In the field of non-indigenous
heritage, these discourses resulted in designs for more inclusive practices for the
identification of heritage (Galla 1993), and a result of this was a growing interest in
the issue of social significance (Johnston 1992; Byrne et al 2001). More emphasis
on issues of social significance creates enormous tensions within the “scientific
identification” processes for heritage outlined above by Bourke, and I come back
to these issues in Chapters 5 and 6.
A further implication of concepts of social value and inclusiveness is that not only
are they inconsistent with materialist definitions of heritage, but they suggest that
the category of historical significance has also been defined by materialist,
nationalist discourse. I suggest in Chapter 5 that the distinction between historical
and social significance has been founded on the concept that historical represents
things which are important within a “nationalist high culture”, while social
accounts for things important within local and minority cultures.
A further trend in heritage management through the late 1990s, which can also be
seen as at odds with a more community centred, socially oriented heritage practice,
is the move towards the formation of a National Heritage List (Hill 1999). The
Federal Government has been pursuing reforms in the national heritage
management framework since 1996. At the time of writing a draft federal heritage
legislation was before the Parliament. The aim of these reforms is to simplify and
clarify the confusing and overlapping legislative system and to adopt a national
heritage policy. The desire for a National Heritage List has also been expressed as
a means of ensuring federal protection and resources for heritage places seen to be
of “national”, rather than state or local, importance (Commonwealth of Australia
1997). As I discussed above, this is a concept diametrically opposed to the basis of
the Register of the National Estate, which perhaps idealistically, aimed to include
Practice makes Perfect 145
places of significance to any community, not distinguishing between “levels” of
significance. The future of the National List is yet to be determined, but it is likely
that, if introduced, it will reify a particular lexicon of national identity in a new and
formal way:
“In Australia, there is an undoubted sense of national identity associated with
this country’s unique landscapes, flora and fauna: with the cultural heritage of
Indigenous Australia; with sporting heroes; with our pubs, our sporting ovals...”
(Commonwealth of Australia 1997: 2)
Historical archaeology in Australia is therefore practiced in a range of institutional
settings and under legislative and policy frameworks that vary from State to State.
I have outlined above however, a broad framework within which to approach
issues of archaeological practice in Australia. Practices and research concerns
appear to vary from State to State, but this issue is difficult to document because
so much of the mostly unpublished literature produced by these different aspects of
archaeological practice is dispersed in various State archives and in the offices of
the government departments and private clients who commission research. The
problem then was how to investigate the relationship between nationalist
discourses and the realities of historical archaeological practice at a national level?
The National Estate Grant Program 1974 – 1998
I first considered looking at the Commonwealth government’s National Estate
Grants Program (NEGP) as an opportunity to investigate the influence of the
national governments and policies over historical archaeology, in terms of the
projects it was prepared to fund. However it immediately became apparent that this
research aim was inappropriate and did not reflect the way the program had been
administered. Applications for the NEGP were essentially generated at the local
level and accepted from government organisations, research institutions and
community groups (but not from individuals). Priorities for funding specific
categories of projects were developed by the Australian Heritage Commission for
Practice makes Perfect 146
this program only from 1990/1, and State heritage agencies played a major role in
assessing the applications. The heritage significance of the place or project to be
funded may have been less critical in this review process than the ability of the
proponent to properly manage the project. Therefore the NEGP must be seen as
representing local initiatives which are filtered through several levels of State and
national bureaucracy. Because of this the NEGP does offer some opportunity to
investigate the issue of regional differences in practice between the States, within
the context of a national heritage policy framework. This sample of historical
archaeological projects does not therefore represent a “commonwealth/national
vision” of heritage management, but a unique assembly of historical archaeological
and heritage management projects, emanating from a local context, but accessible
at a national level. Nor would I suggest that the “snapshot” of historical
archaeological practice provided here should be extrapolated to make generalised
statements about historical archaeology in Australia. This is a specific case study
and its value is in documenting in detail the nature of historical archaeological
practice in these particular circumstances.
The NEGP was created in 1972 following an election promise by the Whitlam
government (1972 –75) to assist the States and the community in their
conservation efforts. The Australian Heritage Commission (AHC) was created in
1975 to advise the federal government on the Register of the National Estate, as
recommended in the 1974 Hope Inquiry. Following the 1975 dismissal of the
Whitlam government, the incoming Fraser administration (1975 – 1983) reviewed
the Australian Heritage Commission Act and removed the NEGP from the
Heritage Commission and placed it with the Minister for Environment, Housing
and Community Development, acting in conjunction with the States (Yelland
1991). This reflects the tradition of conservative governments in Australia to be
more likely to minimise the impact of Commonwealth legislation on the States
than their Labor counterparts. In 1989 the program was “returned” to the AHC and
that body then encompassed the program within its 5 yearly Research Strategies,
which established priority for certain types of projects (AHC 1989). In 1999 the
NEGP was subsumed by the Cultural Heritage Projects Program, administered by
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the federal Department of the Environment and Heritage, and this essentially
marked the closure of this unique, long term funding initiative. Between 1974 and
1998 it provided more than $78 million Australia-wide to community, research and
government bodies to undertake a broad range of heritage activities concerning
natural, indigenous and historic heritage (AHC 1999: 76).
The NEGP has been a significant funding source for historical archaeology, both
inside and outside the academy, helping to support student field training, policy
and procedures development for historical archaeology, comparative research,
regional surveys and inventories, as well as a host of site specific research and
conservation projects. A review of this program will give a picture of historical
archaeological work practiced in university, government and community contexts,
on an Australia wide basis. Long term post-doctoral and collaborative academic
research, based primarily in universities, may be funded through the Australian
Research Council (see Introduction for further discussion), while NEGP projects,
which generally have smaller budgets and shorter terms, could be based in any
institution or not-for-profit community group, provided the project related to “ the
identification, conservation or presentation of an item of the National Estate”
(Pearson and Sullivan 1995: 50). The projects in the NEGP must therefore be
considered as heritage management archaeology. That is to say that the project
must generate some public benefit, such as the better management of a resource,
the protection, conservation or public interpretation of a heritage place, and it must
demonstrate its ability to produce these benefits in terms accepted by the
administering bureaucracies.
I assembled the historical archaeological project lists (Appendix Tables A.6-13)
directly from the funding allocation approval files, which are today housed in the
Heritage Assistance and Projects Section, Department of Environment and
Heritage, Canberra. Additional information has been sourced from the Australian
Heritage Commission Library and discussions with Heritage Commission and
Heritage Assistance and Projects staff. An NEGP bibliography in database form,
called Conserving the National Estate: a Bibliography of National Estate Studies,
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has been prepared by the AHC however keyword searches were not considered to
be reliable enough to produce a comprehensive account of historical archaeological
projects. Therefore the paper files were reviewed to determine which projects
concerned historical archaeology. Even so, descriptions were often scanty or
ambiguous. I have focused on several broad levels of information: who was
carrying out the projects; what types of heritage places or heritage issues were
being addressed in the projects: and what sorts of projects, for instance
excavations, surveys, artefact analysis, conservation management plans etc, were
being funded. The NEGP was administered jointly with the States so the data can
be looked at on a State by State basis. This gives me the opportunity to compare
these categories across the States and also to look at trends in funding over time.
To look at historical archaeology in the NEGP the first issue to decide is what sort
of a project is an historical archaeological project? The administration of the
Program did not recognise disciplinary distinctions between the projects, many of
which were multidisciplinary, but rather followed the broad categories of the
National Estate: historic, natural and indigenous environments. I used the
following criteria to determine the list of historical archaeological projects:
Archaeological excavation, survey and assessment of historic sites.
Conservation and acquisition of historic sites, the value of which was partly or
wholly described as “archaeological”.
Studies, management plans and interpretation plans concerning historical
archaeological sites or artefacts.
Funding for archaeological seminars, publications, student training, and
procedural guidelines for historical archaeology.
Projects which were multidisciplinary but clearly included provision to employ
historical archaeologists.
The most difficult types of projects to assess as being “historical archaeological” or
other, were those concerning historic industrial sites or thematic studies of
industry. As I have discussed in Chapter 3 industrial archaeology formed a crucial
research focus for historical archaeology, however often such projects are lead by
Practice makes Perfect 149
architects, historians, engineers or other professions. I have included projects
where archaeologists have been employed, or archaeological methodologies and
research frameworks used, or where I believe they produced data likely to be used
by historical archaeologists. For instance while I would not include an Institute of
Engineer’s project to place plaques on sites of technological rarity, I would include
an Institute of Engineer’s survey of historic engineering sites in a region.
Historical archaeology in the NEGP (Figure 4.2)
There were a total of 257 historical archaeological projects in the NEGP, which
received a total of $5,740,550, between 1974 and 1998 (Appendix). With this
small number of projects, which averages out to just over 10 a year over this 24
year period, it is inappropriate to submit this data to a statistical analysis. This
figure is small enough so that my analysis of actual numbers can look at individual
projects in their historical and political context where this is indicated.
Figure 4.2 shows that historical archaeology projects have been a minor
component of the NEGP as a whole, which covered the gamut of conservation
projects concerning natural, indigenous and historic heritage. In NSW,
Queensland, South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia,
historical archaeology projects account for around 5.0% of the total NEGP
between 1974 and 19911. This means that about 1.0% of the total NEG Program
funding went to historical archaeology projects in each of these States. The
variation between these States can be seen directly by referring to the actual
funding figures in Appendix Table 1, here it can be seen that the recipient of the
largest proportion if NEGP funds (apart from Tasmania) was Victoria, which
received $611,864.
The Tasmanian story is different because of the special allocation made from the
NEGP to the Port Arthur Conservation Project, which will be discussed in detail
below. While this project was certainly broader than just historical archaeology,
Practice makes Perfect 150
archaeology did play a strong role in it and several archaeologists were employed,
while hundreds of volunteers participated in Summer Archaeological Programs.
This project received $1,850,000 of NEGP funds between 1980 and 1986. It also
received other funding from State and Commonwealth sources. However it should
be noted that the total amount of NEGP funding directed towards Tasmania is not
significantly larger than other States, so proportionally historical archaeology
projects , at 5.6% of the total, play a much bigger role in the NEGP in Tasmania.
The ACT, as a small territory, received only a small proportion of National Estate
Grants and, as I discuss further below, many of these projects were initiated by
institutions in the ACT, but were for research in other parts of Australia.
Apart from Tasmania and the ACT, the consistency between the rest of the States
reflects the fact that congruous approaches to the allocation of funds towards
historical archaeology were applied. This in itself is notable and does reflect the
influence of the national policy framework. Throughout this period each State had
major differences in the nature of sites and relics to be dealt with, in the numbers
of historical archaeologists employed in local universities or heritage agencies, and
in the presence or absence of heritage legislation affecting historical archaeological
sites and relics (Figure 4.1). Despite these discrepancies, this Program shows only
a small amount of variation in projects between the states. These instances of
variance, which I will draw out below, are however significant and need to be seen
in the context of local histories.
The proponents of historical archaeology projects in the NEGP (Figure 4.3)
The projects were categorised according to three different types of proponents:
government bodies, community groups and universities (or related research
institutions). The vast majority of historical archaeology projects funded were
proposed by government agencies, which reflects their dominant role in the day to
day management of heritage and conservation in Australia since the 1970s. The
government category incorporates State Museums, which play roles in Queensland
1 NB the total amounts of funding for the years 1991 – 1998 were not available from the NEGP
Practice makes Perfect 151
(6 projects), Western Australia and NSW (3 projects each), and Tasmania (2
projects). State government departments receiving grants are generally those which
manage land and historic sites, like National Park services, or those involved in
administering planning systems and environmental protection. Local governments,
consisting of town or regional councils also figure prominently in the program.
As well as land management agencies, the government category also reflects the
administration of the Commonwealth Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976. Most of the
NEGP studies of shipwrecks by government agencies were undertaken in Victoria
and Queensland (see Figure 4.4). Western Australia, which has the most famous
shipwreck sites and the longest history of maritime archaeology in Australia
(Hosty and Stuart 1994) accounts for only 0.4% of the total number of shipwreck
studies under this program. The pattern which we see emerging here is the use of
the NEGP, in some cases, to “fill in” areas where State or other monies may not
have been available.
The majority of grants going to community groups went to the National Trusts in
each State. The Western Australian National Trust was particularly active
accounting for 13 out of 16 community projects in that State, which is also the
highest number of community grants for any State or Territory. In Tasmania
however the National Trust held no NEGP grants for historical archaeology
projects. Many of the grants going to National Trusts around Australia relate to
their work in the field of industrial heritage, showing a strong amateur tradition in
this component.
The small number of grants going to universities reflects the few archaeologists
employed in Australian tertiary institutions with an interest in historical
archaeology over this 24 year period, however the way grants were distributed
bears little relationship to the appointment of historical archaeology lecturers, but
more to a complex amalgam of factors. These include an academic’s personal
interest in heritage management related research outside a purely academic
files so only figures to 1991 could be compared in this way.
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context. It also includes the fact that many academic archaeologists in Australia
have had an intermittant involvement with historical archaeology, even though
their primary area of research is in prehistory, classical archaeology or otherwise.
Of the grants going to universities, the Australian National University, Canberra,
played a significant early role, receiving grants in the 1974/75 and 1975/76
programs for the Historical Archaeology Co-ordinating Committee reporting to the
Interim Committee on the National Estate (Allen 1978), and a third grant in
1978/79 for a project in Tasmania. No further grants went to the Australian
National University after 1979. This early flurry of activity in Canberra reflects the
setting up of the Australian Heritage Commission in 1975. Mulvaney has recorded
his facilitating role in this process, while his colleagues at the Australian National
University, archaeologists Isabel McBryde, Jim Allen and Rhys Jones also had
interests in historic sites (Allen 1978; Mulvaney 1991b: 249).
In NSW, the only university to participate in the NEGP was the University of
Sydney, which had the longest and most consistent association of any university in
Australia with the NEGP, receiving 7 grants between 1975 and 1995. The majority
of these grants went to Judy Birmingham, whose important role in historical
archaeological practice was discussed in Chapter 3. Universities in Victoria, South
Australia and Western Australia account for only one NEGP project each.
Queensland had the largest number of different universities to undertake NEGP
projects: the University of Queensland in Brisbane proposed local studies in
1980/81 and 1981/82, James Cook University in Townsville conducted projects in
1984/85, 1986/87and 1990/91 and Griffith University in Brisbane undertook a
project in 1991/92.
The types of historical archaeological sites covered by NEGP projects (Figure
4.4).
All projects were categorised in terms of the type of site or place they were based
on. The definitions of these site types are set out in Figure 4.5. In categorising the
site types I have consciously reflected some of the important or dominant themes
Practice makes Perfect 153
in Australian historical archaeology. The projects fell easily into these broad
categories with only 6 being relegated to the category “Other". Projects which did
not focus on a site or type of site, classified N/A, numbered only 8 out of a total of
257. In Figure 4.4 the array of site types covered in NEGP projects is set out
showing the percentage of all historical archaeology projects which focus on each
site type, expressed against the percentage of these projects which occurred in each
particular State. For instance, only 2.7% of all historical archaeology projects in
the NEGP took domestic sites as their subject, of this 2.7 %, 1.2 % occurred in
both NSW and Queensland, and the final 0.4 % in Tasmania (decimal places have
been rounded out and so are not exact but the actual numbers for each site type are
set out in the Appendix Table A.4).
Site Type Terms Definitions of Site Type Terms
Aboriginal Historic Places occupied by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people during the post-contact or colonial period (post 1788).
Convict Places primarily associated with the penal system and/or the occupation of convicts.
Mining Places where extractive industry or mining was carried out, including the remains of mines and plant associated with extraction.
Other Industrial Places associated with land based industry other than mining, such as brickworks, lime kilns, canneries etc.
Shipwrecks Remains of wrecked ships in coastal or inland waters.
Maritime Industrial Industries associated with the sea, such as whaling, fishing, sealing, penguin oil.
Rural/Agricultural Places associated with farming, pastoralism and forestry.
Military Fortifications and other military sites.
N/A (Not Applicable) This classification is used for projects not concerned with sites or places, such as procedural guidelines or seminars.
Mixed Sites Studies concerned with a range of sites, usually in a regional or landscape context.
Domestic Houses or residences.
Settlement/Village Studies concerned with entire settlements or villages.
Other Six sites fell into this category. They were a “Chinese temple”, the “Police Paddock at Dandenong”, a Quarantine Station, a road and two cemeteries.
Figure 4.5 Definitions of the Site Type Terms used to classify historical archaeological
projects in the NEGP.
Studies of mining sites dominate at 22.4 % of all historical archaeology projects in
the NEGP, followed by Other Industrial sites at 17.3 %, and Mixed Sites at 12.5 %.
Practice makes Perfect 154
The Mixed Sites category concerns projects looking at the range of sites in a
landscape or regional context. If we refer to Figure 4.7, which shows that
“Survey/Inventory” type projects account for 46.2% of all projects, this indicates
that many of these survey and inventory projects focused on a particular type of
site, most often mining sites, rather than on all aspects of a landscape or region.
The unexpected result of this site type analysis is that the fourth largest category,
equal with Rural and Agricultural sites, is Aboriginal Historic Sites on 8.2 % of
total projects. As I mentioned briefly in Chapter 3 contact archaeology or
Aboriginal historical archaeology has been a subject of burgeoning interest
throughout the late 1990s in Australia. Colley and Bickford (1996) examined the
systemic reasons why contact archaeology had not flourished in Australia from the
1960s when initial interest and enthusiasm was shown for this subject. Murray
(1996a, 1996c) and Byrne (1996; forthcoming) have explored the cultural, political
and ontological issues associated with the concept of an archaeology of a “shared”
historical period. Contact archaeology opens questions which go to the heart of
archaeology’s materialist definitions of cultures and challenges archaeological
reasoning with a host of post-colonial questions about cultural identity. This
literature has shown that Aboriginal historic places are underrepresented on
heritage registers and tend to slip through the gaps in much heritage management
(Byrne et al 2001: forthcoming). These are issues I will explore further in Chapter
5, it is interesting to note here however, that historical archaeology projects within
the NEGP paid more attention to Aboriginal Historic Sites than shipwrecks,
convict sites, domestic and military sites, sites which have a broad popular appeal
in the context of the settler heritage industry. This reflects again, I would argue, the
use of the NEGP to fill gaps in funding for heritage management work available
from other sources. For instance, there has been a specialist program administered
through the Commonwealth government to fund underwater cultural heritage
management as well as various State funding allocations (the National Historic
Shipwrecks Program see Staniforth 2000). Sites associated with convictism have
often remained in public ownership and historical archaeology focusing on convict
sites is often funded through State governments as owners of these sites.
Practice makes Perfect 155
The State with the largest number of Aboriginal historic site projects is South
Australia, with 8 projects undertaken between 1981 and 1993, 4 by government
and 4 by community groups. There were more Aboriginal Historic site projects
than any other site type projects in South Australia. In Victoria, where there were 5
projects, the role of the Victoria Archaeological Service (VAS) is notable. VAS
was an unusual form of heritage management bureaucracy in Australia as it
included prehistorians, historical and maritime archaeologists in a single
archaeology-based agency. VAS only carried out 2 of the 5 Victorian projects, but
one, in 1988/89, was a major state-wide survey of Victoria’s Aboriginal historic
sites including missions, cemeteries and massacre sites. This project was in
association with the Melbourne Aboriginal Education Association, while a further
2 of these 5 projects were conducted by an Aboriginal community group, the
Corranderk Koori Co-operative. In Tasmania, where 5 projects on Aboriginal
historic sites were also recorded, 3 related to funds provided for the acquisition of
Wybalenna by the State government. Wybalenna is an important site on Flinders
Island in Bass Strait where Tasmanian Aborigines were interned in the 1830s
(Birmingham 1992; Mulvaney 1989: 56). The two remaining grants went to a
community group, The Tasmanian Environment Centre, to record Aboriginal
historic sites in the Furneaux Group of Islands, also in Bass Strait.
These Tasmanian Aboriginal Historic sites are perhaps the most contentious in
Australia because of historical claims that all Tasmanian Aboriginals had been
wiped out by 1876, the year when Truganini died. Truganini was believed by
colonial authorities to be the last full-blood Tasmanian Aboriginal. Tasmania’s
Aboriginal Relics Act 1975 actually states that a relic must date to before 1876 to
be protected (Pearson and Sullivan 1995: 68). As in all colonial situations the
reality of Aboriginal people’s experiences was more complicated than the official
records allow (Ryan 1996). Documentation of Aboriginal historic sites in
Tasmania, especially those dating after 1876 as they do in the Furneaux Group of
Islands, was therefore an even more politically charged process than this type of
work in other parts of Australia. The strong community involvement in this site
Practice makes Perfect 156
type suggests the NEGP provided a source of funds which was at once open to
community participation and could add to the work that was being conducted by
the government agencies. It also reflects the growing participation in, and
management of, cultural heritage projects by Aboriginal communities.
Apart from projects identified as Aboriginal Historic, few other projects focused
on heritage places associated with an ethnicity, other than an assumed Anglo-
Australian one. Exceptions to this occurred in Queensland, with one historical
archaeology project on a “Chinese” temple, in Western Australia, with one project
looking at Macassan pottery and 6 projects in the Northern Territory identifying
Chinese and Macassan cultural remains. Macassans were fisherfolk from Indonesia
who harvested and processed trepang (sea slug or beche de mer) in Arnhem Land
and the Kimberly in northern Australia, and interacted with the people there in the
18th century (Mulvaney and Kamminga 1999: 414). Therefore, although I have
shown above that one of the most important trends in heritage policy development
through this period was towards “inclusiveness”, including strategies for the
identification of “multicultural” heritage, this is not reflected in historical
archaeology projects in the NEGP. That is except in the area of Aboriginal historic
sites, where it is important to note that this work demonstrates a strong community,
rather than a government led, emphasis.
Trends in the funding of projects: site types (Figure 4.6)
Trends in the amount of funds allocated to each site type are set out in full in the
Appendix (Table A.5). Figure 4.6 shows funding commitments towards Convict
site projects, dominated by the major and unique commitment made to the Port
Arthur Conservation Project between 1980/81 and 1985/86. Other Convict sites
projects occupy a minor proportion of funds directed towards historical
archaeology projects, due I would suggest to the availability of other government
funding sources for this highly valued aspect of settler heritage. Although it should
be noted that, because of the large amounts of money going to Port Arthur, the
Practice makes Perfect 157
scale on this graph is very different to the other site types, No other site type
groups received over $130,000 in any year.
Mining sites represent the most consistent commitment in the NEGP both in terms
of numbers of projects and funding. While the dominant importance of this type of
heritage place, within the context of what was conceived of as “historical
archaeology”, has been drawn out in my discussions of industrial archaeology in
Chapter 3 and the earlier discussion of the Hope Report, this does not entirely
explain why it predominates here in the NEGP. For as we have seen, other
“popular” site types such as domestic sites, shipwrecks and convict sites, are much
less a feature of this program. As I have indicated, the factors which shape funding
through the NEGP include the existence of other State funding programs. The
consistency of funding of mining sites projects over the years suggests that these
sites may not have been well funded by the States. It also reflects the strong
community interest in this type of heritage. As we saw with Aboriginal historic
sites, community groups could access NEGP funds as well as professionals. The
area of mining and industrial heritage recording has a strong amateur tradition as
discussed in Chapter 3, regarding the NSW Industrial Archaeology Committee of
the National Trust. Identifying and recording industrial sites by amateurs is an
activity which is accepted in heritage management in Australia, while
archaeological excavation, development of management strategies and altering
historic buildings are activities which are authorised only for professionals.
Therefore, because of the NEGP’s aim of being open to the community, it must
also reflect the kind of work which the heritage management framework allowed
amateurs to undertake.
What is also of interest in the trends in funding for Mining sites is the direct
correlation which can be seen with the imposition of the Australian Heritage
Commission’s (AHC) Research Strategies, introduced when the Commission took
over management of the program in 1989 (AHC 1989). In the first five year
Strategy, mining sites were identified as a priority area for funding, particularly in
terms of studies which compared sites, developed site type profiles or thematic
Practice makes Perfect 158
studies of industry. This explains the steep rise in funding in the 1991/1992 and, to
a lesser extent, in the 1994 program. When this 5 year strategy was replaced in
1995 mining sites were no longer identified as a priority for funding and are totally
absent from the 1996 and 1997 programs (AHC 1995). The return of two large
projects in Western Australia and the Northern Territory in 1998 reflects the
ongoing importance of mining heritage in the States.
A further major influence from the AHC Research Strategy is shown in the funding
for Settlement/ Village sites in 1995/96. This was because Archaeological Zoning
Plans were identified as a priority in the 1995 strategy. Archaeological Zoning Plan
is the term given to a predictive management strategy for historical archaeological
sites, usually in an urban area, based upon historical research and physical
assessments of survival of remains (Ireland 1989; NSW Department of Planning
1993). All of the Archaeological Zoning Plan projects were conducted in NSW, in
Port Macquarie, Newcastle and Richmond. Each of these towns is built around an
early colonial or convict period settlement which was under threat due to
increasing development pressures in their regions. The 1995 Strategy also
identified “rural settlement and landuse” and “maritime industry” as priorities for
funding and this is also directly reflected in the 1995 and 1996 programs (see
Appendix Table A.5).
Mixed sites projects are those which looked at all, or a range of historical
archaeological sites in a region or a landscape, and at 12.5% of the program, this is
the third largest site type category in terms of numbers. This sort of project relates
more to “heritage studies” or studies designed to prepare inventories of heritage
sites for local councils or other management bodies. What is notable about this
category, is that it is so overshadowed, in terms of numbers and funds, by the
categories of Mining and Other Industrial, which so dominate this program. This is
no doubt partly due to the “thematic” approach to the study of heritage sites. I
discussed earlier how the task of creating inventories of historical archaeological
sites has usually been guided by the development of themes or thematic histories.
This has remained integral to the Australian Heritage Commission’s approach to its
Practice makes Perfect 159
task of “registering” the National Estate (AHC 2001). Studies of “site types” were
seen as useful ways of assessing their relative significance but it also became clear
that this “pigeon holing” of heritage places took them out of their regional context,
and in particular, took them outside their community or cultural context (Pearson
and Sullivan 1995: 311). While the Heritage Commission introduced projects of
regional assessments of all heritage values (Pearson and Sullivan 1995: 311), its
research strategies also continued to emphasise the site type approach by
identifying particular types of places, such as World War 2 fortifications or
maritime industries for instance, as high priorities for research. The dominance of
survey and inventory projects in the NEGP, which I will come to shortly, and the
dominance of specific site type projects shows the deep influence of the thematic
approach in historical archaeological heritage management projects.
The types of historical archaeological studies funded under the NEGP (Figure
4.7)
Figure 4.7 shows that Survey/Inventory projects dominate this program at 46.2%
of all projects. This is followed by Excavation/Survey/ Research at 20.6% and
Management/Research Plan at 19.1%. These terms are defined in Figure 4.8. These
three project types reflect the main procedural categories encouraged through the
legislative framework, as I outlined earlier in the chapter. Inventories and surveys
of the “historical archaeological record” were required to act as management tools
for site protection, but also as a means of defining what the historical
archaeological record in Australia was so that research issues could be formulated
(Temple 1979, Allen 1978: A22; Pearson 1984: 29). The
Excavation/Survey/Research category covers more detailed and site specific
projects, while Management/ Research Plans reflect procedures developed for the
strategic management of a place or a type of archaeological site.
NSW shows the greatest diversity of study types, with 7 different types of studies
represented, while (apart form the ACT) it shows the lowest percentage of
Survey/Inventory studies and the highest percentage of Management/Research
Plans. The diversity of projects in NSW is contributed to by the role of Sydney
Practice makes Perfect 160
University in undertaking student training, particularly at the site of Regentville,
near Penrith, NSW (Birmingham and Wilson 1994). Student training projects were
not undertaken in any other State in the NEGP. As well as student training, two
major Guidelines/Manuals projects were undertaken at the University of Sydney.
The small number of artefact studies conducted in the program obviously reflects
the place basis of the National Estate, but it is also reflective of broader trends in
historical archaeological research in Australia, as Lawrence has pointed out
(Lawrence 1998b).
Study Type Terms Definitions of Study Type Terms
Acquisition/ Conservation Works Project to fund the acquisition of, or works to conserve, a site associated with historical archaeological values.
Management/Research Plan A project to draw up a plan for future research or conservation work such as an archaeological management plan or a conservation plan.
Survey/Inventory A project which surveys an area, a group of sites, or sites of a particular type, for the purposes of listing or inventory.
Excavation /Survey/Research A project which undertakes detailed recording and/or analysis of a particular site involving excavation, above ground survey or other research methods.
Seminar/Conference Project to fund the holding of a seminar or conference for historical archaeologists.
Student Training Project aiming partly or wholly to train students in aspects of historical archaeological practice.
Guidelines/Manuals Project to prepare guidelines or manuals for aspects of historical archaeological practice.
Artefact Analysis A study analysing and/or interpreting archaeologically excavated artefacts.
Interpretation Project aimed at interpreting/presenting an historical archaeological site to the public.
Figure 4.8 Definitions of the Project Type Terms used to classify historical archaeological
projects in the NEGP.
Conclusions: Historical Archaeology in the NEGP
The National Estate Grants Program was introduced at a time when thoughts about
heritage value were exploding into action. In 1974 few States had settler heritage
legislation and historical archaeological projects had been undertaken by only a
handful of individuals. Historical archaeologists enthusiastically used the NEGP to
help define the practice of historical archaeology. This not only involved the mass
of survey and inventory style projects I have just discussed, but also included the
Project Co-ordination Committee where archaeologists got together and debated
Practice makes Perfect 161
what historical archaeology was (Allen 1978), the preparation of a manual for
historical archaeology in Australia (Birmingham and Murray 1987), the later
publication of guidelines for historical archaeology nationwide (NSW Department
of Planning, Heritage Council of NSW 1993), as well as projects such as
Regentville (Birmingham and Wilson 1994) and Port Arthur where generations of
historical archaeologists gained their first field experience.
The emphasis in this program lies squarely on the work of survey and inventory
which aimed to define the historical archaeological record in Australia. As the
analysis here has shown, this process of definition followed the established
narratives of national development, emphasising the industrialisation of Australia
and claiming this area as the province of historical archaeology. Although NEGP
projects were initiated at the local level, the nature of projects conducted by the
States was remarkably consistent. As State authorities were involved in the
administration of the program, this shows both the success of National Estate
related policy and its ability to be adapted to local conditions.
Historical archaeology in the NEGP also shows that once an array of types of
historical archaeology projects had been established, there was a resistance to, or at
least no reflection of, broader policy changes in heritage management. Here this
was evident in the fact that the push towards more regional assessments and more
multicultural heritage is not reflected in the historical archaeology projects. I
suggest that this was not because those involved were not aware or sympathetic
towards these issues, but that established forms of procedures, in this case the type
of project done by historical archaeologists, continued to be promulgated and
produce similar kinds of results. This is one example of “blackboxing”, where the
need to undertake inventories and compare and classify site types was not
deconstructed but accepted as the “sort of project historical archaeologists do”. I
will draw some further conclusions about these forms of practice at the end of this
chapter.
Practice makes Perfect 162
While there was a strong degree of consistency imposed in this program by the
national policy framework, Tasmania consistently emerges as showing different
characteristics of practice. The extent of involvement of the Commonwealth in the
funding of the Port Arthur project is unique in the NEGP, while the absence of any
projects carried out by the National Trust is similarly a contrast with other States.
Tasmania shows a greater emphasis on single site excavation and research than the
other States, reflecting the involvement of historical archaeologists in conservation
projects, often directed toward tourism, over the inventory and survey work which
tends to predominate, and involve the community, in the other States. This singling
out of Tasmania of course comes as no surprise to any one familiar with the
tempestuous relationship between the Commonwealth and Tasmania on issues of
heritage and the environment. These issues can now be explored further in the
context of the Port Arthur Conservation Project.
The Port Arthur Conservation and Development Project 1979-
1986
Port Arthur Historic Site, in southern Tasmania, has a dense and contested history
as a prison, as an early tourist attraction and pleasure garden, and as an historic site
embraced within the vocabulary of national heritage. In 1996 it was also the site of
a horrific massacre where 35 tourists and local people were murdered by a single
gunman. Remains of, and memorials to this most recent and terrible history have
become another aspect of the history and significance of this place, and of the
visitors’ experience of it. Although my case study will not be considering the more
recent history of Port Arthur Historic Site it should be acknowledged that its
profile as a site of national significance has become more confronting and poignant
because of these recent events, and consequently the challenge of managing this
place has become significantly more complex than in the period I am focusing on.
To choose this place as the subject of a case study focusing on archaeological
practice, is in some ways to limit a broader exploration of this complex,
confrontational history and the entanglement of this place in discourses of identity
Practice makes Perfect 163
and national heritage. However, in the context of my study, it provides an
important opportunity to investigate how some Australian historical archaeologists
negotiated their involvement in the fabric and meaning of this unique place during
the period 1979 – 1986. During these years The Port Arthur Conservation and
Development Project (PACP) was funded by a $9 million grant based on two parts
federal to one part State funding (Egloff 1986: 5). From the previous discussion on
the National Estate Grants Program, which provided some money towards the
project, the large scale of this conservation initiative in the Australian context can
be appreciated.
From 1833 to 1877 Port Arthur was Australia’s largest prison, at its peak holding
12,700 men which in fact made it the largest prison in the British Empire (Bickford
1991b: 86). Today’s Historic Site encompasses only the institutional hub of the
prison complex. During its period of operation the prison infrastructure, including
a range of industries run by convict labour, had extended throughout the entire
Tasman Peninsula, which is joined to the Tasmanian mainland at a narrow isthmus,
known as Eaglehawk Neck. When the prison was closed in 1877 the land was
subdivided and many of the institutional buildings became incorporated into a
village named Carnarvon. Fires which swept through the unused convict buildings
in the 1890s were reputedly aided by local people anxious to remove their
association with a convict past (Egloff 1986: 2). From the first decades of the 20th
century Port Arthur began to be appreciated for its striking landscape and scenic
qualities. The gothic, stone ruins, situated in a green, pastoral setting, against a
calm and picturesque harbour, belied their association with the notorious penal
establishment (Figures 4.9; 4.10). By 1916 the Tasmanian government’s Scenery
Preservation Board began to buy back the site and to manage it as a tourist park.
Local residents conducted tours for visitors around the landscaped site, while the
village continued to exist amongst some of the prison remains.
The 1970s saw the creation of the Tasmanian National Parks and Wildlife Service
which took over the role of the Scenery Preservation Board. From the 1960s
tourism became more and more central to the Tasmanian government’s plans for
Practice makes Perfect 164
the economic development of the state, and the development of heritage and
tourism is perhaps more closely linked in Tasmania than other parts of Australia
(Young 1996). Young notes that the Tasmanian National Trust formed in 1960 and
quickly became involved in the renovation of grand Georgian houses as tourist
attractions, however by 1971 none of the Trust’s properties were related to
convicts (Young 1996: 146). The ownership of convict places remained with
government rather than with local heritage enthusiasts. The 1970s and 80s saw the
bureacratisation of heritage all over Australia and the Tasmanian Government’s
heritage tourism development plans were assisted by the emphasis and resources
accorded to heritage conservation by the Whitlam government (1972-1975). The
Federal Government also established the Tasmanian Restoration Advisory
Committee, which included eminent archaeologists, historians, architects and
conservation specialists, to give expert advice on the work on Tasmania’s historic
sites.
It is necessary to comment briefly on Tasmanian attitudes towards the convict past.
Tasmania held the last vestiges of Britain’s transportation system. Tasmanians had
been central to anti-transportation agitation and lobbying of the Colonial Office
since the 1850s, and this movement has often been seen as the genesis of
“Australian national feeling” during the colonial period (Irving 1974: 133).
Tasmania was forced by the Colonial Office to continue to accept convicts long
after this time and as Dixson suggests, this resentment has been expressed as the
brutalisation of “Tasmania” by this brutal, colonial system (Dixson 1999: 113).
Tasmania’s racist history is also often linked to this aura of brutality. Richard
Flanagan for instance wrote:
“There has long been a useful symbol for all that Australians despise about
themselves. Australia’s convict past, its racism towards Aborigines..... All this
darkness can be made external and separate to Australians and given a name:
Tasmania” (quoted in Dixson 1999: 113).
Griffiths explains how 19th century concepts of “bad blood” and genetically
inherited traits, haunted Australians who were tainted by the “birth stain”, an
Practice makes Perfect 165
ancestor who had been transported. Thus, claims Griffiths, the moral concerns of
family history had a role in the formation of national histories of the late 19th and
early 20th centuries which tended to stress, rather than convicts and their
descendents, the roles of pioneers and explorers (Griffiths 1996: 117). Although
convict ancestors have generally been rehabilitated as “distinctively Australian”,
the images and ghosts of brutality and suffering continue to haunt not only
Tasmania’s tourist industry, but also the work of Tasmanian historians and writers
such as Richard Flanagan and Christopher Koch (Highways to a War, 1995, Out of
Ireland, 1999). Carmel Bird has also “obscurely linked” the 1996 gun massacre
with Port Arthur’s convict past through a “muted line of causation” (Dixson 1999:
115 discussing Bird 1996). It is important to understand that Port Arthur represents
all these cultural issues to Tasmanians, and to other Australians who know the
place and visit it in their thousands every year. To these “outsiders”, including the
archaeologists and heritage professionals I will go on to discuss, there are aspects
of Tasmania which are different to the rest of Australia. Either as an “isle of gothic
silence” or as a quaint colonial landscape, colonialism in Tasmania is not in the
past but an ongoing dynamic in its relationship with the rest of the nation.
The 1975 Draft Port Arthur Management Plan (National Parks and Wildlife
Service) stated that:
“the basic approach to the restoration and site design of Port Arthur will be to
give the site a mood of tranquility and quiet relaxation, matching the more
serious aspects of its historical background” (Tasmanian National Parks and
Wildlife Service 1975: 19.2).
During the 1970s, Mulvaney reports, architectural restoration projects were
becoming more and more popular in Australia, while some historical
archaeologists were becoming more and more concerned about the results of and
philosophy behind this practice (Mulvaney 1996: 6). A particular focus for these
concerns was planned restoration work on the ruined buildings of Port Arthur.
Arguments focused on the archaeologists’ claim that restoration decisions were
being based on judgements of taste, or aesthetics, rather than on historical
Practice makes Perfect 166
evidence, including the evidence of the buildings’ fabric and associated
archaeological deposits:
“As historical archaeologists working in this field we must take an active part in
interpretation and make sure the historical significance... is brought out to the
public to counteract this tendency simply to entertain and to sink into unhistorical
romanticism... we have a responsibility to our profession to examine the history
of the sites we are working and to influence the restorers and managers to reflect
this past as accurately as possible” (Bickford 1981: 4).
Mulvaney first felt the need to comment on the restoration proposals for Port
Arthur and for Norfolk Island (another early colonial penal establishment on an
island off the coast of NSW) at a 1975 meeting in Hobart, Tasmania, and then
throughout the later 1970s in his role as a Commisssioner for the Australian
Heritage Commisssion. He described his involvement in these issues as
“unexpected and traumatic” because of the confrontational nature of this debate
between archaeologists and architects (Mulvaney 1996: 6). Such debates led
however to the development of the Australia ICOMOS Burra Charter 1979, which
has been discussed above. This document was to be enormously significant for
archaeological practice at Port Arthur. In a 1978 paper the prolific Mulvaney set
out an envisaged role for historical archaeologists in conservation practice, citing
the example of Ivor Noel Hume’s work at Colonial Williamsburg (Mulvaney
1991a: 264 first published 1978).
Richard Morrison, an archaeologist later employed on the PACP, suggests that as
well as these concerns about conservation and authenticity, archaeologists Rhys
Jones and Jim Allen of the Australian National University, who were involved in
advising on archaeological work at Port Arthur in the late 1970s, were concerned
to demonstrate that archaeology could contribute to the interpretation of Port
Arthur and that archaeological research should have a role in any work on the
place (pers.com. Richard Morrison). Allen had been jointly supervising the
research of Sydney University PhD student, Maureen Byrne, who had excavated at
Port Arthur in 1976. Funds from a National Estate Grant to the Co-ordination
Practice makes Perfect 167
Committee on Historical Archaeology were made available for Byrne’s research to
demonstrate “the intrinsic and academic importance of excavation on historic
sites” (Allen 1978: 20). In 1977 Maureen Byrne suddenly died, leaving her
research unfinished. While some analysis of her excavations was later undertaken
at the Australian National University (Dane and Morrison 1979), with the creation
of the PACP her research was absorbed into that project, which moved into more
conservation oriented directions. It is interesting to speculate if archaeological
practice and interpretations at Port Arthur might have developed in different
directions had Maureen Byrne lived, completed her analysis and maintained some
research interest in the project.
The Project
In the wake of the creation and endorsement of the Burra Charter, it is clear that
defining professional methods for historical archaeologists within the scope of the
PACP was a primary concern. Project manager and archaeologist Brian Egloff
clearly saw the project, with its scale of funding and resources, as an opportunity
for archaeologists to “stake their claim” in conservation practices:
“As this country’s most ambitious heritage conservation project, it proved to be
an ideal testing ground for Australian historical archaeology... In Australia the
comprehensive management of historical resources had yet to develop and so no
local models were available ... . Similarly, heritage conservation in Tasmania
was not well developed at the time of the Project’s inception” (Egloff 1987: 1).
Of key importance to the definition of the archaeologists’ role at Port Arthur was
the decision that all fabric, from all periods of use of the site, was the responsibility
of the archaeologist. This meant that, following the tenets of the Burra Charter, the
archaeologists were responsible for recording and documenting in a formal way,
all changes made to the fabric of the place under the aegis of the conservation
project.
To assist in carrying out larger scale archaeological excavations, Summer
Archaeological Programs were developed to attract student volunteers (Figure
Practice makes Perfect 168
4.11, 4.12). These were very successful, attracting hundreds of students from all
over Australia (Egloff 1986: 12). A 1982 outline of objectives for the Summer
excavation programs shows that they were regarded as detailed investigations prior
to restoration, to fulfill Burra Charter Article 24, rather than pursuing any
particular research focus (PACP File TM2/66/263/(1)).
From my previous discussion it is clear that historical archaeologists had
developed a mistrust of conservation, or restoration architects, in the years leading
up to this project. Here, with the support of prominent archaeologists like John
Mulvaney and Jim Allen on the Commonwealth’s watchdog over this project, The
Tasmanian Restoration Advisory Committee, historical archaeologists exerted their
power over all works on the site. However it is clear that tension between the
archaeological approach to the fabric of Port Arthur’s buildings and the architects’
plans to restore them continued throughout the project. In a minute written by
project archaeologist Martin Davies in 1984 he detailed his opposition to many
details of the proposed restoration of the Commandant’s Residence (Davies 1984).
In this document Davies defined his archaeological approach to the fabric as
“rigorous”, based on a “multi-period approach”, “stressing great attention to
fabric” and specifically arguing against judgements based on “aesthetics” (Davies
1984).
An emphasis was placed on recording, and on the creation of an archive
documenting all conservation decisions as required by the Burra Charter (Articles
23 – 29). Historical archaeologists at Port Arthur set about creating the systems to
maintain both the desired level of control over conservation works on the site, as
well as systematising recording and management of the archive created. This
resulted in an Archaeological Procedures Manual published in 1987, the first
manual of its kind to be published for historical archaeology in Australia (Davies
and Buckly 1987). While archaeologist Martin Davies seems to have reveled in the
detail of building recording (Davies and Buckley 1987; Davies 1987), another staff
archaeologist, Richard Morrison, relayed some frustration at the fact that research
and interpretation were continually stifled by the stress of “keeping up” with day to
Practice makes Perfect 169
day project work (pers.com. Richard Morrison). Several research designs for
archaeological projects were developed over the years, however none of these
came to fruition as archaeologists were kept busy recording and documenting the
restoration work (PACP File NO. M2/66/277 (2) ).
Many stakeholders had to be kept happy with the progress of the project, including
both federal and State politicians. For instance, files show that questions were
regularly raised in the Tasmanian parliament about the nature and conduct of the
conservation project (PACP File No. A5/1/10). Frequent attention was given to the
fact that the small cottages on the site that had been restored were not open to the
public. All of the questions in parliament raise the issue of the amount of the
expenditure on conservation and archaeology and the “value for money” being
achieved for the public. In 1982 K.F. Lowrie, Leader for the Government in the
Senate, wrote to the Minister responsible for the project questioning the cost of the
restoration works on two small cottages and in particular the cost of the
archaeological works involved (PACP File No. A5/1/10). The Project Manager
Brian Egloff replied:
“The archaeological component of the works on the two small cottages was quite
minimal when compared to projects of this nature carried out in Canada or in the
United Kingdom. Archaeology as applied at Port Arthur refers not only to the
recovery of essential information which is required to direct the restoration
process but also to the recording of building elements which would be lost
through the process of restoration. As such it often adds those extra touches
which turn a rather common place restoration into a quality piece with a greatly
enhanced appeal. This enhancement is clearly apparent at the internationally
significant sites such as Williamsburg or Fortress Louisbourg in Canada” (Egloff
1982).
It is the “enhanced appeal” of authenticity which Egloff refers to here. Scientific
rigour at Port Arthur involved treating all fabric as valuable and, significantly, all
fabric as “archaeological”. The fact that this meant all fabric had to be treated
“equally” meant that the archaeologists could not focus on particular interpretative
tasks. The framework established by the Burra Charter, which included provisions
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stating that conservation should not distort the “evidence of the fabric” (Article 3),
and that it should respect all periods of its use (Article 16), created a dilemma for
the ongoing interpretation and presentation of Port Arthur to the public.
The interpretation of Port Arthur, its presentation as a tourist venue, and site of
national heritage value, has been critiqued by many historians, archaeologists and
cultural commentators (see for instance Allen 1976; Bickford 1981; Daniels 1983;
Bennett 1995). Perhaps the most outspoken critic of the archaeology at Port Arthur
has been Tasmanian writer and historian, Richard Flanagan (1990; 1996). Flanagan
finds the results of the archaeological analysis of the Commandant’s cottage, as
they are presented to visitors, highly bizarre:
“ like a dead formaldehyde-stained rat whose flesh is peeled and held back by
surgical instruments to reveal its internal organs, the building has been clinically
and scientifically vivisected... There are no people here, certainly none of the
convicts who originally built the building then were set to work cleaning the
floors and carrying the firewood and cooking the food. They are exiled from their
past. In their place we have the archaeologists, the new high priests of the past,
for whom this building seems to have been reconstructed as a shrine. Pictures in
the displays in this building are not as you might expect of the commandants or
even of the convicts, but of specialist staff, particularly archaeologists”
(Flanagan 1996: 186).
The archaeologists at Port Arthur in fact achieved the aim looked forward to by
historical archaeologist Anne Bickford, who had been so outspoken about
whiggish, romantic conservation projects in the 1970s: “I know of no restoration
project in Australia where original parts of the structure have been left exposed, so
that one can see what the original paint colours, and structural details looked like”
(Bickford 1977 quoted in Mulvaney 1996: 6). The aim of these archaeological
practices involved concepts of the conservation of scientific evidence through the
recording of all impacts on fabric, ensuring authenticity in restoration and avoiding
the influence of ideological bias in restoration and interpretation through strict
adherence to the material evidence (see in particular here Bickford 1981). Such
practices also meant that interpretation of specific issues was avoided, and
Practice makes Perfect 171
archaeologists could not provide coherent stories about the place. Sydney museum
curator Peter Emmett was also influenced by the “fragmentary”, idiosyncratic
archaeological interpretation of Port Arthur when he later developed the Hyde Park
Barracks and Museum of Sydney where he was determined not to let archaeology
dominate the interpretation (discussed in Chapter 6 and see Emmett 1992). One of
the issues Flanagan and Emmett reacted so strongly against was the visibility of
archaeologists in the way these places were presented to the public. They saw this
as a heroizing and aggrandisement of the role of the archaeologists at the expense
of what everybody was really interested in; the past, or in the case of Port Arthur,
the convicts.
The PACP was terminated in 1986, not because the project was complete, but
because funding dried up, the federal Minister for the Arts, Heritage and
Environment, Barry Cohen, declaring that the site was a “bottomless pit” (Young
1996: 150). Egloff records that this left “ a backlog of unreported archaeological
work, mounds of uncatalogued artefacts” to be left on site as professional staff,
now unemployed, departed. The site was then transferred to the Port Arthur
Historic Site Management Authority which, for the first time, set up a toll booth at
the entrance and charged an entrance fee, much to the disgust of local Tasmanians
(Young 1996: 150). Archaeologists have continued to be employed on the site to
monitor conservation and maintenance works but funds for the analysis of Port
Arthur’s archaeological material have not been a management priority (pers. com.
Greg Jackman).
Conclusions: in a national context
The archaeological practices developed for the PACP had strong ideological
motivations, underlain by the concept that material, archaeological evidence, and
its proper documentation, was an objective constraint on bad restoration or
ideologically biased interpretation. Work focused on turning these ideas into a
coherent methodology of practice that was authorised through the Burra Charter,
which in turn was promoted by the Australian Heritage Commission. The
published manual of archaeological procedures was an influential document for
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Australian consulting historical archaeologists, many of whom had “learnt the
ropes” as volunteers on the Summer Archaeological Programs. Martin Davies
published his approach to the archaeology of standing buildings in 1987 and
carried out analyses of many other buildings in Tasmania and NSW for clients
such as the NSW National Trust and the Historic Houses Trust. However the role
of historical archaeologists in conservation projects has tended to narrow since this
dominant role in the PACP (pers.com. Greg Jackman, and see comments by
Temple in Chapter 3). This may be the result of the development and promotion of
the “fabric technician” role as we have seen it at Port Arthur, with an
overwhelming focus on comprehensive recording and data management rather than
interpretation. This process has also been shaped by disciplinary jockeying
between archaeologists and architects. Others in the heritage conservation field
suggest that archaeologists have failed to produce the goods which were promised
by archaeological research (Connah 1983; Murray and Allen 1986; Birmingham
1990; Egloff 1994). Greg Jackman, the present archaeologist for the site, stated
that the methods developed by the PACP were still generally followed at Port
Arthur, and although he recognises that archaeology failed to provide any
interpretations of excavated data, he still admires the careful and insightful
approaches to building fabric that were developed by the PACP (pers.com. Greg
Jackman).
Conclusions: Practising the Nation
In this investigation of historical archaeological practice I have concentrated on
analysing the institutional framework for practice in terms of legislation, policy
and procedures, and then looked closely at two historical contexts of
archaeological heritage management practice. My aim has been to analyse the
relationship between policy, procedures and practice. I now want to tease out
further how nationalist discourses have been constitutive of various modes of
practice, and also constituted through practice. I outlined how at the time of the
Hope Report in 1974 historical archaeologists lobbied for the development of
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systematic procedures for the identification and recording of historical
archaeological sites and relics. These aims remain a prominent feature of
archaeological heritage management today and remain at the heart of a heritage
management practice which is involved in “nationing” the material past.
While the role of inventories in reifying and commodifying aspects of culture has
been commented upon, perhaps more striking in the context of the Australian
settler past is the role of inventory as a technique of government which “practises”
the national past into existence. The inventory becomes a kind of cartography of
the past: mapping the contours of the nation’s historic landscape, taking the
unknown territory and rendering it known and knowable through location,
classification and comparison. From a Foucaultian perspective the heritage
inventory acts as a form of surveillance, monitoring the shape and form of this
publicly demarcated sphere of the past. While the term surveillance sounds sinister
it is of course a routine aspect of governance, however it denotes the fact that
theses inventories are not natural and self evident, but enabled and authorised
through a complex combination of practices and discourses, that construct concepts
of meaning and value. As a state aligned surveillance of the past the inventory is
clearly involved in singularising a range of places and things to extend the national
sacred (Kopytoff 1986). In this case sacredness emanates from the way these
places and things represent aspects of the past which are valued and seen as
integral to a shared historical identity.
This role of the inventory is particularly striking in relation to historical
archaeology because of the combination of this technique of governmentality with
scientific, empirical discourses that render the national past as exactly that: cut off
from the present, no longer a part of culture but part of a scientific universe with
geographical and temporal boundaries. This reinforces modernist discourses which
configure the present as cut off from the past, as having developed and progressed
beyond the simplicities of traditional lifeways. While most practicing
archaeologists have much more fluid understandings of heritage and archaeology
and their entwinement in culture, empirical methodologies aimed at
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comprehensive, materialistic identification, radically separate things and places
from ongoing cultural processes.
Not only does the unambiguous empiricism of the inventory sever things and
places from their cultural context, they also cut off Australia’s past from the rest of
the world. As I have discussed previously, Bennett convincingly showed how
heritage discourses since the 1970s have constructed an autonomous past for the
Australian nation (Bennett 1995). While the nation back projects itself onto pre-
national pasts, it also tends to cut off Australia’s colonial and national pasts from
their world contexts. It is misleading to look at phenomena such as convictism and
the gold rushes as “Australian" events, these are transnational processes which are
significant in the context of globalisation. The narrowing of the representation of
these events has been an effect of heritage and nationalism. Earlier in the 20th
century it would have been more likely that convictism and the goldrushes were
thought of in the context of empire, and indeed this does persist as a research
context as I will discuss in Chapter 5, however the context of empire has most
certainly been “dummed down” in the discourse of national heritage.
The co-constitutive relationship between nation, heritage and archaeological
practice is expressed on two levels: in perhaps a more overt sense, heritage (as an
inheritance), or the past in general, can be defined by nationalist narratives,
characterised by their teleological renderings of development and progress. In a
less overt sense this relationship is seen in practices and procedures which are
entailed with nationalist thought. Inventory, intrinsic significance and recording,
all align modernist, universalist notions to construct a scientific, apolitical past
which is both unambiguous and naturally occurring.
The national past required the development of a distinctively Australian historical
archaeology and heritage management practice. I discussed in Chapter 1 how the
effect of the nation is to put itself forward as a coherent subject for historical and
cultural analysis and how this has tended to mask social and cultural involvement
on broader, transnational levels. Heritage management historical archaeology is
Practice makes Perfect 175
therefore defined by the nation not only through logistic and legislative reasons,
but through the overemphasized coherency of the nation as subject.
This is not to say that the concentration on the national context has totally stifled
creativity. The NEGP was created to aid in the identification and conservation of
the National Estate, and it enabled Aboriginal community groups and other
organisations to fund the neglected area of Aboriginal historic sites. Another
community to use the NEGP in creative ways was that of historical archaeologists
themselves; to finance the production of manuals, guidelines, and student training,
areas that were not being supported through other institutions like universities at
that time.
The Port Arthur case study highlights the deployment of archaeological discourses
to exert control over materiality and fabric in the heritage management context.
Historical archaeology was perceived as the “conscience of heritage management”
using its focus on material evidence, respect for authenticity and prudent scientific
reasoning as a corrective to less rigourous restoration. Also crucial at Port Arthur
was the role of recording. The importance of the creation of a record for future
generations, explaining why certain conservation decisions were taken and what
was destroyed in the process. These processes, enshrined in the Burra Charter,
while they appear reflexive and postmodern, were in fact based more on the
perception of the universal scientific value of archaeological data, a value which
could be unambiguously understood in the future.
Heritage policy, as I have outlined here, has consistently developed a more
inclusive vocabulary: greater recognition of indigenous people and their living
cultural traditions, concepts of multicultural and minority heritage in line with
similar discourses across public and academic fields. Does a growing rhetoric of
inclusiveness mean that heritage is becoming less nationally defined in terms of
concepts of a bounded, definable national identity and culture? In fact I argue that
this discourse of inclusiveness is constituted through nationalist discourse as a
means to reconcile the nation with its colonial past and to redress the
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neocolonialism of earlier Australian nationalisms. These are questions I will go on
to explore in Chapter 5 where I consider historical archaeological interpretations of
the past.
Chapter 5
Intimate Histories and National Narratives What statements have historical archaeologists produced about the past in
Australia, and upon what foundations have these statements been constructed? In
this chapter I turn from what archaeologists have done, and how their practices
have been structured, to what archaeologists have said about the past. My aim here
is to investigate the discursive underpinnings of historical archaeological
knowledge and the role nationalist discourses have played in historical
archaeologist’s interpretations of Australia’s past.
In order to explore these questions I will treat historical archaeology, in this
instance, as a body of texts. While this can create an artificial division between
theory, interpretation, practice and social context, here this analysis stands in
contrast to the ethnographic and historical approaches of the previous two chapters.
This more textual and discursive analysis of archaeological interpretation is also
appropriate to the way in which a body of texts can represent a “discipline”. An
important component of the way modern disciplines are constituted is through a
body of literature that sets the parameters for research and the major fields of
interest (see for instance Connah 1998: 5). Scholars operate through this body of
texts in order to innovate, to consolidate disciplinary knowledge, to critique and to
historicise the discipline. Indigenous rights movements, the heritage industry,
feminism, postcolonialism and postmodernism have all served to erode traditional
notions of disciplinary barriers and the objectivity of disciplinary foundations. My
study emanates from this intellectual milieu as it involves looking at archaeology
and nationalism as discourses constitutive of, and constituted through, each other,
as well as other forms of cultural discourse.
‘Genealogy’ is the term given to a technique developed by Foucault to assist in his
critique of power and knowledge (see for instance Foucault 1980, 1984, 1988). The
190
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 191
aim of this technique is to chart the origins and functions of bodies of knowledge,
or discourses, and apply this to an analysis of their role in the present. What
attracts me to following Foucault’s technique in this instance is the need to avoid a
teleological account of the development of historical archaeology. That is to see
historical archaeology as maturing from a naïve, inexpert, unreflexive state, to its
present more enlightened and sophisticated one. I could say, for instance, that
historical archaeological practice and interpretations were uncritically constituted
through discourses of national identity in the 1970s and 1980s, but that through the
critical revision and debunking of colonialist national mythologies in the 1990s, it
now offers more complete and accurate interpretations of the past. While I, and
many others, may find historical archaeology’s current interests, in gender and
indigenous history for instance, a philosophical and political “step up”, I don’t
want to assume that this is the natural result of disciplinary maturation, but that all
practice is involved in complex cultural dynamics, as well as historical
relationships.
I argued in Chapter One that nation is a fragmented and disputed object in
Australia and perhaps it has always been so, however debate and contests over
these issues have been an increasing feature of public discourse since the mid
1990s. There have been significant ruptures in colonialist narratives and different
groups in society have different concepts about what the nation has been, is now
and should be in the future. These processes have given rise to my project of
considering the relationship between archaeology and nationalism, it is because
there have been shifts in discourses of the nation that it seems important to
understand how archaeology may have been shaped by images and concepts which
are no longer intellectually palatable, or have “disreputable origins” (Kendall and
Wickham 1999: 29). In understanding that my problem arises from this situation,
Foucault’s methodology offers a means to “use history to diagnose the present”
and to apply this critique of discursive relationships to the present and potentially
the future of Australian archaeology.
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 192
This chapter has two sections. First I want to disentangle the threads of theory,
theoretically based methodologies, and historical assumptions, both explicit and
naturalised, which are woven into the fabric of Australian historical archaeological
interpretations. Then I will go on to consider some of the implicit interpretative
themes that are embedded in historical archaeological discourse. The themes that I
have drawn out relate to the nation-centred constructions of the Australian settler
past that link landscape, identity and history, which I investigated in Chapter One.
I also discuss trends which appear less influenced by the national context than by
other forms of identity politics and consider the meaning of an “inclusive past” in
the context of Australian nationalist discourse.
A Genealogy of Historical Archaeological Thought
It has often been stated that early Australian historical archaeological research was
basically untheorised and that theoretical sophistication, once achieved, would
signify a level of disciplinary maturity (Birmingham and Jeans 1983; Bairstow
1984a: 32; Connah 1983). Theory building, theoretical frameworks and problem
oriented research have often been advocated for historical archaeology for a range
of reasons; including the creation of a disciplinary identity (Murray and Allen
1986: 90); the development of a nationally distinctive practice (Bairstow 1984);
and to enhance historical archaeology’s contribution to Australian society
(Megaw1984; Birmingham and Jeans 1983; Temple 1988: 2; Egloff 1994: 4).
However historical archaeological work was not “theory free”, but constructed
upon some common sense concepts:
that Australian history was important;
that material remains were a precious form of evidence that could expand
knowledge about history; and
that history was pertinent to contemporary identity.
In this context the location and description of archaeological material, placed
within an essentially historiographic, narrative, interpretive framework, was all that
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 193
was required to increase knowledge about the past. Historical archaeology does
however have a history, and obviously early historical archaeological work in
Australia was carried out with a sense of pioneering into a new area of
archaeological practice, dealing with material culture manufactured, distributed
and deposited in ways unfamiliar to the archaeologists trying their hand at its
analysis. Bodies of theory and data have since been created which have come to
form disciplinary benchmarks. However theories of disciplinary maturation, such
as that put forward by Trigger (1989) concentrating on the accumulation of more
and more data leading towards more accurate interpretations, obfuscate, and
minimise, changes which are culturally involved. This section considers four areas
or threads that are significant in historical archaeological thought in Australia.
While these threads may have been more or less visible in archaeological practice
and interpretation over the last thirty years, I will argue that all form significant
foundational concepts for archaeological practice. Some forms of practice may
however, be linked more closely to one of these paradigmatic areas than to the
others.
The Context of Heritage
Perhaps the most significant context for the formulation of theoretical approaches
in historical archaeology has been that of the heritage movement. The nature of
historical archaeology cannot be considered in isolation from the processes that
resulted in the ascription of value to the material remains of the national past, a
process I addressed in Chapter 3. As I discussed, an archaeological epistemology
was a central tenet of the modern preservation movement (Griffiths 1996: 196).
Archaeological discourse was not totally responsible for the notion of an historical
archaeological record in Australia however, this form of evidence was given value
and meaning through the linking of identity, environment and material remains as a
cultural heritage.
The implications of heritage for the theoretical development and institutional
support of historical archaeology were discussed by Murray and Allen in 1986.
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 194
They claimed that conservation philosophy not only formed the greater part of
historical archaeology’s theoretical foundations, but was also responsible for its
failure to develop an internally logical theoretical framework beyond the
requirements of a conservation ethic (Murray and Allen 1986: 86). They argued
that this was caused by four interrelated factors: first, such small numbers were
employed full time, especially as academics, in historical archaeology; second, that
there was an acceptance within the discipline that preservation was both the main
justification for, and activity of, the discipline; third, that the discipline had such a
short history that its identity was unformed; and fourth, that it was not supported
by any intellectual tradition such as antiquarianism, as was prehistory. I will look
at a number of these claims in more detail.
The conservation ethic
Murray and Allen argued that Australian prehistory had developed for several
decades in Australia before the expansion of public concern in the 1960s for the
preservation or conservation of material cultural remains, as well as inheriting
earlier traditions of antiquarianism (1986: 86). This had allowed prehistorians time
to provide “academic and intellectual justifications” for the importance and value
of their interpretations and of the archaeological record. Historical archaeology, on
the other hand had developed no similar justification, but was simply based on a
belief that historic material remains possessed archaeological research potential
and therefore should be conserved (Murray and Allen 1986: 86). This belief was
maintainable because, as they importantly drew out:
“...the value of archaeology as a discipline, and the value of the material remains
of past human action from the point of view of the cultural preservationist, have
been inextricably linked for over a century, not just the last twenty years in
Australia” (Murray and Allen 1986: 85-86).
The concept that archaeologists could produce history from material things was a
promise that was central to the values ascribed to material heritage. What
concerned Murray and Allen was that because the conservation ethic of the
heritage movement had become the central theoretical underpinning of historical
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 195
archaeology, this had lead to the development of methodologies designed to enable
preservation, but not to explain why it was necessary. The latter would be an
explicit statement of the research potential of historical archaeological evidence,
which of course should lead to the realisation of this potential in the form of new
knowledge.
Research potential was, and is, seen as the central defining characteristic of
archaeological heritage. But research potential must be theorised in some way in
order to be expressed more fully. Murray and Allen’s analysis drew out a crucial
problematic in historical archaeological thought and provided an insightful
characterisation of how the conservation ethic, as well as historic themes, which I
will go on to discuss, had shaped historical archaeological thinking and reasoning.
The conservation of scientifically significant fabric is based on the concept that it
is a moral responsibility not to foreclose on the possibilities for research in the
future. This concept is embodied in Article 4 of the ICOMOS Burra Charter,
which I introduced in Chapter 4:
“Study of a place by any intervention in the fabric or by archaeological
excavation should be undertaken where necessary to provide the data essential
for decisions on the conservation of the place and/or to secure evidence about to
be lost or made inaccessible through necessary conservation action. Investigation
of a place for any other reason which requires physical disturbance and which
adds substantially to a scientific body of knowledge may be permitted, provided
that it is consistent with the conservation policy for the place” (Burra
Charter1988).
At the Port Arthur Conservation Project, where the new Burra Charter was so
closely adhered to, this Article shaped the nature of their conservation
archaeological practices. The imperative was to record all fabric that was to be
altered or destroyed. The implication of the fabric based heritage management
approach is that it in fact tends to discourage the development of a research focus
because that is actually in conflict with the need to record fabric, the future
research potential of which should not be predetermined. I agree with Murray and
Allen that the “conserve first, think later” approach to archaeological heritage
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 196
management derives from this conservation ethic. The professionalisation of this
ethic in the widely endorsed Burra Charter, which remains the key set of
professional standards for heritage practice, has shaped a large part of heritage
management archaeology.
The conservation rationale is a good example of a procedure that has become
blackboxed in Australian archaeological heritage management. Its original
rationale has not been analysed, but simply incorporated within expanding
frameworks of practice. Murray and Allen correctly showed that the rationale for
preservation came largely from archaeological discourse, but in many ways a
blackbox has been placed around the concept of archaeological significance or
research potential. This is an effect of conceptualising scientific or archaeological
significance as an intrinsic, material quality. This reading is entrenched in the
heritage management framework, partly because of the legislation. In Australia,
heritage, often termed environmental heritage (as in the NSW Heritage Act 1977),
is legally characterised by its fabric and material qualities, and is constituted in
legislation as part of the environment. This implies that archaeological heritage,
like biodiversity, exists independent of human thought. Hence methodologies have
concentrated on discovering and classifying heritage rather than understanding its
cultural construction or the role it plays in cultural life.
Significance assessment
Whereas management of settler culture heritage was based upon a more or less
explicit, although not unproblematic, understanding of historical significance,
archaeological significance, as I have just discussed, remained a strangely
unexplored category. In the 1970s and 80s the view was expressed that not enough
was known about Australian historic sites to predetermine their research
significance and that because of this, inventory must be the main focus of research
(Allen 1978: A22; Temple 1979; Pearson 1984). This view underlines the notion of
a static archaeological record waiting to be discovered, which was so at odds with
the dynamic cultural environment which saw the rise of the heritage movement in
Australia. In a 1974 conference on historical archaeology Rhys Jones argued
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 197
against the over-concentration on inventory at the expense of developing ideas
about historical archaeological research potential, however he is recorded as a lone
voice (Jones quoted in Allen 1978: A22). Therefore, although the definition of
research potential which was broadly promoted in Australian heritage management
archaeology was “the ability to answer timely and specific research questions”
(Schiffer and Gummerman 1977 and see papers in Sullivan and Bowdler 1984),
this definition conflicts with perceptions of limited knowledge of the “data
universe” and of unknown future research potential.
The Hope Report’s categorisation of historical archaeological sites as of “scientific
interest” rather than of broader community value, contrasts markedly with John
Mulvaney’s writings about historic sites in the 1970s and later. In papers entitled
“Future Pleasure from the Past” (1978) and “The Heritage Value of Historical
Relics: A Plea for Romantic Intellectualism” (1979), both of which were delivered
in meetings aiming to develop policy and procedures for historical archaeological
sites and relics, he stresses the evocative character of historic sites, the sentiments
they evoke, their role of giving pleasure, evoking nostalgia for the past and their
relationship to cultural identity (Mulvaney 1991b). Mulvaney consistently argued
for heritage management techniques which appreciated these values of historic
sites, as well as their scientific significance. This reflects the tension, and apparent
paradox in Mulvaney’s work, identified by Lesly Head as contrastingly
postmodern in his recognition of complexity and multiple meanings, while
avowedly universalist and modernist in his concept of objective archaeological
knowledge (1998: 2). These are tensions which are not only embodied in
Mulvaney’s work, but in the discourse and practices of heritage generally.
Trigger’s analysis of archaeology and nationalism also stresses the dichotomy
between universalism and romanticism (Trigger 1996). He claims that both
nationalism and postmodernism grew out of romanticism and idealism, and their
coming together in the field of archaeology has produced an untenable relativism.
While the linking of nationalism and philosophies of romanticism may have some
validity in looking at the history of European archaeology, it does not explain the
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 198
role that materialism, positivism and universalism continue to play in neo-colonial
and national Australia.
While we can link Mulvaney’s plea “for romantic intellectualism” to a cultural
nationalist approach, it is also evident from the case studies presented in Chapter 4,
that the nationalist “surveillance” of the past utilised objectivist, scientific
discourses to separate places and things from their cultural context and render them
as representations of the past. The main point here is that the use of objectivist,
positivist, scientific discourses to characterise historical archaeological sites and
relics effectively masks the way their research potential was created through a
cultural process of valuing the historic past as pertinent to a continuous historical
identity. As I argued in Chapter 4, most archaeologists and heritage managers
would not dispute this assertion. This is the reason for the development of the
category of “social significance”, and the recognition that the broader cultural
values of archaeological sites not only acknowledges community interests, but also
contributes to a potentially expanded notion of research potential (Byrne et al
2001; Colley forthcoming). It is also the reason for the growth in community
archaeology projects, where research is either formulated with a community or
directly requested by it (Clarke 1995; Greer 1996; Smith et al 2000). This type of
research now co-exists with accepted methodologies for the development of
inventories and hierarchies of local, State and national significance. Both versions
of practice respond to issues of identity in the national context. State endorsed
methodologies have an interest in more solid and stable identities that can be
managed to minimise conflict. Communities, on the other hand, may react to a
range of specific agendas: local and global. As Abrams (1994) has pointed out, the
heritage process is usually understood as a means of holding on to the past; of
stable and unchanging cultural values. But communities deploy this process in
times of change and tension, it is not so much about holding on to the past as
choosing a direction for the future. The national context is a critical way identities
are imagined as proceeding into the future. The view of heritage as social action
shows that in a positive way these discourses may be deployed in community
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 199
building (Byrne et al 2001). In a negative way however, they may also serve as
“palliative care” for a ruptured colonial system, or bolster entrenched inequalities.
I mentioned in Chapter 4 that recent research on heritage significance in Australia
has highlighted the importance of “social significance” (Johnston 1992; Pearson
and Sullivan 1995: 153; Davison 2000: 129; Byrne et al 2001). The Burra Charter
defines social significance as “the qualities for which a place has become a focus
of spiritual, political, national or other cultural sentiment to a majority or minority
group” (Guidelines to the Burra Charter: Cultural Significance). This interest in
social significance follows trends towards greater community involvement in the
heritage process throughout the 1980s and 1990s (Byrne et al 2001: 112). There
are extensive implications for heritage processes generally with the greater
recognition of the concept that values are actually constituted within communities
rather than intrinsic to sites and relics themselves. I will discuss some implications
of conflict between archaeological and community values in the case studies in
Chapter 6. What is of particular relevance here, for the purposes of understanding
foundational concepts in historical archaeology, is the way this recent research
reveals that concepts of historical and social significance have actually been
defined in opposition to each other (Byrne et al 2001). I suggest that the distinction
between historical and social significance has been founded on the concept that
historical represents things which are important within a “national high culture”,
which is represented by “History”, while social accounts for things important
within local or minority cultures: “ while it is clear that contemporary social values
have historical dimensions, it appears that the heritage management framework
reserves the “historical” category, for the cultural mainstream” (Byrne et al 2001:
133). This emphasises the alignment of historical value with the nation and the
broad sweep of the national narratives of development. This recalls Gellner’s
theory, discussed in Chapter 1, suggesting that nations tend to institutionalise a
normative version of “high” culture through the state (Gellner 1983; 1997). The
distinction between historical and social reveals that, although the rhetoric of
heritage has been valuing the local, the “places in the heart” (AHC 1998), it has
implicitly assumed that heritage linked to the political and developmental history
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 200
of the nation as a whole should be valued above the local, because it is “historical”,
while the local has only “social” value. This tendency will be perpetuated with the
introduction of the proposed “National Heritage List” which was also discussed in
Chapter 4.
Themes of history/national narratives
Understanding the historic contexts within which to place the largely “unknown”
database of historical archaeology, was one of the main concerns of the Project Co-
ordination Committee on Historical Archaeology, convened in 1974 to advise the
Federal Government on issues surrounding the incorporation of historical
archaeology within the National Estate (Allen 1978). This Committee produced a
set of “themes and checklists” (Allen 1978: A34, A37) designed to aid in both the
identification of heritage items and the establishment of relative levels of heritage
significance. These themes included the following: The Conquest of Distance;
Coastal Penetration; Settlement and Adaptation; the Hostile Environment;
Economic and Industrial Development, (which was divided into ‘stocking the
land’, ‘technology in cultivation’, ‘motive poor’, ‘industrial pollution’, ‘material
self sufficiency’ and ‘economic depressions’) and Social Development
(‘imposition of law and order’, ‘Australians at war’, ‘ethnic minorities’) (Allen
1978: A34-36).
In 1986 Murray and Allen (the latter had been involved in the Committee) claimed
that these themes and checklists had been extensively relied upon by historical
archaeologists but had not been developed as a means through which to theorise
archaeological significance, as had originally been intended:
“The categories of Australian historical archaeology have remained essentially
inviolate – predefined, uninvestigated, and privileged sources of archaeological
interpretation” (Murray and Allen 1986: 87).
The themes and checklist approach remains broadly influential in Australian
heritage management. States have developed their own themes while the latest
national framework of themes was published in 2001 (AHC 2001). This approach
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 201
resulted in historical archaeological heritage being linked to oversimplified
historical frameworks which were overwhelmingly based on the narratives of
national development. It also appears that the dominance of historic thematic
frameworks, reflecting influential synthetic histories such as Hancock’s Australia
(1930), Ward’s The Australian Legend (1958), and Blainey’s The Tyranny of
Distance (1966) and The Rush that Never Ended (1963), perpetuated the
prevalence of historiographic explanatory frameworks in historical archaeology. It
is clear from articles of critical review that some historical archaeologists were
interested in pursuing explanatory frameworks derived not from history, but from
anthropology, material culture studies and issues which were grouped under
Schiffer’s term of “behavioural archaeology” (Connah 1983; 1986; 1998;
Birmingham 1990a). Historical archaeology, as I will discuss below, is still
characterised by tensions between “historical” and “archaeological” questions
(Karskens 1996). These arguments obviously relate to broader archaeological
discussions (that is beyond Australian historical archaeology), but I suggest that in
Australian practice the heritage management framework has articulated the value
of historical archaeological sites and relics in terms of the historical themes they
may contribute to, thus making it easier to justify work which dovetails into
popular historical understandings.
The concept of themes as a management tool for the identification of heritage is
closely related to the practice of inventory: themes and inventory form a discourse
which produces the archaeological record. As Bickford pointed out in 1981
“checklists” accompanied these original themes and were designed to counter their
inherent “ideological bias" (Bickford 1981: 2). However of the 7 categories of site
types listed in the checklist, 5 were devoted to categorising different sorts of
industrial sites, reflecting the strong interest and expertise which had been
developed in that area (Allen 1978: A37-42).
As well as reinforcing the popular, colonialist narratives of national development,
these themes also assist in the production of popular historical understandings of
the “autonomous”, “free standing” national past (Bennett 1995). The latest national
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 202
thematic framework has only 9 very broad themes such as Governing, Educating,
Working and so on (AHC 2001: 9). These themes no longer reflect the colonialist
approach that was evident in the 1974 themes quoted above. However no theme
suggests Australia’s links with the rest of the world, formed through empire,
immigration, trade or other cultural attachments. Australia’s cultural and political
links with the United States for instance are rarely considered within the formal
framework of heritage. This is because the “Americanisation” of Australian
“culture” is considered by many Australians as cultural degradation (Curthoys
1997: 26), and heritage is all about protecting the distinctive, separate, Australian
past:
“We are the only nation to occupy a whole continent and the diversity of our
experience, of our landscapes can be linked through a thematic framework”
(AHC 2001: 2).
Themes are perhaps erroneously called historic when in fact they are instruments
of heritage; where heritage is a discourse which identifies the past as materially
embodied in places and things, and represents the past through those things in the
public sphere. The linking of historical archaeological practice with these devices
has had a distinctive effect in heritage management archaeology, where, as
Karskens has pointed out, history, as an interpretive discourse, was considered of
little relevance to heritage management archaeology throughout the 1980s
(Karskens 1996 and see Birmingham 1990a). This ambivalence to history has been
an important aspect of historical archaeological thought which I will develop
further below.
Although the heritage management framework supports the alignment of history
with national development within an autonomous national zone, historical
archaeologists have certainly sought broader contexts for their work, through
frameworks of “colonisation” and comparative colonialism (see papers in
Birmingham et al 1988; and see Allen 1973; Jack 1985;Birmingham 1990b) and
more recently Susan Lawrence has initiated work on the British Diaspora (1999).
In recent years the World Archaeological Congress has also been an important
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 203
vehicle in promoting global perspectives in historical archaeology (Torrence and
Clark 2000; Funari et al 1999). This research however, which is overwhelmingly
produced through Australian historical archaeology’s small academic sector, has
had little visible impact on the practice of heritage. The idea of a globally linked
past would, I suggest, alter broadly perceived beliefs about Australia’s Anglo-
Celtic history, dominated by “the tyranny of distance”. Highlighting Sydney’s past
as a cosmopolitan, colonial trading port was in fact one of the concerns of the
Museum of Sydney, on the site of first Government House, which I will discuss in
Chapter 6 (Gibson 1996).
Culture History
I discussed in Chapter One Eriksen’s comment that the notion that cultural identity
is continuous is anthropologically contentious, and in fact the concept might be
seen as “an ideological child of the age of nationalism” (Eriksen 1993: 96).
Heritage is based on a foundational belief that identity is historically “created” and
endowed, that individual identities are the sum of their historical parts. As I
discussed in relation to Port Arthur in Chapter 4, the question of the “convict
contribution” to Australian identity has fascinated many Australian writers from
Robert Hughes to Peter Carey, Christopher Koch, Miriam Dixson and many more
(Dixson 1999: 106). Crucial to the process of valuing Australia’s historical
archaeological heritage was the concept that historical archaeology would provide
better understandings of cultural identity (Bickford 1981; Birmingham and Jeans
1983; Birmingham 1983; Connah 1988; Temple 1988). Within this context the
relationship between historical archaeological material and questions about cultural
identity were not theorised, but seen as fundamental and implicit. In view of this,
what has seemed to some to be an inexpert and untheorised archaeological practice
could, in this light, and in view of its emergence within the context of heritage
discourse, also be seen as “culture historical” archaeology (see for instance Trigger
1989: 162).
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 204
As I discussed in Chapter 2, culture history is often thought of more as a
methodology than a theory (Jones 1997: 24), and has been considered by many
critics to be particularly “at risk” for subscription into nationalist agendas
(Rowlands 1995; Trigger 1989; Jones 1997; Ucko 1995a). Such risk has been
identified as culture history’s materialist definition of culture and culture change,
as well as its positivist approach to a value free “archaeological record”. Culture
historical archaeology also links artifacts to cultural identities in an
unproblematised way.
Heritage, especially in its state aligned forms, such as the National Estate, is based
upon exactly the same theories, which must be seen as a result of nationalist
discourses that propose a shared identity based on history. I suggest that historical
archaeology in Australia was founded, quite simply, on the premise that material
remains could reveal information about “Australian” culture and cultural change.
This was the basic premise of archaeology within the context of heritage.
Therefore the siting of remains within an historic or thematic framework, their
description and recording for the future, was a “natural” way of getting on and
doing archaeology (Ucko 1995a: 11). However, from the 1960s and 70s, overlaid
upon this fundamental tenet of culture history were the influential theories of
functionalism and the New Archaeology.
Functionalism and New Archaeology
Historical archaeology’s implicit theoretical foundations were characterised by its
context within heritage and the seemingly natural concepts and methods of culture
historical archaeology. However a functionalist view of society, centred on
technological change as an indicator of social change, was overlaid on these basic
premises to bring them within contemporary archaeological concepts of scientific
rigour (Lydon 1995b). These concepts were drawn from functionalism,
structuralism and the approaches of the New Archaeology, which were promoted
by Australian historical archaeologists in the 1980s to help re-dress what was then
perceived as historical archaeology’s failure to develop interpretive theories which
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 205
went beyond “historical supplementation” (Birmingham and Jeans 1983; Murray
1982; Murray and Allen 1986).
Trigger and Wylie have both discussed how the methods of the New Archaeology
aimed to establish serious, scientific credentials for archaeology within societies
that, since the Second World War, had come to value science as their most
important agent for progress and social improvement. Within this framework,
history became a soft option, an unprovable set of speculations. New Archaeology
therefore sought to distance archaeological practice from history and link with the
greater prestige and funding sources attributed to science (Trigger 1989; Wylie
1989). So the appeal to functionalist theory had a socio-cultural as well as a
scientific context. Australian historical archaeologists may have seen in this kind
of scientific theory the opportunity to establish a superior status for historical
archaeology as a discipline.
The use of the hypothetico-deductive method of confirmation for instance, was
used to impose a rigorous scientific reasoning process into historical
archaeological interpretation (Birmingham and Jeans 1983). However this also had
the effect of distancing historical archaeology from the more hermeneutic practices
of history and masking the complexity of the inferential links made between
observable and non-observable data (Wylie 1993; Murray 1985). The concepts of
the New Archaeology, which centre on the notion of value free data, have also had
a significant impact on the characterisation of archaeological evidence within the
Australian heritage management framework. In particular, as I have mentioned
above, positivist concepts of objective, archaeological data are implicit in heritage
management legislation and procedures (and see Smith 2000). Although
archaeological data is now generally understood by archaeologists to be “theory
laden”, or culturally constituted, this concept does not fit well into environmental
resources based legislation that relies upon empirical, bio-physical style
methodologies for management and conservation.
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 206
The much discussed theoretical model of 1980s historical archaeology, the “Swiss
Family Robinson”, was proposed by Birmingham and Jeans in 1983 (Birmingham
and Jeans 1983; and for comment see Bairstow 1984a; 1984b; Murray 1985;
Lydon 1995b). This model proposed to explain the process of colonisation through
phases of exploration, learning and development. It was based on environmental
perception theory which was then tied to a range of concepts concerned with
economic development. The Swiss Family Robinson model’s concentration on
technological innovation linked it strongly with Australian colonialist, nationalist
history writing focusing on the progressive “mastery of the land” – peopling it,
making it useful through industry and agriculture - the idea that land settlement and
pastoral expansion were the activities through which men made the nation (Lydon
1995b). Further, even though Birmingham and Jeans espoused the use of
established historical frameworks, primarily geographic/economic histories, as
well as World Systems Theory, the functionalist program, and the hypothetico-
deductive framework in particular, proved to be problematic when dealing with the
immense empirical complexity of the historic period. The hypothetico-deductive
approach could lead to the creation of hypotheses which oversimplified the historic
context of the sites investigated and limited the interpretation of archaeological
remains to mainly technological issues and taphonomic questions (see for instance
Connah 1986; 1994).
Damaris Bairstow argued that Australian historical archaeology must look to the
specifics of Australian history to develop a nationally distinctive practice, free
from the pervasive influence of American cultural imperialism in the form of
imported theoretical agendas (Bairstow 1984a). Bairstow argued for a program
based on inductive reasoning rather than what she calls the “American style”
hypothetico-deductive method. Bairstow’s idea that the H – D method was
imperialistically imposed upon the Australian context, by the dominance of
American archaeological/scientific discourse, was critiqued in detail by Murray
(1985). He recognised Bairstow’s argument as being based upon nationalistic
objectives rather than on a well considered review of the applicability of the H – D
model for historical archaeology. Bairstow appealed for the development of
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 207
nationally distinctive theory to enable issues of national significance to be dealt
with. In her discussion of potential “models” for colonisation her central concern is
with understanding the true nature and development of the “Australian Ethos” and
how this understanding might be used as an explanatory tool in Australian history.
In the term “Australian Ethos” Bairstow is following Ward (1958), and the radical
nationalist explanation for the development of the Australian character by working
men who developed the “skills” to cope with Australia’s bush. Bairstow also writes
of Australia and America as two clearly bounded, separate, historical and cultural
entities. However both the present and the histories of these two continents are far
more complex and intertwined than nationally defined histories of linear
development will allow (Murray 1985). It is interesting however, that while
Bairstow’s critique of the H – D model springs from an essentially nationalistic
perspective, which glosses over critical theoretical and historical contexts, it did
draw out what was to be a continuing conflict between historical archaeological
theory and its context within the heritage management framework, and more
generally, with perceptions of what the community wanted to know about its past.
As I discuss below, it was frustration with the dry, reductive accounts of
functionalism which encouraged historical archaeologists in the 1990s to
reconsider Australian historical archaeology’s relationship with history. The
prominence of articles reviewing the progress of historical archaeology and
bemoaning its lack of products which had some meaning to the broader
community, relate I suggest, to the tension created between functionalist theory’s
innate anti-historicism, and the theoretical basis for archaeology’s place within the
discourse of heritage (see for instance Megaw 1984, Murray and Allen 1986;
Temple 1988; Egloff 1994). As I have outlined, this basis was constructed through
the linking of a material heritage to a historically continuous identity. The
generalising aims of functionalist theory fitted within the framework of broad
brush economic and national narratives, but did not provide the intimate histories
of identity which had been a central motivation for the valuing of historical
archaeological sites and relics.
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 208
Archaeology and History: Postmodern Relationships
The difficult relationship between Australian historical archaeology and history
(see for instance S. Jack 1993; Jack 1993; Karskens and Thorpe 1992; Karskens
1996) is partly a result of this very influential grounding of historical
archaeological practice, and many of its current practitioners, in the essentially
antihistorical archaeological methodologies of functionalism. This has always been
strangely at odds with the requirements of the heritage management context, which
aims to link the past to the present. Ann Bickford for instance, welcomed the
participation of archaeology in the investigation of identity and Australianess,
attributing to historical archaeology a crucial role in determining authenticity
within heritage interpretation (1981). She also accorded historical archaeology a
special purpose in the investigation of class and gender issues because of its ability
to look at evidence beyond the written records produced by dominant social groups
(Bickford 1981; 1993). Frustration with the perceived lack of interest in
interpretive history in historical archaeology prompted Karskens and Thorp in
1992 to propose a new framework for urban archaeology in which history and
archaeology could be integrated into a seamless narrative (Karskens and Thorp
1992). Karskens has continued to follow this approach in her more recent historical
archaeological studies of Sydney’s Rocks district (Karskens 1997; Karskens 1999).
Her aims in integrating these two data sets were to allow archaeology to participate
in addressing questions of social historical importance and also to animate the
previously arid and unemotional accounts produced by historical archaeologists.
Karskens’ theoretical orientation towards Deetzian soft structuralism and feminist
narrative and story telling techniques also responded to identity issues in
Australian society. She used archaeological artefacts to illustrate stories about
individual, family and community identities in the past (Karskens 1997; 1999).
This is a compatible role for archaeology within the heritage framework.
In Lydon’s work on the Chinese in Sydney at the turn of the century she constructs
her study in part to address the historical context of one aspect of the race relations
debate in Australia, and in particular the present debate about revisionist or "black
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 209
armband" history which I discussed in Chapter 1 (Lydon 1999; 2000). As opposed
to Karsken’s integrationist approach to historical and archaeological data Lydon
chose techniques of juxtaposition and collage to draw out discontinuities and
conflicts between data and interpretations. Karskens and Lydon’s work are
examples of the theoretical re-orientation of historical archaeological work in the
1990s towards postprocessual theories which offer opportunities for a more
interpretive archaeology, one which will link current communities to the past and
respond to present issues in the community. Hodder has also linked the rise in
interpretive archaeologies to broader cultural interest in heritage and the
production of “heritage centres” which, unlike traditional museums, involve the
public in an experiential narrative representing the past. (Hodder 1992: 193) These
theoretical approaches have been adopted by Australian historical archaeologists
because they offered opportunities to address issues of concern and interest in
Australian society: multiculturalism, feminism, indigenous history and other forms
of identity politics.
The historical and experiential basis of national identity, as I have outlined, has
always been a central concern for historical archaeology, although dealt with in
more or less reflexive ways. Writing in the 1980s Anne Bickford and Damaris
Bairstow both clearly linked the practice of historical archaeology with
nationalistically oriented objectives: investigating identity and developing a
nationally distinctive practice.
It is clear that the recent directions in Australian historical archaeology that have
been outlined so far, such as interpretative, social archaeologies, community
archaeology and archaeologies of diaspora, combine aspects of postmodernism
with heritage and culture history, in the premise that the past is constitutive of
present identities.
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 210
Conclusions: Australian Historical Archaeology?
In Chapter 4 I suggested that nationalist discourse was obviously involved in
emphasizing the need for nationally distinctive ways of working and thinking. To
take this consideration of the genealogy of historical archaeological thought a little
further I have looked at the main journal for historical archaeology in Australia,
Australasian Historical Archaeology, between 1983 (when it was first published)
and 1999. This is not the only journal which publishes historical archaeological
research in Australia, but it is the only journal which specialises in this subject. I
looked at the journal in terms of the subject themes represented by the articles
(Figure 5.7), which I will discuss below, and also the patterns of citation. To do
this I classified all citations into the broad categories of theory, case studies and
contextual history, geography and so on. I omitted primary source documents from
the analysis. I then attributed a “nationality” to the citations, based on the main
known working location of the author. I realise such an attribution may often be
contentious, but my aim was simply to get a better picture of how articles in this
journal located their work in a broader context. In response to the thread in the
literature concerning the “American domination” of theory in Australian historical
archaeology, I identified “American”, “British” and “Australian” citations, and
grouped most others into regions, such as Asian and European. The category
“Other Settler” was used to characterise citations from settler nations like Canada
and New Zealand.
Figure 5.3 shows the break down of total citations. This showed that numbers of
citations of theory were, on the whole, low. Figure 5.1 gives a break down of this
category. Citations of “American “ theory indeed dominate at 47%, the next largest
category is “British” theory at 23%, then “Australian” theory at 21%. In contrast
however, American case studies, shown in Figure 5.2, made up only 11% of total
citations of case studies. Australian case study citations dominate at 53%, followed
by “Other Settler” case studies, mostly from New Zealand, at 17%, and British
case studies at 14%.
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 211
I also broke down the citations according to some of the subject themes
represented in the journal. As can be clearly seen, once again, in Figure 5.7,
Industrial themes dominate the journal overwhelmingly. This category showed a
similar reliance on theory derived from the United States, then Britain, followed by
Australia (Figure 5.4). Citations in Urban and Ethnicity/Class/Gender themes, what
we could call “social archaeology”, showed slightly higher numbers of theory
citations including European Theory, which was absent from Industrial themes
(Figure 5.5). This theme also included a high number of citations of British case
studies.
My aim in this analysis is not to reinforce these national categories, and certainly
not to advocate that Australians develop more “home grown” theory. I did want to
clarify how this group of historical archaeological researchers located their work.
This analysis shows that this research has been largely self-referencing in national
terms, through the citation of Australian case studies, while drawing heavily on
functionalist and structuralist theory developed in the United States. Citations in
Critique/History of Archaeology themes (Figure 5.6), show that Australian
historical archaeology (again denoted through the high number of case study
citations), has been historicised in the context of the region to some extent, through
the inclusion of New Zealand within the purview of the journal (denoted by the
high number of Other Settler Case Study citations). Comparison with Figure 5.2
however, shows that this tendency is specific to this theme only, and does not
apply to the more subject specific areas of research.
In this section I have worked through five areas of theory which can be unpacked
from Australian historical archaeological thought. Some of these areas have not
been understood as theory as such, such as culture historical methodologies,
heritage themes and significance assessment, but I argue that they have formed
foundational concepts for the production of historical archaeological knowledge,
especially for practice in the heritage management field. I have not argued that
nationalism or nationalist thought has a stranglehold on historical archaeological
interpretation, but that nation-centred thinking has been involved in the
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 212
constitution of concepts of historical importance, of cultural significance and in the
notion of historically continuous identities. More overt expressions of cultural
nationalism have been involved in the perceived need for nationally distinctive
theory and practice, in overstating the coherence and separateness of the national
subject and also in giving substance and historical form to the concept of national
identity. Finally, through the device of a self-referential practice, self consciously
referencing American “theory”, but not American research or case studies more
generally, the notion of a national discipline has been reinforced.
Interpretive Themes
A review of historical archaeological interpretations in Australia has led to the
identification of a number of thematic structures which resonate with nationalist
discourses and narratives about Australia’s past. What I go on to outline is not a
case of archaeological interpretation blindly following dominant nationalist
narratives, although there are examples of that, but more of subtle entwinements of
interpretation with naturalised, taken for granted structures within discourses about
history, identity and landscape. This is neither a comprehensive, nor objective
review of the literature, my aim has been to draw out structures of meaning which
are of interest to my exploration of archaeology and nationalism as entwined
discourses.
As I foreshadowed in Chapter 1, discourses that link the Australian landscape with
both the events of colonial history as well as with the development of national
identity, are particularly distinctive and prominent in the Australian cultural
tradition. Kay Schaffer, in her analysis of this landscape based cultural tradition,
showed how categories of identity are constituted through the embedding in
language and social practice of the symbolic codes which inscribe difference
(Schaffer 1988). Schaffer drew on Helene Cixous’ concepts of the masculine
economy of binary meaning structures: masculine/feminine, same/other,
nature/culture and so on (Cixous 1976), to investigate ways symbolic structures in
the nationalist code were transmitted and re-enacted through Australian culture.
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 213
Schaffer claimed that “patriarchal, imperial, colonial, bourgeois and national
ideologies intersect and support each other” in their construction of the land as the
feminine “other” in Australian historical and literary traditions (Schaffer 1988: 13).
Many critics have noted that nationality, like gender, is shaped by what it opposes,
relying on some concept of alterity for its definition (Parker et al 1992: 5). While
the nation is some times symbolically imagined as a woman, Britannia for
instance, nationality tends to be imagined as a “homosocial form of male bonding”
(Mosse 1985; Anderson 1983 and for Australia see for instance Lake 1992; Reekie
1992; Curthoys 1993a). As I argued in Chapter 1 the landscape itself is constructed
as the feminine other in the Australian nationalist tradition and this has had
significant implications for the woman as subject in historical and national
discourse.
Town and Country
Art and literature which valorised men’s lives in the bush in the 19th century, for
the purpose of allegory supporting a political standpoint, has been taken as
evidence of historical experience, as a reflection of reality rather than as a
construction for a political purpose. In addition to this, the colonialist history of the
“progressive mastery” of the land – peopling it, making it useful through industry
and agriculture, has dominated accounts of Australia’s national development. This
land - centred construction of the past can be shown to have operated through
historical archaeological interpretations in a number of ways, but also significantly,
there are indications that archaeologists have responded to issues arising from the
contexts of their research, both social and material, to highlight complexity and
ambiguity in the past.
Graham Connah’s book ‘Of the Hut I Builded’: The Archaeology of Australia’s
History (1988), is an example of how a variety of archaeological research and
interpretation may be structured within a framework which tacitly reproduces
colonialist and nationalist constructions of the past (Connah 1988). Connah’s book
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 214
occupies an important and central position to a consideration of Australian
historical archaeology, because it remains the only text which purports to give an
overview of historical archaeological research in Australia. As such it is prescribed
reading for undergraduates studying historical archaeology and has shaped
perceptions of what are legitimate areas of research to be pursued within the field.
The purpose of my discussion of this text is to analyze its discursive context, not to
criticize it for omissions identified with the hindsight of a decade of revisionist
history, and in the light of a significantly different intellectual climate.
This book was published with assistance from the Australian Bicentennial
Authority, a body that funded a host of history and heritage related projects to
mark 200 years of colonization in 1988, and in this light one of its aims is to
celebrate the material evidence of Australia’s recent past:
“Australia’s colonial achievement has not vanished without leaving traces, those
traces are all around us and it is the archaeologist’s task to recover from them an
understanding of past life...” (Connah 1988: 5).
The book instantly invokes the mythology of the bush by taking the Henry Lawson
poem, Reedy River, as its leitmotif. This poem recalls many of Lawson’s prominent
themes concerning man’s insignificance in the Australian landscape, its
intractability and dual status as desired object and hated foe. Three of the book’s 8
chapters are devoted to industry and rural production. Although whaling is
discussed briefly in one chapter, maritime industry and trade economies, which
account for critical, early transferals of capital into the colony, do not feature as a
theme of this land-centered narrative. Evidence from maritime archaeology,
dealing only with the wrecks of Dutch East Indiamen, is confined to a chapter
dealing with “pre-colonial contact” and is seen as an interesting introduction to the
real business of colonisation from 1788. The evidence of the Dutch East India
Company shipwrecks is termed “pre-colonial” by Connah because they predate the
settlement of Australia by the British. This highlights his understanding of
colonisation as settlement, rather than as a complex phenomenon including
cultural, trade and military activities. This is a clear example of the implications of
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 215
imposing the understanding of Australia as a potential nation, upon the complex
history of colonial activities in the Pacific and Indian oceans. The continent of
Australia was certainly implicated in European imperial politics from well before
this date.
This text places historical archaeological research within a framework based upon
the popularly understood themes of nationalist history: the centrality of rural
expansion in the process of founding the nation, the importance of industrialization
and the hostility of the environment to these processes. The rhetorical style of the
text reinforces this thematic structure: for instance, the settlement of Sydney is
where the “birth of a new nation can be observed from the archaeological
evidence”, while convicts are celebrated for their “vital role in the settlement of
this nation” (Connah 1988: 35, 62). The implication of considering the archaeology
of early Sydney as foundational to the nation, is clearly a case of back-projecting
the nation onto a complex colonial and imperial history. For instance, the first
annexation of Australia clung to the eastern coast, integrating Sydney in a colonial
adventure that in the minds of some, included the adjacent Pacific islands for as far
as Tahiti. (Crowley 1974: 48) The continent nation was not a foregone conclusion
in 1788. In Connah’s text the idea of colonialism is not problematised because the
term “colonisation” is used synonymously with settlement, and settlement in turn
is understood as the process of nation building.
Although research in urban archaeology (focusing on domestic sites) and in contact
archaeology (the archaeology of contact between settler and Indigenous people), is
referred to in the final chapter of the book, much of this research existed in
unpublished reports at the time of writing. The book also reflects a preference for
the analysis of structural and technological remains, rather than artefact or material
culture analysis. Specialist artefact studies in Australian historical archaeology, as
Lawrence has comprehensively documented, have only rarely been published
(Lawrence 1998b). The overall themes of Connah’s text, land settlement and
industry, are also incompatible with the social issues addressed by urban
archaeology and material culture studies, which may be why attempts were not
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 216
made to address what was then a burgeoning interest in the urban archaeology of
the 19th century (Lydon 1993).
Just how accurately does Connah’s emphasis on land settlement and rural and
industrial subjects reflect the practice of Australian historical archaeology? Figure
5.7 shows the thematic analysis of the contents of Australasian Historical
Archaeology, which I introduced earlier. This mirrors Connah’s book in that it is
overwhelmingly focused on industrial subjects, with far fewer examples of case
studies on urban or social themes. What is of real interest to me here is that
Connah’s book indeed reflects the thematic shape of this journal, but this is a
journal in which Connah has been heavily involved – acting as its editor for 50%
of the issues. I want to contrast this picture with a statement published by Ian Jack
in 1996 :
“But alongside these industrial sites, a wider diversity of habitation sites,
particularly in the major cities, have been investigated... The dominance of
urban over rural sites has come largely from another element in the historical
archaeology scene. Heritage issues have become much more widely respected in
Australia over the past twenty years” (Jack 1996: 24 my emphasis).
Jack is referring here to large numbers of historical archaeological excavations on
urban sites, mostly in Sydney. Very few of these excavations have been published
in Australasian Historical Archaeology, most in fact are documented in
unpublished reports. This confirms that Connah’s subject: The Archaeology of
Australia’s History, was constituted through both his interests as a scholar and the
aim of the book to celebrate both Australia’s Bicentennial and the discipline of
historical archaeology. The main journal of historical archaeology, as a body of
literature, also reflects a similar picture. Both Connah’s book and the journal
occupy central positions in disciplinary literature because they represent two of its
most readily available, published reference sources. In this case this has given a
higher profile to research structured through nationalist narratives, than to work
which foregrounds a wide range of other interpretive issues.
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 217
Success and Failure
Colonisation is underpinned by an understanding of settlement as transformative:
wasteland into productive land; nature into culture. As I discussed in Chapter One,
the construction of the Australian “landscape” as hostile has its roots in the
imagery of the late 19th century and was promulgated through popular historical
narratives and political discourse. This discourse emphasised the “battle” against
nature as the only battle involved in the process of building the settler nation.
Turner demonstrates that a common element to both literary and political traditions
in Australia is their identification with the “battler”, the construct of the
hardworking, ordinary Australian, battling the hostile environment or economic
forces outside their control. This is true of Australian political rhetoric today,
where both sides of politics claim to act for the “battler”. The conservatives
identifying with the rural tradition, and the Labor movement with the urban
working man. The currency in contemporary culture of the “battler” construction
re emphasises the idea of Australian nature as resistant to economic progress and
thus the advancement of the nation. Griffiths has shown how successive Australian
governments ignored advice on the nature of arid inland environments and
continued to promote the spread of settlement on the basis of “national and racial
anxiety” (Griffiths and Robin 1997: 11). Nationalistic rhetoric therefore construed
the Australian environment as hostile, rather than the policies of government as
wrong headed or as simply able to ignore human suffering in order to achieve
political ends. Ann Curthoys claims that attraction to failure and defeat is a crucial
aspect of Australian national identity, giving rise to powerful victimological
narratives which, like those of many other nations like Israel, Canada or the United
States, focus on the settler as victim, rather than beneficiary of colonisation
(Curthoys 1999a: 2).
Within historical archaeological interpretation, the idea of the “battle” to settle the
land and make it productive, has generated a marked tendency to consider sites and
landscapes in terms of success or failure in this “battle”. Studies carried out in the
1970s and 80s aimed to establish a field of interest for the emerging practice of
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 218
historical archaeology and, as I discussed in earlier chapters, their focus was
solidly on the abandoned relics of agricultural and industrial technology
(Birmingham et al. 1979; Birmingham et al. 1983). Abandoned rural and industrial
sites were also under threat from decay, expanding urban settlement and modern
industry, so the recording of such places was also seen as a conservation
imperative. Obviously research on sites still in operation is more problematic, and
although examples can be found, they are less dominant. Abandoned rural and
industrial sites now form an important research genre, or field of interest, in
Australian historical archaeology, as has been shown by the number of case studies
published in Australasian Historical Archaeology. Rural sites, removed from the
time pressures associated with the pace of urban redevelopment, also suit the
academic far better in terms of scheduling successive seasons of fieldwork
separated by periods of writing and analysis (see for instance Birmingham and
Wilson 1994; Connah 1978; 1994 1998a; Murray 1988, Lawrence 1998b; 2000;
Allison 1998).
Industrial sites have been interpreted within a predominantly economic framework,
such as the Swiss Family Robinson Model proposed by Birmingham and Jeans in
1983. This also predisposes interpretation towards the success/failure question
(Birmingham and Jeans 1983). In this area, archaeologists have effectively
established a circular and self-perpetuating relationship between the myth of the
hostile environment and the battle to establish the nation, and the research that
seeks to examine it. Abandoned and therefore notionally unsuccessful enterprises
are sought out in order to explain their failure. While individually these case
studies often provide insightful answers to this question, the fact that success/
failure becomes a self evident structuring device in interpretation, with the greater
weight of evidence falling on the side of failure, means that some archaeological
research has reproduced the idea that the environment in Australia is “hostile” and
the intent of colonisation benign.
The success/failure “model” has also been employed more broadly, to rural estates
as the material evidence of individual career aspirations for instance (see for
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 219
instance Connah 1998a; Wilson 1988) and to the study of abandoned settlements.
In “Of the Hut I Builded”, Connah devotes a chapter to the archaeology of failed
settlements, sites which have held obvious fascination for historical archaeologists,
not least as early remains undisturbed by later development. One of the examples
reviewed in this chapter is the military outpost of Victoria, Port Essington, in
Arnhem Land, northern Australia, which was the subject of a detailed study by Jim
Allen in the 1960s (Allen 1969). Allen’s interpretation of this site is as a
“successful strategic maneuver rather than a failed attempt at colonization”(Allen
1973: 44). While Connah refers to Allen’s interpretation, he further concludes that
“strategic and political considerations were not a sufficient basis on their own for
colonial success” (Connah 1988: 49). This suggests a moral difference between the
motives for establishing a settlement which are purely “strategic” and “political”
and motives which are described as a “genuine interest in colonisation”(Connah
1988: 49, my emphasis). As pointed out earlier, in this terminology colonisation is
synonymous with nation building, while strategic and political aims appear to be
associated more with protecting the selfish interests of remote imperial authorities.
Here the success/failure concept invokes not only the idea of battling the hostile
environment, but also the understanding of colonisation as progress towards an
outcome of meaning and value, in this case the birth of the nation. This equation is
founded in Enlightenment historical discourse and Judeo-Christian narrative
structures, through which colonisation imagines its successful transformation of
wilderness into useful, productive land (Rose 1999: 8).
I must conclude that the romance of the bush continues to seduce many of those
seeking the essential qualities of the Australian historical experience. Moser has
suggested that Australian prehistory sought its disciplinary identity through the
rigours of field work in the remote outback, archaeologists themselves re-living
Lawson’s promise of masculine fulfillment in the arms of the bush (Moser 1995).
Historical archaeologists, rather than re-living this tradition, have given much
attention to explaining it.
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 220
No place for a woman
Wylie has discussed how strong personal and political commitments to feminist
issues led American women archaeologists to address the implications of
androcentric theory, interpretations, practices and methodologies in their work as
archaeologists (Wylie 1992). In Australian historical archaeology there is evidence
that it was not only this external political commitment which lead to interest in
feminist theory, but also the material evidence of urban archaeology in particular,
with its focus on domestic spaces and artefacts, which drew archaeologists into
womens lives in the past and the construction of gender roles in the 19th century.
Historical archaeology’s concentration on rural work and industry continued to
tacitly reproduce the idea of Australia as “Manzone Country” (Summers 1975 and
see Lydon 1995b). Its focus on pioneer technology and the success or failure of
technological processes perpetuated an almost tacit understanding that this was the
work which made the nation, and it was man’s work. Rowley has demonstrated the
centrality of the idea that it was men’s work on the land, and their battle with the
hostile environment, that created the nation through the opening up of the land
(Rowley 1993: 187).
This alternative thread in historical archaeological research has come from within
the heritage management industry, rather than from the academy. The creation of
legislation protecting historical archaeological “relics”, particularly in NSW in
1977, saw a gradual growth in compliance which resulted in numerous, large scale
excavations of urban sites and neighborhoods (see for instance Lydon 1993; 2000;
Karskens 1997; 1999, and in Melbourne, Mayne and Lawrence 1998).
Archaeological work on urban sites could only occur within the heritage
management framework. For the obvious reason of the economic value of inner
city land, such sites are never likely to be available for planned, long term research
work carried on within the timetable of the university calendar. So although there
was an explosion in urban excavation done by consulting archaeologists in the
1980s and 1990s this was only rarely participated in by academic researchers. (but
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 221
see Birmingham 1990a). Because of the exigencies of the consulting
archaeological industry and the lack of full time researchers, material from urban
sites was very slow to be published and its usefulness and potential vigorously
debated (Egloff 1994: 4; Karskens and Thorp 1992; Mackay 1996). For instance,
the fact that these sites produced such huge numbers of artefacts, meant that
artefact analysis was an overwhelming and expensive proposition and it took some
years for a grounding in skills in analysis, and orientation in material culture
theory, to be established in the professional community (Birmingham 1990a;
Lawrence 1998b). Thus, real results from urban archaeology were slow to surface,
leaving the impression of the practice, gained through its published literature alone,
as overwhelmingly concerned with rural, industrial and technological subjects.
The material evidence of urban life did encourage archaeologists into partnerships
with social historians in order to interpret and interrogate the material culture (see
for instance Karskens and Thorp 1992; Karskens 1999; Mayne and Lawrence
1998). I suggested above that doing urban archaeology lead to a new focus on the
domestic sphere and a reconsideration of the roles of women as consumers,
mothers, homemakers, publicans, and boarding house keepers. It is also evident
that growing interest in feminist theory had a major impact in defining the key
fields of interest for urban archaeologists (Lydon 1995a; Karskens 1997). Lydon
has explained historical archaeology’s tardiness in adopting feminist themes in
terms of its dominant theoretical approaches, which favored economic and
technological explanatory frameworks (Lydon 1995b). The evidence I present here
suggests that nationalist discourse also shaped the practice, reflecting its particular
concerns with settling the land, the hostile environment, the bushman as hero, and
the absence of women as subjects within this discourse.
The way in which urban archaeology raised the issues of women’s lives, of
ethnicity and the relationship between identity and material culture, has now
provided evidence that shows the “flatness” of dominant nationalist discourses. By
“flatness” I mean the homogenising effect that narratives of unity and progress
have on the heterogeneity of lives and social relationships in the past (Lydon
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 222
1996). Susan Lawrence, on the other hand, has chosen to meet the nationalist myth
head on, and has used material culture to test the evidence concerning men’s lives
in the bush (Lawrence 1998a; 2000). Lawrence takes the construction of the lone
bushman, and rather than disproving its basis in reality, shows that reality was
likely to have been far more complicated. She sheds light on the social and sexual
tensions of 1890s society by demonstrating conflicting constructions of
masculinity apparent in the context of archaeological and historical evidence. A
further point of departure for Lawrence’s work on bush sites, is that she
approaches industry in its social context. In this way she addresses issues raised by
revisionist social and feminist historians, as well aspects of material culture theory,
revealing that; “Whalers, miners and pastoral workers were physically remote from the main
stream of society, but they were none the less integrated with it. A habitus that
incorporated domestic ideology, and domesticated masculine identity, informed
the lives of men, and sometimes women, in the bush”(Lawrence 1998: 5).
Confronting Colonialism
I briefly discussed in Chapters 3 and 4 that while historical archaeology rarely
considered issues of contact between indigenous people and settlers through the
1970s and 80s, this subject has boomed in popularity since the mid 1990s (see for
instance Harrison and Patterson 2000). In historical archaeology, understandings of
cultural landscapes have competed with the colonialist construction of the
expanding frontier, which is not simply geographical, but also a major ontological
disjunction between the beginning of history and the end of prehistory (Rose 1999:
9; Fredericksen 2000). In addition to this, the idea of “pristine wilderness” (that is
nature unaltered by humans), is so strong in Australian culture that conservationists
and land managers still struggle with the idea that most of the continent is a
cultural landscape, shaped by a long history of human occupation. Past approaches
to studying prehistoric sites and landscapes, and settler landscapes as evidence of
agricultural and technological processes, had not provided any framework within
which to approach what must, in many cases, have been shared Aboriginal and
European landscapes. In most contact studies, the point had been to assess the
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 223
impact of settler culture upon Aboriginal behavior and technology. In the narratives
of settler history, settlers are impacted upon by the environment, but rarely by
Aboriginal culture. The assumption was that colonial activities overwrite and
obliterate indigenous cultural landscapes, that the impact of colonialism was fatal
and total. More recent approaches however foreground knowledge sharing,
Aboriginal agency and creativity and cultural hybridisation.
The division in historical archaeology between black and white histories had been
reinforced by the fact, as pointed out by Colley and Bickford, that the two
“heritages” have often been protected under different legislation (1996). In
compliance archaeology therefore one set of consultants may have looked at
Aboriginal cultural heritage, while another group were employed to look at settler
heritage. Therefore, in day to day consulting work, there had been few arenas in
which the cultural landscape of colonialism, the historic period, could be studied in
a holistic way. These disciplinary and legislative boundaries have now been
recognised as colonial artefacts in themselves, a result of seeing Aborigines as a
part of the environment and as a people with no history.
Byrne and Egloff have discussed the potential power of contact or Aboriginal
historical archaeology in countering nationalist archaeology and acting for
reconciliation (Byrne 1996: 102; Egloff 1994). In 1994 Egloff claimed that the
Swiss Family Robinson Model, discussed earlier in this chapter, had been a ‘strait
jacket’ for Australian historical archaeology, which promoted the study of
colonisation at the expense of more relevant research areas. Egloff claimed that the
colonial model was only good for ‘coffee table reading’ and suggested that
environmental history and Aboriginal history should replace it as a focus for
historical archaeology (Egloff 1994). I suggest Egloff was reacting more to
historical archaeology’s conservative theorising of colonialism, rather than to the
appropriateness of colonialism as a research focus. The areas which he suggests as
more suitable research themes are obviously also underpinned by colonialism in
terms of their historical formation as subjects.
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 224
This is perhaps the clearest area where archaeological theory, as well as practice,
can be seen to have been transformed by current community concerns and identity
politics. The most significant changes in Australian archaeology generally have of
course occurred due to the deconstruction of colonial knowledge in the areas of
Aboriginal prehistory and the codification of ethical standards for archaeologists
working with Aboriginal communities. As part of international interest in the
implications of colonialism, there has been a spate of papers that are mini
manifestoes on how to decolonise Australian archaeology (Pardoe 1992; Head
1996; Colley and Bickford 1996; Head 1998; Byrne 1996). One of the most
prominent proponents of this genre has been Tim Murray (Murray 1992; 1993a;
1993b; 1996a; 1996c; 1996d). Murray’s central claim for the viability of a
postcolonial archaeology is that it would produce knowledge of value to all
Australians. Murray sees archaeology as a discourse which could illuminate a
“shared past”, speak for Australia’s national interests and work towards
reconciliation. He has been criticised by Gelder and Jacobs for aligning his
privileged western knowledge system, archaeology, with the national interest,
therefore casting Aboriginal people, who speak against this form of knowledge, or
deny its worth, as “unAustralian” (Gelder and Jacobs 1998: 88). In contrast to
Murray’s position Byrne has seen an Aboriginal historical archaeology as a means
to undermine “National” archaeology, aligning postcolonial with postnational
discourse in Australia (Byrne 1996). The position that colonial and nationalist
archaeology has most difficulty in reviewing, is that of the archaeologists’ role as
expert, with a right to speak for the past: “for this discipline then, ethics appear to
begin where the authority of science ends” (Ronayne 1998: 3).
Conclusions: a suitable past?
I concluded Chapter 4 with the question: does a growing rhetoric of inclusiveness
mean that heritage is becoming less nationally defined in terms of concepts of a
bounded, definable national identity and culture? Can we construe historical
archaeology’s current research focus on multiple and hybrid identities, on
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 225
Aboriginal history and women’s history for instance, as undermining the construct
of the nation? This diverse body of research has many motives, characterised by
the postmodern acceptance of “present interests” as a structure and rationale for
research.
To provide a shared history is to provide a suitable past for a reconciled,
postcolonial nation. While Murray speaks from the position of an intellectual
within a liberal democracy, committed to improving and continuing the viability of
the nation, Byrne seeks to undermine the coherence of the concept of the nation
and to fragment the construct of a necessary national unity. It is Murray’s position
which is echoed by leading Aboriginal historian Henry Reynolds, who promotes
the need for the single national story (Reynolds 2001). He has underlined this idea
recently by re-publishing his book, With the White People (1990) under the new
name, Black Pioneers (2000), in a desire to incorporate Aborigines as active,
contributing agents, within the mythology of nation building, to which pioneer
myths are central.
Because of this complexity of motives, beliefs and understandings of the nation
and its meaning, it is not possible to say that growing “inclusiveness” in historical
archaeology is leading towards postnational, global or postcolonial ends. In some
cases, as I have just outlined, discourses of shared history are certainly attempting
to redefine the meaning of the national in Australia, but they retain a deep
commitment to the national community. This tends to confirm Rowland’s claim
which I quoted in Chapter 2:
“the expansion of archaeology’s relation to nationalism and ethnicity in the
construction of collective identity seems certain to continue. Partly the
materiality of the archaeological record will ensure this. Partly also the creation
of alternative pasts is increasingly being used to legitimate land claims, ethnic
territories and access to economic resource (Rowlands 1995: 141).
Both nationalist and anti-nationalist approaches to the past in Australia have
created knowledge, perspectives, stories and places which have fluid, contested
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 226
and situational meanings - meanings which might be deployed to oppress or
emancipate. Aboriginal historical archaeology has created, and is creating, new
forms of knowledge about the past in Australia, knowledge that can be used in a
range of different ways. The potential for Aboriginal historical archaeology to act
as a new discourse for national unity, based on a “shared” past, is one that will
have to be negotiated by historical archaeologists in the context of the communities
within which they are working.
So what is the significance of the national context for the aspects of historical
archaeological practice discussed in this chapter? The issues outlined above
suggest that “national pride” has motivated some in quests for theoretical
innovation and for ways of escaping the intellectual dominance of the United
States. Heritage has tended to link archaeological interpretations to the themes of
national development, and to particular identity constructs that have some meaning
and resonance for the community today, but are an inaccurate filter to impose
retrospectively on the past. Historical archaeology has been deeply involved in the
gamut of identity politics, some of which relate specifically to the imagination of
the nation and the realisation of a distinctly Australian identity, while others relate
more to “so-called” minority identity politics; concerning women, homosexuals,
children and ethnic groups. These identities also intersect with national identity in
a number of very important ways, but they perhaps have more to do with “global”
(western) understandings of individuality and the link between personal identity
and personal freedom. These interests have motivated archaeologists to utilise
postprocessual theories which aimed to open archaeological interpretation to
concepts of multiple identities.
I have demonstrated the discursive relationship between representations of the land
and the environment in the Australian cultural tradition and the practice of
historical archaeology. The ideology of colonialism constructs the land as a place
of alienation and exile and also as the object of desire in Australia, in return
archaeological research has contributed to historicising and perpetuating this
colonial act of possession. The result of this conceptual circularity is that far from
Intimate Histories and National Narratives 227
revealing any disciplinary objectivity, discursive relationships between
archaeology, history and national identity, have in some cases contrived to “create
a reality that they appear to describe” (Schaffer 1988: 171). There is also evidence,
such as the case presented for urban archaeology, that individual practitioners can
break out of this conceptual circularity and that present interests, as well as
archaeological material, can provide an impetus to reconfigure research paradigms.
Chapter 6
Materiality and National Origin Myths
“We may be inclined to regard such (archaeological) traces as more stable, solid
and tangible than memory traces and also as relatively invulnerable to the
discursive play of written text and film. We may even be comforted by the thought
that these physical traces have a concrete existence independent of discourse -
independent of us - and we may imagine their mediated testimony putting solid
ground under us in an age where so little seems solid any more. Perhaps it is for
this reason that we have become so fervent and protective about heritage sites”
(Byrne 1997: 7).
Archaeology is generally understood as the study of material things: traces,
residues, ruins and objects. Materiality, as Byrne alludes to in the quotation above,
has always involved archaeology in the rhetoric of proof, the production of “hard
evidence”. It is this material dimension which means that archaeology, and its
products, participate in discourses about the past in a distinctive manner, in a
manner which is different from history and other non-material forms of social
memory. In this Chapter I will investigate some instances where archaeology has
clearly, and controversially, been involved in broader public discourses about the
nation, identity and the past. In particular, I will investigate how archaeologists
have gone about doing research into places and objects which derive a distinctive
kind of status from their relationship with origin myths or “foundational
moments”: the iconic or fetishised events of national history. What are the
implications of archaeological research into these mythologised subjects of
national history and identity; especially in the context of a settler nation and its
colonial history?
In 1973 Mark Leone declared that one of the main rationales for archaeology was
the “empirical substantiation of national mythology” (Leone 1973:129,133). In his
231
Materiality and National Origin Myths 232
use of the term empirical here, Leone implies that it is both the use of scientific,
empirical methods, as well as the production of tangible, material things, which
can be viewed and experienced by the public, that ensured archaeology occupied
this social role. The faith that the public puts in the authenticity of historic sites
reconstruction based upon archaeological research, and the lack of recognition of
the ideological content of these reconstructions, has been a frequent subject of
Leone’s critique since the 1970s (see for instance Leone 1981a; 1981b ). In their
historical review of nationalism and archaeology in Europe, Diaz-Andreu and
Champion found that the relationship between archaeology and nationalism was
perhaps most evident when archaeology was called upon to provide the
authentication of “national origin myths”. In the European context origin myths are
described as those stories of “ancestry, migration and liberation; of golden ages,
decline and rebirth” (Diaz-Andreu and Champion 1996: 21). These European
myths are often found to concern issues of race and ethnicity, the origins of
“peoples” and their cultural symbols. Smith, a theorist of nationalism discussed in
Chapter 1, claims that archaeology has been perhaps “the most useful discipline” to
nationalists, commenting that although archaeology may “locate, classify and date”
artefacts “neutrally”, this neutrality breaks down in the selection of places for
research and in the act of interpretation (Smith 1986: 180). For a secular
intelligentsia, scientific, empirical archaeology was the perfect tool with which to
rehabilitate the power of ancient myths in the modern, rationalist times of the 19th
and 20th centuries (Smith 1986: 181).
Certain events, places or even objects, resonate with mythic themes, making them
“mythopoeic” subjects: the stuff which myths are made of. In Australia, settler
origin myths tend to centre on foundational events, like the “discovery” of the
continent by Cook, and on founding fathers, like Arthur Phillip and Lachlan
Macquarie, prominent colonial governors. Myths have also coalesced around the
development of a national character, linking particular character traits to
originative events, such as the “battler” and the spread of the pastoral industry
across the continent, or the “digger” and the Gallipoli campaign in World War
One. Naming these stories “myths” is not simply intended to question the truth of
Materiality and National Origin Myths 233
their subjects, although aspects of them may be more closely rooted in reality than
others. The term myth is used here to denote the structuring of memories and
histories into narratives which follow mythic themes. The significance of narrative,
as not only structure but also as an interpretive device crucial to the way in which
progress through time has been imagined, was raised in relation to nationalism in
Chapter One. White stresses that narrative is the fabric of a “mythical view of
reality” (White 1987: ix). The term myth also denotes the role of these shared
stories about the past within a community: the myth works to explain why a
community is as it is, or how it was and once again should be (Smith 1986: 191).
In this last respect, the myth can be read as a mode of allegorical diagnosis for its
own time. Following Ann Curthoys, I would argue that the allegorical nature of
historical mythologies is of particular importance in the Australian context as a
settler nation. As I have discussed in earlier chapters, the process of colonial
settlement was rendered through allegorical association with well known European
myths and stories which not only provided a structure for the assembly of histories,
but also provided worthy outcomes: be they tragic failures or happy endings
(Curthoys 1999a: Curthoys 1999b). Curthoys has identified an array of
“victimological” narratives: convicts oppressed by a brutal system; pioneers
defeated by a hostile environment; the Australian digger’s fate as cannon fodder
for the British overlord. These she sees as drawing structure and meaning from the
biblical narrative of Exodus, and the significant outcome of this allegory is that the
settler, as victim, earns the right to the promised land (Curthoys 1999b: 18). Such
Australian narratives are certainly not exceptional, but can be identified in other
settler societies from New Zealand, the United States and Canada, to South Africa
and Israel. Davison has discussed the mythic theme of the “Great Journey” in
relation to America, Australia and New Zealand noting that its structure provides a
good pro-forma for a pluralist sense of nationhood, able to be extended to all those
who voyage to a new land. Foundation myths, on the other hand, also hold great
prominence in settler societies but are drawn from the patriarchal notions of
legitimacy and pedigree which figure so prominently in imperial ideology. Davison
suggests that foundation myths take the figure of the founding father, invest him
with “special visionary qualities and seminal virtues” and then transpose these
Materiality and National Origin Myths 234
virtues onto the place he has founded (Davison 2000: 58). While the case histories
I will go on to discuss in this chapter centre on founding fathers: Cook, Phillip and
Macquarie, a variety of other mythic themes are invoked in the contests and
debates which arise over these things and places. This reinforces the understanding
that these mythic themes may function as allegories for the contests and
fragmentations of concepts of history and identity within a community. For
instance, Curthoys notes that the victim theme has featured in conservative,
feminist, and radical readings of Australian history at different times (Curthoys
1999b: 3). Here I want to focus on myths which relate to the nation and to
particular moments in its founding and maturation, but mythologies such as those I
have outlined may also have specifically local dimensions. Local founders and
pioneers are commemorated upon memorials across rural Australia, while other
fascinating types of Australian settler myths concern children lost in the bush
(Birch 1999:68), and white women held captive by Aborigines (Carr 2001;
Schaffer 1995). Archaeology has frequently been linked with foundation
mythologies at the sites of the earliest European settlement in different regions,
examples are Risdon Cove in Tasmania, Sullivans Bay and Corinella in Victoria,
and Fort Dundas in the Northern Territory, which are all discussed by Connah as
failed or abandoned settlements (Connah 1998:37). Earliest penal settlements, in
NSW in Newcastle and Port Macquarie, in Queensland at Morton Bay, and on
Norfolk Island, have also been archaeologically investigated in the context of
heritage management projects which have emphasized their foundational status for
the history of these regions. It is Sydney however, as the site of Cook’s first
landfall at Botany Bay and Phillip’s motley settlement in 1788, which claims for
itself the seminal role in the parturition of the nation. Mythological birthplaces
abound amongst Sydney’s streets and shores and it is here that my analysis is
primarily sited.
It has recently been suggested that “ …there are no ahistorical subjects in settler
societies, though we argue about the extent to which settlers fetishise particular
foundational moments.” (Neumann et al 1999: XVII). Perhaps the most public
locus for such “arguments” today is the heritage industry. Heritage has become a
Materiality and National Origin Myths 235
means via which communities debate the relative importance of these myths and
legends which sustain a sense of historical, cultural identity. It is a discourse
through which the traditional myths of the powerful are upheld through the
conservation, and some might argue fetishisation, of the material expressions of
their power (Byrne forthcoming). But it is also a location for alternative myth
making, where powerful new myths about the underdogs of history have been
created: in Australia and all over the western world these have included women,
children, slaves, convicts, indigenous people and ethnic minorities.
In Chapter 3, I discussed how discourses of archaeological, heritage and other
cultural values have been constructed around places and objects related to the
historic, colonial and national pasts in Australia since the 1960s. I have argued that
establishing the concept of heritage as a material legacy, requiring expert
management, ensured that archaeology and archaeologists occupied a distinctive
niche in the heritage industry. Historical archaeologists actively sought a particular
role in heritage management as the “arbiters of authenticity”, as champions of a
democratic corrective to the elite aesthetics of the architects. As we saw at Port
Arthur, archaeologists were the stewards of original fabric, constantly challenging
the architects’ interest in reconstruction with the primacy of conserving and
recording surviving evidence. It is clear that, through the development of
increasingly sophisticated modes of scientific and material culture analysis, many
archaeologists saw it as their duty to challenge the myths of history, myths which
the heritage industry might otherwise uncritically perpetuate.
On the other hand, the materiality of relics is the key to the sensory, experiential
and evocative dimension of archaeology. The evocative character of objects from
the past, combined with the concept that an object cannot intentionally embody
bias, are ideas which have a tradition in western literature from at least the
Renaissance, and should be seen as foundational aspects of the modern practice of
archaeology (Andren 1998: 11; Lowenthal 1985: 244; Thomas 1991: 5).
Lowenthal has neatly summarised the hallmarks of “reliquary knowledge”
(Lowenthal 1985: 238- 259). The evocative appeal of historic relics seems to
Materiality and National Origin Myths 236
derive from the fact that they bring the past into the present, suggesting that it has a
connection and a reality for the contemporary world. The perception of the relics’
relative lack of intentional bias obviously seems theoretically or philosophically
naïve, however the physicality of archaeological data remains for many scholars a
limitation upon theoretical relativism and the range of interpretations which might
be accepted by the scholarly community. The ordinary and everyday things from
the past have also been seen as the antidote to history’s focus on the grand and the
great. Small things speak to us of the day to day lives of ordinary people. This
factor has been an immensely important theme in historical archaeology in
Australia, the United States and elsewhere. The archaeological study of recent
periods, where the historic context is rich, is often justified on the grounds that
things can tell us about the people who have no history: slaves, Aborigines,
women, the illiterate and the poor. Also drawn out by Lowenthal is the notion of
the accessibility of the relic, a visit to a historic site or a museum provides an
immediate impression without the conscious effort of reading or study (Lowenthal
1985: 245). Finally, objects have the ability to become imbued with, and
representative of, whole suites of meanings and traditions. This is to say that
archaeological objects attract symbolic roles within culture which are based upon
shared understandings about the past. It has been for reasons relating to these
potential roles for archaeology and archaeological objects that many scholars have
found that the relationship between archaeology and nationalism has been both
profound and under acknowledged. An appreciation of the age, authenticity,
beauty, patina and so on, of an historic object, is often described as an experience
of an objective truth, as an unmediated experience of the past. The construction of
the message imparted by the artefact, and the historical dimensions of the process
which has imbued it with value and meaning, often go unrecognised or simply
undiscussed. Lowenthal defines how relics blur the boundaries between past and
present:
“things thus differ from thoughts and words in their temporal nature. Written
history demarcates the past from the present; verbal tense clearly distinguishes
now from then. But artifacts are simultaneously past and present; their historical
Materiality and National Origin Myths 237
connotations coincide with their modern roles, commingling and sometimes
confusing them…” (Lowenthal 1985: 248).
Things therefore render the past more significant, more palpable, but crucially, not
better known. Each and every response to an object relies upon a memory, a
history and a narrative framework within which it can be sited.
Place and nation
Accepting the fundamental historicism of the nation, places where this history can
be felt or seen are crucial to maintaining a sense of nationhood. Indeed nationalism
is not simply a cultural artefact, but an entwinement of place and culture: what
Bhabha called “living the locality of culture” (Bhabha 1990a: 291). Deconstructing
the colonial imagining of Australian space, and understanding this as a
foundational, ongoing form of colonialism in contemporary culture is the project of
recent Australian spatial histories and cultural studies (see for example Carter
1987; Gibson 1992; Rose 1996; Barcan and Buchanan 1999).
The body of the nation, to which Rose has applied Bahktin’s concept of the
chronotope (“the place where the knots of narrative are tied and untied”), is a
cultural coalition of time, space and the narratives which tie them together (Rose
1996: 194). Heritage places, I suggest, are specific, significant examples of “knots”
in the national narrative, places which allow the myths of the past to be read in the
geography of localities. There are several points I want to raise here in the context
of this discussion of archaeology, places and national origin myths. Reflecting
post-enlightenment historicism, mythological narratives of nation are constructed
in terms of a natural, linear development (Smith 1986: 179, 191). Communities and
states are imagined to develop “as if they were extensions of the natural world”;
that is they must be born, grow, mature, degenerate and then be born again (Smith
1986: 196). The other implication of the linear concept of modern time is that
natural development ensures that the past is left behind: the inevitable attachment
is with the future. Archaeology and heritage places therefore become inversions of
this natural order, similar to the way in which Foucault has called libraries and
Materiality and National Origin Myths 238
museums heterotopias (Foucault 1986 and see Hamilakis 2000). As I discussed in
Chapter One however, the nation presents itself as a powerful interpretive device
for the experience of the time/space co-ordinates of the heritage place. Partly this
power derives from the narrative frameworks through which the nation is lived.
Objects and nation
While place is an inseperable aspect of the culture of nationalism, artefacts and
objects have more fluid and migratory relationships with culture and history.
Objects have not, in the past, had a central presence in the symbolic repertoire of
the Australian nation, although this may be changing. The focus in the 2000
Sydney Olympic Game’s opening and closing ceremonies on iconic objects of
suburban life, such as the Hill’s hoist clothes line and the Victa lawn mower,
shows the mythologising of these objects as iconic symbols of 1950s and 60s
suburban life as Australia’s “golden age”. Further, the opening of Australia’s
National Museum in Canberra in 2001, also reveals a story of nation told through
objects in a way which is likely to be influential in decades to come. However,
compared to the rich allegorical and nationalistic associations of the Danish lurs,
the archaeological treasures from the tombs at Vergina or the British crown and
sceptre, objects have not featured strongly in what Kopytoff called a “symbolic
inventory of a society” (Kopytoff 1986:73). The Eureka flag, Ned Kelly’s armour
and the statues of ANZACs found in most towns, are some of the objects that have
become symbols evoking mythopoeic subjects. Objects such as these become
compressed repositories for a range of national traditions that stress aspects of the
past which are important and good:
“In subtle ways they seem to hint that the past goes on. … What is created is a
mythical social prehistory, of which we are the inheritors… . The objects are
therefore used entirely to communicate a particular image of the past or of
desired social virtues, and it is through their abilities to represent the desired
image that they become and remain national symbols – part of the paraphernalia
of popular culture” (Stig Sorenson 1996: 38).
Materiality and National Origin Myths 239
One could add to Stig Sorenson’s analysis the malleability of such symbols and
their ability to be reborn and re-invented by succeeding generations: processes
investigated by Healy (1997) in the case of Eureka, and by Inglis (1998) for the
ANZAC memorials. Smith has claimed that nationalism succeeds as a potent form
of social identity through the selection of symbols which link into traditions that
resonate historically with the community, and that these symbols are more likely to
be re-invented than created anew (Smith 1986: 201). As I discussed in Chapter 1, I
would not agree with Smith’s assessment of how and why such symbols are
important (i.e. deriving from an ethnic core culture), however the process of the
continual re-working of national symbols seems certainly to be the case in
Australia. The bushman, the ANZAC and the “battler” are personifications of
national character which have been re-invented and reborn many times in the art,
literature and journalism of the 20th century. Likewise the image of the convict has
been continually re- worked graduating from a hidden genealogical stain to a
hardworking layer of national foundations.
While the boomerang, shield and other forms of Aboriginal art and material culture
have provided motifs which enjoyed various phases of popularity in the arts and
crafts of settler Australia in the 19th and 20th centuries, Aboriginal objects and
material culture have failed to attract broadly symbolic roles in national discourses
(Jones 1992). In the 1940s renowned artist Margaret Preston and anthropologist
Fred McCarthy both advocated the adoption of Aboriginal artistic forms as an
appropriate stylistic vocabulary for a nationally distinctive decorative arts and
architecture (Thomas 1999: 123). In more recent years of course Aboriginal art has
enjoyed a florescence which has been closely tied to nationalism and to other
global and local discourses (Lattas 1990; Thomas 1999). However Aboriginal
archaeological artefacts cannot really be said to have been appropriated into
nationalistic discourses in the way that Greek antiquities have become a source of
authority and superiority for Greek nationalism (Hamilakis 1996), or perhaps as a
more appropriate analogy, the nationalist “applications” of Moari art and artefacts
in New Zealand (Thomas 1999: 96). This is not to say that Aboriginal archaeology
has remained apart from nationalistic discourse in Australia. On the contrary, the
Materiality and National Origin Myths 240
rise of Aboriginal studies and the valuing of the indigenous has been a process
closely intertwined with Australian nationalism. We have seen the stretching back
in time of C14 dates of Aboriginal sites and claims that Aborigines possess the
“oldest civilisation on earth” become a source of national pride (Commonwealth of
Australia 1994:6).
Looking at the sites and objects constructed through archaeological practice, as
well as through other cultural discourses, we can not only see historical
archaeologists engaging in an outward dialogue with the community, but also
observe the ongoing “life” of archaeological sites and artefacts which are
“released” into the public arena. The location for this dialogue and display is often
the museum, where archaeological material is exhibited, or the “historic site”,
designated through the processes of heritage planning and made accessible to the
public in a range of ways. Print and broadcast media are also important public
locales for discussion and debate about the meaning and importance of
archaeological artefacts and sites.
In each of the following case studies we can see archaeological practices
intersecting with national origin mythology in slightly different ways. The
mythological status of Captain Cook’s ship Endeavour was well established in the
recent public imagination through the celebration of the bicentenary of Cook’s
landing in 1970. The most recent search for the “real” Endeavour shows
archaeology in its role as the scientifc arbiter of authenticity, the archaeologists
involved being pulled, somewhat unwillingly it seems, into debates about the
meaning of these relics for the nation and how it might best lay claim to their
ownership. In the case history of the first Government House site in Sydney,
archaeology is first witnessed as a public theatre of discovery. The exposure of
these tangible relics of 1788 evoked a unique response from diverse parts of the
community. Following the in situ preservation of the archaeological remains,
archaeology then became one of several competing modes of interpretation of the
place, its very materiality actually challenged in contests over its meaning. The
case of Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music sees the remains of humble roads and
Materiality and National Origin Myths 241
drains suddenly launched as symbols of national identity in a startling media
campaign. This case is of interest here because, as opposed to the Endeavour and
the first Government House, the mythic status of which were secure, this is an
example of more creative mythologising, and more spontaneous interpretations of
materiality.
Under the auspices of the contemporary heritage industry, archaeology has become
an authorised dealer in the national sacred. Heritage legislation, as I discussed in
Chapter 4, takes archaeological artefacts and sites out of circulation as
commodities and sacralises them as part of the ever expanding symbols of the
nation. When combined with the established myths of the national past,
archaeology has the effect of authenticating and consolidating the power and
meaning of these myths in the narrative construction of the nation. Archaeology
may also be a site of alternative myth production and a means of opening up the
past to ambiguities and contradictions. In both of these respects the context of
identity production is crucial.
But what does authentication really mean in this context? Greg Dening provides
some clues I believe in a discussion about the creation of historic replicas of two
ships: the Endeavour and the Hokule’a (Dening 1997). The danger of historic re-
enactments, he claims, “is that they tend to hallucinate us into seeing the past as us
in funny clothes” (Dening 1997:34). What is authenticated through the material
manifestation of myth is not so much a sense of authenticity about a particular
interpretation of the past (although I will not discount this effect as important), but
an authentication of our present sense of our selves. As Dening claims, history is
interpreted through modern concepts of individuality and personhood: the cramped
conditions in Cook’s cabin are interpreted through our embodied experience as a
timeless feeling of claustrophobia – one that surely must be natural and not a
construct. The experience with the historic object confirms a sense of progress and
development and a sense of a historically and culturally continuous identity (and
see Holtorf and Schadla-Hall 1999:243). Authenticity itself is an aesthetic carefully
Materiality and National Origin Myths 242
constructed within the national context: history, science and myth combine to
produce that “shiver of contact” with parts of ourselves we long to know.
Relics of Cook: the Quest for the Endeavour
“A cloud of historical consciousness must affect our vision, attributing to
doubtful contours a permanent significance. A more sensuous trace of aircraft
and oil refineries stains the prospect but, with a selective eye, the outlines of what
Cook saw, the rim of the shore on which Bank’s natives remained absorbed in
their own preoccupations, these material facts remain discernable. Botany Bay: if
we believe the name, the place is still recognizable. Or is it?” (Carter 1987: xiii)
When Arthur Phillip arrived in Botany Bay in 1788 the name of James Cook was
already a legend. As Bernard Smith has pointed out, Cook possessed all that was
required to be the perfect Enlightenment hero: rising from humble origins, his
writings masterpieces of rational, empirical matter of factness, not an aristocrat
motivated by power and economic gains, but a man of science motivated by the
quest for knowledge (Smith 1992: 240). Cook’s writings became key texts in
enabling the European imagination to conceive of imperial conquests as
“humanitarian acts of civilisation” (Healy 1997:18). But as the conventional
historiography of the Australian nation would have it, 1788 saw the end of myth on
the Australian continent, and brought it into the secular and rational order of
modern imperial time. Educated men of the First Fleet brought Cook’s descriptions
of Botany Bay with them, but Watkin Tench for one soon found himself doubting
the veracity of Cook’s reports (Carter 1987: 36). No physical traces of Cook’s
passing were found by the First Fleeters, but eventually his legend recovered from
this early disfavour and invisibility, and it has been inscribed on the Australian
landscape, by patriots, by historians, by collectors, and more recently by
archaeologists.
There have been innumerable studies of Cook as both man and myth, and it is not
my aim to add to these here. My focus will be archaeological renderings of
Materiality and National Origin Myths 243
material associated with Cook, and the way archaeology provides the aura of
authenticity for Cook relics which the public, no less than museum curators,
demands to be established. I am particularly inspired in approach by the work of
Chris Healy who has considered, amongst many other themes, the nationalising of
Cook, and the Cook myth not as a legend to be verified or refuted, but as a
“cultural artefact” to be understood in terms of the “forms, rules and desires of and
around social memory” (Healy 1997: 15). Although by no means absent from
histories and literature in the early and mid nineteenth century the Cook myth
experienced an upsurge in popularity in the historical imagination of colonial
patriots in the late 19th century. During this nation building period many historians,
writers and artists were concerned to express the uniqueness of the Australian
landscape and of the Australian character or identity. From the 1860s monuments
to Cook began to be erected, during the 1888 Centenary of the arrival of the First
Fleet, Cook was celebrated as often as its leader, Governor Arthur Philip. By 1899
Captain Cook’s Landing Site at Kurnell had been declared a public reserve (Healy
1997: 37). Around this time the Australian Museum and the Mitchell Library, both
located in Sydney, expanded their collections of Cook memento mori, which
included a lock of his hair encased in a tiny coffin, a spear said to contain a piece
of his leg bone, as well as more prosaic objects such as a waistcoat embroidered by
Mrs Cook (pers.com. Val Attenbrow; National Library of Australia 2001: 60).
Healy has argued that one of the reasons why Cook was promoted as a national
hero and founder was because, unlike Arthur Phillip, he was not only associated
with the colony of NSW, but through his place names, with the length of the east
coast, and was generally credited with the discovery of the entire continent. Nor
was Cook associated with the stain of convictism, but with the far nobler causes of
science and exploration (Healy 1997: 29). Cookomania perhaps reached its zenith
in 1933 when a Melbourne nationalist, Russell Grimwade, purchased a Yorkshire
cottage associated with Cook’s family and transported it for re-erection in Victoria
(Healy 1997: 30). Finally Australia possessed a material and palpable link with the
great man. By the time of the Bicentenary of Cooks landing in 1970 an important
cultural change had occurred in Australia resulting in the transformation of the
Materiality and National Origin Myths 244
value attributed to the material remains of the colonial past. In 1970 American
marine scientists began diving on Endeavour Reef in Queensland, and through the
initial and subsequent projects not only the cannon, but also several tonnes of
kentiledge, stone ballast and other artefacts jettisoned from the Endeavour, were
conserved and eventually accessioned by the National Maritime Museum (pers.
com. Keiran Hosty). Every fragment of corrosion, every exotic stone was collected
and conserved, transformed from mementos and curiosities, which they might have
been earlier in the century, into “scientific evidence” (Figure 6.1). This collection
of artefacts associated with Cook and the Endeavour is constituted differently from
earlier Australian collecting related to Cook. The collection process was now seen
as the concern of the state and the concern of professionals, archaeologists,
scientists and conservators. Professional archaeologists in Australia had begun the
process of de-authorizing amateur artefact collecting by 1970. Shipwreck sites
demanded special scientific and technical skills, and were especially vulnerable to
disturbance through treasure hunting and other activities. The Commonwealth took
up the co-ordination of maritime archaeology with the creation of the Historic
Shipwrecks Act in 1976. However it was the discovery of the Dutch ships, such as
the Batavia and the Vergulde Draek, off the coast of Western Australia in the early
1960s which lead to the amendment of the West Australian Museums Act in 1964
to protect shipwrecks. This lead to the development of skills, personnel and
museums dedicated to this specialist area of archaeology. Bennett has argued that
the Commonwealth “annexation” of this pre-settlement maritime history, and its
amalgamation within the concept of the National Estate, is another form of deep
time anchoring of the national, territorial history (Bennett 1995: 149). It is curious
for instance that the pewter plate left by Dirk Hartog on the coast of (what is now)
Western Australia, and which has been in a museum in Europe for hundreds of
years, is a famous item because it predates British settlement. However, the
foundation plate left by Governor Phillip under the first Government House site in
1788, which was rediscovered in 1899 and lodged in Sydney’s Mitchell Library, is
a very little known object. Maritime archaeology has not been linked with the
myths of national origins and development in the same way as terrestrial
archaeology. Not only are international negotiations required regarding the
Materiality and National Origin Myths 245
ownership of cultural material, an international sphere of archaeological
comparison is required to interpret the shipwrecks and their transnational contents.
Further, there have been several cases of maritime archaeologists travelling off
shore to explore aspects of Australia’s heritage. One case is of course the
Endeavour which I will go on to discuss, others include the investigations of
Australia’s World War One submarine the AE2, sunk off Gallipoli, and also the
search for William Dampier’s ship in the Azores (Smith 1999).
In terrestrial archaeology, evidence of Cook’s first contact with Aboriginal people
was sought by Vincent Megaw in his midden excavations at Cook’s Landing Place
Historic Site at Kurnell from 1967 - 1971 (Megaw 1968; 1969a; 1969b; 1972).
Megaw’s aim was to seek material evidence which could be compared to the
descriptions of Aboriginal life found in Cook’s account of their 1770 landfall,
rather than material evidence related to Cook himself. Nevertheless, in what
Megaw described as a well stratified context within a deep midden deposit, a
square shafted nail, a bone button and fragments of bottle glass were recovered.
Megaw cautiously suggested that there was every possibility that this material was
part of the gifts given by Cook to the Aborigines he encountered at this place.
Megaw took the European material to the UK to be examined by material culture
experts. The bone button was identified as part of a late 18th century covered
button, and its iconic status in the (anecdotal) history of Australian archaeology
gradually grew as it was referred to as “Cook’s fly button” - one of the momentous
first discoveries of Australian historical archaeology! (Jack 1985: 161; Mulvaney
1996:3).
Late in 1999 Mr Cameron Thompson, the Federal Member for Blair, put the
following motion to the Federal Parliament:
I move… that this House:
1) notes the reported discovery of Cook’s ship Endeavour off Newport, Rhode
Island;
2) acknowledges that if it is indeed the Endeavour, this wreck is the most important
single artefact in Australia’s history;
Materiality and National Origin Myths 246
3) notes that the United States and British Governments are preparing for a legal
battle over rights to the wreck;
4) calls on the Government as a matter of urgency to immediately notify the world
community of the importance of the wreck to Australia and stake our claim to its
ownership by virtue of its significance to our nation;
5) calls on the Government to support a fundraising campaign to enable the
recovery and eventual return of the wreck to Botany Bay; and
6) ensures that plans for this important venture are in place and that the public
fundraising and community awareness campaign is made a centrepiece of
Australia’s Centenary of Federation celebrations in 2001.(Motion to the House of
Representatives put by Mr Cameron Thompson, Hansard 22/1/99)
It was this statement which made me immediately begin to follow and research this
project, despite the fact that I had already been made aware of it through friends
and colleagues in the archaeological community. What prompted this interest in
federal parliament was research into Cook’s ships by an American maritime
archaeologist Cathy Abbass (Abbass 1999). Her documentary research showed that
the Endeavour became the Lord Sandwich, which ended its days as a prison ship in
Newport Harbour, Rhode Island, and finally was one of 10 ships sunk during the
American Revolutionary War, as a defense for the harbour. In local legend, claims
Abbass, the Lord Sandwich became confused with another Cook ship the
Resolution, which also ended its days in Newport, called La Liberte (Abbass
1999). These findings immediately called into dispute all those hundreds of pieces
of the true Endeavour which are held in museums around the world, including the
sternpost fragment presented by Newport to Australia in 1988. Archaeologists
from the Australian National Maritime Museum were invited to participate in the
search for the wreck in Newport Harbour. This was not only agreed to by their
Minister, Senator Hill, but also met with a contribution of $25,000 from
consolidated revenue, as well as an agreement to meet the expenses of the team to
travel to the US. This raised the jealous ire of many other maritime archaeologists
around Australia, unable to fund research on wrecks in Australian waters. A debate
about the research potential and iconic status of the Endeavour wreck was argued
out on the maritime archaeology www discussion group “SUB-ARCH”. Funding
for shipwreck research had become tighter in recent years and opinions were
Materiality and National Origin Myths 247
expressed suggesting that the Endeavour was not archaeologically significant, that
it had been substantially researched and massive amounts of documentary evidence
about all aspects of its construction and history had already been assembled. The
team from the National Maritime Museum felt however that the Endeavour was a
cultural icon in Australia, the replica of the ship remained very popular and it was
the Museum’s role to respond to such a culturally significant issue (pers.com.
Keiran Hosty).
One of the main issues of debate was which nation’s legal or cultural rights to the
relics should prevail. Abbass’ position on this was very clear:
“First of all, I have made it very clear in every interview that, despite the fact that
Endeavour is their cultural icon, the Australians have no legal claim to her. The
British may have residual rights to her, but the Rhode Island Historical
Preservation Committee has possession and custody; they are also moving to take
title” (Abbass 28/11/99 SUB-ARCH@asu.edu).
.
Here Abbass is referring to the fact that the Rhode Island Committee went through
a procedure known as “arresting the wreck” under US Admiralty law, further the
Americans claimed that as the British had scuttled and abandoned the ship (during
the American Revolutionary War) these acts divested them of any rights of
ownership. Australia had no existing legal claim on the relics under maritime laws.
During the course of the debate it was pointed out that Endeavour figured
prominently in the colonial history of places like Vancouver, New Zealand and
several Pacific nations, not to mention its status as an icon of British imperial and
scientific history. In Australia the ownership of historic British shipwrecks has
been negotiated by the commonwealth government, through its Historic
Shipwrecks Act, 1976. The aim has been to establish a Memorandum of
Understanding between governments, similar to the agreement made between the
Dutch and Australian governments following the discovery of the Dutch wrecks.
The Rhode Island Maritime Archaeological Project, led by Dr. Abbass, has
continued to insist that any relics of the Endeavour discovered belong, and will
remain, in Rhode Island.
Materiality and National Origin Myths 248
One of the most striking aspects of the archaeological project were the numerous
offers received of considerable “support in kind” from a range of scientific
laboratories. Australian Water Technologies offered to analyse silts collected from
the site using the lead 2(10) dating process. Stone and coal were analysed at
Newcastle University. The Police Forensic labs in Canberra contributed expertise
in the analysis of organic materials. Individual scientists from a number of
Australian universities offered a range of other analytical services. It was only with
the assistance of this kind of “forensic” analysis that a reliable identification of the
remains could be achieved. A great deal is known about the construction of the
Endeavour so types of timber and other products used in construction can be tested
for their composition and origin (Figure 6.2).
The project attracted intense media attention, from Australia, the US and the UK,
while the first season of excavation in 1999 was underway. A live dive web site
was created which received 5,500 hits per day and daily interviews on Sydney
radio followed the progress of the search (pers.com Keiran Hosty). Media interest
in the Endeavour project waned considerably when it eventually announced that,
on the basis of structural form and timber samples collected, the ship investigated
in 1999 could not be the Endeavour (pers.com. Keiran Hosty). A second season of
excavation on another wreck site in Newport was mounted in July and August
2000. Results from this season were much more favourable, but an announcement
has not yet been made regarding the conclusions of the investigation, and the team
wish to avoid media speculation. If an identification is confirmed, it is expected
that sale of exclusive film rights for the project by the Rhode Island Maritime
Archaeological Project will help raise funds for future research in Newport. A
number of film and television companies have also already approached the
National Maritime Museum seeking exclusive access (pers.com. Keiran Hosty).
However excavation of the Endeavour wreck is not a foregone conclusion, stresses
project archaeologist Keiran Hosty; the first concern would be for the protection
and management of the site. Samples collected from the second wreck site are
tantalising in their results: petrographic analysis of coal identified it as English, and
Materiality and National Origin Myths 249
probably from Whitby, while sediments analysed using the lead 2 (10) process have
dated to the 1770s. If the analysis of timber samples is also favourable then further
investigations will be planned pending the necessary funding support.
Before I read the report in Hansard which I quoted above, I was somewhat
convinced, along with Stephen Muecke, that “Captain Cook” style histories of
exploration and discovery had been displaced “by a new version of national origin
mythology which sought deeper historical roots for the nation in the profound
antiquity of Aboriginal culture” (Muecke 1999). It was the Member for Blair’s
reference to Botany Bay which really fascinated me. In calling for the eventual
“return of the wreck of the Endeavour to Botany Bay” I imagined a massive Mary
Rose like operation to perhaps airlift the remains of a rotting hulk and deposit it
amongst the sandhills and oil refineries of present day Kurnell. Why was the
reference made to Botany Bay and not to “Australia” or the “nation”? The use of
the term was poetic, in the sense that it ritualistically recalls the myths, stories and
songs that carry its meanings in the popular imagination. What could disjointed
fragments of ship’s timbers, brought back to Australia at enormous expense, really
mean to the people who would view them? The project makes more sense if
meaning is sought not in the objects, nor the processes of authentication
themselves, but in looking at the whole as a ritualistic performance of the national
sacred. Rituals are not understood, but performed: it is the performance of
archaeology, science, display and visitation which, in the context of myth and
memory, should be seen as practices which constitute the realm of the “sacred” in
the nation (Muecke 1999; Taussig 1996, Kapferer 1988).
Many of the Australian media reports about this archaeological project refer to the
Endeavour as the “holy grail” for maritime archaeologists: the term evokes not
only a noble quest, but also the sacred quality of the relics. The context of the
heritage industry and cultural tourism has become central to the extension of the
national sacred. The practice of visiting museums, archaeological sites, historic
districts of cities “materially instantiates the retrospective prophecies of the various
sciences of history and prehistory” which are implicated in the modernist narrative
Materiality and National Origin Myths 250
of the nation (Bennett 1995: 179). Archaeology may take on this ritualistic role in
the context of mythologies of birth, origins and matyrdoms. The context of ritual is
transformative: it attributes powerful new meanings to objects or practices which
might mean something quite different in another context (Muecke 1999:34). The
question here is how can the archaeologists involved in the project respond to the
richly symbolic nature of their quest?
The Australian and American archaeologists involved in this project have a range
of research questions which they wish to pursue, beyond the simple authentication
of the remains as Endeavour. The Australian team wishes to investigate the repairs
made to the ship in Australia and Jakarta, while the American team are interested
in its later life as a prison ship. Perhaps one of the most important issues
researchers can try to deal with reflexively in their analyses and interpretations is
how the Endeavour is symbolic of not only colonial origins in Australia but also of
an intertwined global history. Endeavour is not historically related to the
Australian nation in a profound way, it is a relic of an imperial vision and
Enlightenment science, of the colonial history of the Pacific and the Americas, of
fatal colonial clashes and dispossession. The physical remains of this ship will be
intensely vulnerable to use in a national narrative that interprets Australia’s
colonial history as the founding of a nation, a simplistic and even erroneous
interpretation. As we have seen, materiality is not an antidote to mythology – the
relics of the Endeavour will recall the Cook myth that has been established in the
Australian community. While the archaeologist, as an intellectual, may intervene in
this ritualistic incantation of neo-colonialism, it is also likely that their
interpretations will have little bearing on the use of these items in public discourses
in the media. One of the issues drawn out strongly in these case studies is that
archaeologists have had very little power to intervene in broader public discourses
about the meanings of places and things once they become involved in the media
or political debate. One reason may be the identification by the public of
archaeologists primarily as field technicians (pers.com. Cath Snelgrove), with a
limited, if any, role to play in the ongoing interpretation of these kinds of high
profile sites and objects. Maritime archaeologists in Australia however have much
Materiality and National Origin Myths 251
closer professional relationships with museums than is the case for terrestrial
historical archaeologists, with three of the Australian archaeologists involved in the
search for the Endeavour being employed by the National Maritime Museum. If
historical archaeologists are to play a greater role in interpreting the material relics
of national history, and participating in public debates, the museum offers an
important field for authorising their increased participation. However, as the story
of first Government House site and the Museum of Sydney shows, such a
symbiotic and mutually beneficial relationship is not always naturally occurring.
The First Government House Site and the Museum of Sydney.
In 1846 the leaky, dilapadated house that the first nine colonial governors of NSW
had put up with, was finally demolished. It had been in bad repair for some time,
and in any case had been built haphazardly using the materials available during the
precarious early days of settlement at Sydney. The site was put to several uses over
the ensuing century, but in the 1980s it was once again vacant and being used as a
car park. When, in around 1980, development was proposed for this prominent,
state owned site in the heart of Sydney’s “big end of town”, the proposal attracted
a broad range of public comments - all of which were bound up in notions of
heritage, environment, national identity and the economic and cultural
development of the nation. In 1980 the “1788-1820 Association” campaigned for
the building of a replica of Governor Phillip's house on the site, while in 1981 the
National Trust (in something of a faux pas) suggested it as a better location for the
Inter-Continental Hotel, which was planned for the site of the “old Treasury”
across the road (Anon 1981: 3). The lease for the vacant site had been sold to a
Hong Kong based firm and the fact that foreign interests were about to exploit this
historic sector of Sydney no doubt galvanized opposition to any proposals. Anne
Bickford, who would become the excavation director for the site, recalled that
slogans such “Aussie history not Hong Kong $” were prominent in later protests
against development (Bickford 1996: 70).
Materiality and National Origin Myths 252
Archaeological investigations were commissioned by the NSW Department of
Environment and Planning to determine the existence and extent of remains of the
“first house” and to gauge what impact proposed developments would have on
them. The location of trenches on the site were therefore not determined by any
archaeological or historical research questions, but by the areas expected to be
impacted upon by construction (Temple 1988:83). The techniques of excavation
were also influenced by conservation issues, causing contexts and features to be
conserved where possible rather than excavated and destroyed. The site,
unexpectedly, produced surviving remains of Australia’s earliest British
colonisation - the footings and artefacts immediately connected some Australians
to the mythology of "1788 and all that".
In November 1983 the Australian Archaeological Association produced a
statement of significance for the site (Bickford et al 1983). The statement focused
on the social, historic and scientific significance of the place, describing it as a
cultural landmark, a focus of sentiment, a symbol of European settlement, and, to
Aboriginal people, a symbol of invasion. The site was described as unique because
it possessed the only known remains dating to 1788. The archaeological research
potential of the site was discussed in fairly vague terms but its scientific
significance was emphasised for future research. In 1984 a seminar was held by the
NSW Department of Environment and Planning to discuss, among other things,
future research questions for the site (Temple and Sullivan 1985). However as the
issue of conservation of the remains became pre-eminent, research areas were not
developed. This has had long lasting implications for the interpretation of the site.
Media and public interest in the excavation was strong - no doubt tantalised by the
fact that the digging team operated behind a high hoarding in some secrecy
(Temple 1988: 86) (Figure 6.3). A citizen action group was formed in June 1983
called the Friends of First Government House Site. They organised a successful
public rally in August 1983 to protest any proposals to destroy the remains of the
house (Friends of First Government House Site 1993) (Figure 6.4). In the same
Materiality and National Origin Myths 253
year the developers were released from their contract and in 1985 the State
government announced its intention to preserve the remains in perpetuity.
It was not until 1987 that post-excavation analysis of the archaeological work,
begun in 1983, started. As part of this project the NSW Department of Planning
commissioned a popular book to explain the history and archaeology of the site
(Proudfoot et al 1991). With huge quantities of artefacts to be dealt with, from
excavations that were designed to reveal the architectural remains rather than
investigate entire archaeological contexts, limited results were initially obtainable
from the archaeological material. In September 1988 the Historic Houses Trust of
New South Wales was appointed as manager of First Government House Site
Museum. Although the Trust had been acquainted with archaeological
investigations associated with the other houses it owned, the presentation of a place
revealed only through archaeological excavation was a new challenge (The Sydney
Review 1994). The fact that the archaeological remains of the house had been
sealed under a paved plaza for conservation and design reasons, appears to have
had considerable impact on the path the Trust took to interpret the site (Figure 6.6).
The path was to be a controversial one. In 1992 the Historic Houses Trust launched
their policy statement for a Museum dedicated to the site. The significance of the
site was summarised as follows:
"The most potent and provocative significance of First Government House Site is
as a symbol of British colonisation of Australia in 1788 and its subsequent role as
the seat of British authority in the colony. To Australians in the 1990s this
symbolism will mean different things to different people. Hence First
Government House site becomes a symbol of different perspectives on how we see
ourselves as Australians today” (Historic Houses Trust 1992: 5).
The Trust established in this document that the museum would be about the issues
arising from the symbolism of the place. This immediately alienated the Friends of
First Government House who prepared the following statement of significance in
response to the Trust's:
Materiality and National Origin Myths 254
"The foundations of Government House were laid in the same year as the
foundation of the nation now known as the Commonwealth of Australia. They are
the only known remains from 1788. The life of this building and its additions thus
co-exists with the Convict Era of Australian history. As such it represents a
tangible record of continuous occupation and development not only of the
formation years of Australia but also of the broader concerns of colonialism and
imperialism in the nineteenth century. These tangible links, the very foundation of
a nation are unique" (Friends of the First Government House Site 1994).
As the Friends continued to focus on the celebration of the founding of a nation,
the Trust moved further away from this position. In 1993 the name of the museum
was changed to the Museum of Sydney on the site of first Government House
(Sydney Morning Herald 20/11/93). This enraged the Friends who saw this
departure as "fraudulent" and "deceitful" (Friends of the First Government House
Site 1994) (Figure 6.5). To the further dismay of the Friends, the Trust also
abandoned a proposed monumental statue of Governor Phillip, and in its place
commissioned a sculptural installation designed and executed by two women
artists, Janet Laurence and Fiona Foley (Figure 6.7). This sculpture, reputedly the
first public artwork in Sydney created collaboratively between an indigenous and a
non-indigenous artist, was called The Edge of the Trees after a passage written by
prehistorian Rhys Jones describing the emotions at first contact (The Sydney
Review, 12/1994; MacDonald 1999).
Later statements by the Trust show that its focus on the issues of first contact
between indigenous people and Europeans was strengthening. At a 1994 seminar
the Museum's Curator of Indigenous Australian Studies, David Prosser, stated that
for many people the Museum of Sydney would be an introduction to the cultural
values of Aboriginal people - values that had never been seen as of equal worth to
those of other communities in Australia (Assessing Social Values Seminar, Sydney,
Australia ICOMOS 10/12/94). The Museum of Sydney (MoS) was not only
criticised by the Friends; among the community of heritage professionals, some
with a long involvement in the conservation of this site, there was much bitterness
about the way the Trust made decisions about the interpretation of this site
(Meredith Walker speaking at the Assessing Social Values Seminar, Sydney,
Materiality and National Origin Myths 255
Australia ICOMOS 10/12/94). The conservation of the site was seen as a unique
community based initiative and it was felt that the Trust was not interested in
acknowledging this part of its history. Within the archaeological community
feelings about this site also ran high. A large proportion of the resources available
to public archaeology in NSW, particularly in terms of people and the
archaeologists employed by the state, had been fed into the excavation and
conservation of this site. The original excavation team was not commissioned to
produce a final report on the excavations in the traditional manner and although
innovative research on the archaeological data was undertaken for the Museum,
this has still not been published in its otherwise wide ranging publication program
(but see Lydon 1996). For many archaeologists first Government House was a
critical turning point for public archaeology in Australia. The creation of a museum
based upon an archaeological site seemed to present a long worked for opportunity
to introduce the public to historical archaeology and to promote research (see for
instance Temple 1985: 21).
On January 26 (Australia’s National Day) 1995, First Government House Place,
the plaza covering the archaeological remains, and the sculpture The Edge of the
Trees was launched. There were many Aboriginal people at the ceremony and
children gave a performance based on Aboriginal dance. At the same time the
Friends of First Government House Site protested rather quietly. As the Premier of
NSW spoke, a male voice called out "What about the convicts?" ( Figure 6.8). This
group obviously saw the tenor of the interpretation of the site pursued by MoS as
an affront to their traditional values and a nod in the direction of political
correctness. In fact they saw it as an attack on their identities as Australians, and on
the good name of the Australian nation.
MoS, and its curator Peter Emmett, as we have seen, planned to take on nationalist
mythology at full tilt:
“Surely we’re tired of national myths and stereotypes; history is so much
stranger than fiction; those imperial narratives of self-fulfilling intentions, as if
history is a stage with a play waiting to be performed… this museum is not a
Materiality and National Origin Myths 256
staged diorama of history… It’s not the birthplace of a nation… I went through
all that with the Bicentenary and we’re not into all that stuff” (Emmett 1996:
111).
Emmett assembled an avant garde array of advisers for the Museum including the
noted spatial historian, Paul Carter and cultural critic, Ross Gibson. Emmett
himself was not enthusiastic about archaeology, if his previous comments on the
subject are any indication. Following his experiences in developing the Hyde Park
Barracks Museum in Sydney he termed archaeology “Epicurean Empiricism: warts
and all fragmentation; so preoccupied with lifeless survivals that it only documents
their survival, not their human use” (Emmett 1992: 28). Accusing archaeology
dominated conservation projects, such as Port Arthur discussed in Chapter 4, as
producing meaningless, fragmentary interpretations for the public, Emmett and his
team embarked on an imaginative and challenging route for the museum.
“What is this place?... It’s not an archaeology site; the conservation action was
to preserve the site under concrete. It’s not a house museum; the house doesn’t
exist. It’s not a museum of collections; we have a collection of archaeological
artefacts that will be stored in the study centre but can never be the basis for
complete interpretation of the place” (The Sydney Review 12/1994).
Emmett did not want to avoid mythologies, but to create a new kind. Within the
museum archaeological artefacts were arrayed in beautiful collections emphasising
their physical shape and textural qualities. One display was a reference to 18th and
19th century collectors chests, but recreated in a sleek, stainless steel form. Each
drawer contained a mythopoeic collation, stripping the artefacts of their “modern”,
“scientific”, archaeological context, and recreating them as antiquarian collectibles.
The desire appeared to be to unmask archaeology as a modern, scientific discourse
and reveal it as a continuation of the 19th century, colonial obsession with
collecting, taxonomies and a fetishistic attachment to objects. MoS generally works
to break down the distinction of archaeologically excavated material as scientific
evidence. The use of the word “archaeology”, rather than “archaeological
artefacts” or “trench excavated by archaeologists”, in some of the museum labels is
a deliberate double entendre, either in terms of Donato’s ‘archaeological
Materiality and National Origin Myths 257
epistemology’, and perhaps also in a Foucauldian sense. Bennett defines Donato’s
archaeological epistemology as where:
“each archaeological artifact has to be an original artifact, and these original
artifacts must in turn explain the meaning of a subsequent larger history. For this
to be possible, it is necessary that origins be cast in the mould of the larger
history they are the called upon to explain” (Bennett 1993: 227).
Rather than using archaeological artefacts according to this doctrine, the
interpretation of MoS implied that it was in the nature of archaeology as a practice
to produce what it needs to fulfil the myth of significance. Archaeology is treated
with great suspicion in MoS, as the “materialiser” of the myth of the “birthplace of
the nation”. The materiality of the actual building foundations recovered through
archaeology seemed too solid and stable a metaphor to resist their interpretation as
“national foundations”, and so they were replaced with what Carter termed a vera
narratio of the site – “a history that took full account of the mythic footings of
foundational narratives” (Carter 1999: 63). The result however proved
incomprehensible for most visitors, and this produced some quite hostile reactions
from those who held expectations of it (see for instance Young 1995; MacDonald
1995; O’Brien 1998). In this case the public seemed to demand that the stones be
made to speak, and this was just as much the promise of archaeology, as the
expectation of myth.
Relics of Macquarie: Even Drains will Do1.
Throughout the 20th century Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music occupied a
building designed by the famous convict architect Francis Greenway, as the stables
for Government House (Figure 6.9). Construction began on the stables in 1817, at
1 Between February and May 1998 I was contracted by the NSW Department of Public Works and Services to provide them with advice on the archaeological resources of the Conservatorium site. My role during that time included applying for the excavtion permit for the site and assessing tenders for the archaeological excavation. The events I discuss here occurred after the completion of my contract, and I have researched them through sources available in the public domain, as well interviews with archaeologist Mary Casey.
Materiality and National Origin Myths 258
which time the colonial governor, Macquarie, still resided in the first Government
House, the site of which has just been discussed. The much grander new
government house envisioned by Macquarie was not completed until 1845. The
stables complex not only housed horses, grooms and carriages, but offices for a
range of other public servants (Heritage Group State Projects 1997).
A public debate developed around this landmark building in June 1998 when the
Government Architect’s proposal for a large scale expansion of the
Conservatorium’s facilities was beginning to get underway. The position of
“Government Architect” is itself an interesting relic of NSW’s colonial past. It is
one which derives considerable status and power from its historical genealogy,
which links the present incumbent directly back to the first Colonial Architect,
Francis Greenway, through an unbroken masculine descent line. The Government
Architect’s grand plan was to retain the historic building, but to create new
facilities around it by sinking them below ground level. This entailed large
amounts of excavation within and surrounding the stables building. The stables
were sited within what was at the time of their construction, the Governor’s
Domain. The Domain remains as open space in Sydney today, although its original
extent has been heavily encroached upon. The parts of the Domain surrounding the
Conservatorium today are the grounds of Government House and the Royal
Botanic Gardens. This is the hub of colonial Sydney and was the hub of colonial
authority in NSW. The stables building was a romantic, castellated folly, designed
to be first encountered visually by an approach to Sydney by ship, heading for its
berth in Circular Quay, which the stables and the two Government Houses, at
different times, looked down upon. Governor and Mrs Macquarie and Francis
Greenway are credited with the development of an elaborate landscape plan for the
Domain, including castellated forts and pavilions, perhaps imitating the romantic
settings of Stirling or Edinburgh Castles in Scotland (Heritage Group State Projects
1997: 149). Macquarie’s grand vision for the small colony, a vision not shared by
many of his contemporary colonial administrators, is a quality which attributes
special significance to him in the retrospective gaze of national history.
Materiality and National Origin Myths 259
When all the necessary approvals had been issued for the Conservatorium
redevelopment and works began, archaeological evidence of early 19th century
roads, drains and other landscape features were revealed on the site. The road
remains were discovered in May 1998, by consulting archaeologists Casey &
Lowe Associates. Casey & Lowe were working under an archaeological
excavation permit (S140 Permit) issued by the Heritage Council of NSW,
following its, and the City of Sydney Council’s, Development Application
approval for the scheme (Ireland 1998a: 3). An Archaeological Zoning Plan
prepared for the site in 1997 assessed some areas as likely to contain
archaeological evidence of past landscaping features (Annable 1997). Test
excavations carried out in February and March 1998 confirmed the existence of
features such as drains and a rock cut cistern, the construction details of which
dated them to the pre 1820 period (Ireland 1998b: 5). However large areas of the
site had been disturbed by later works that had destroyed archaeological evidence
of the early 19th century (ERM Mitchell McCotter 1998; Ireland 1998b). When
more road and drain remains were confirmed during the planned archaeological
excavation, further Heritage Council approvals were required, under the terms of
the excavation permit, to totally remove the remains and allow the development to
proceed (NSW Heritage Office S140 Application No. B583500). At this point the
National Trust of Australia (NSW) launched a campaign for the retention of these
archaeological remains (Figure 6.10). A series of articles in the Sydney Morning
Herald and other Sydney newspapers covered the debate between the NSW
Heritage Council, the Department of Public Works (the developer), the
Conservatorium of Music (the client for the development), the National Trust and
other heritage activists. The National Trust held a public rally near the site to
protest against the redevelopment of the Conservatorium and the removal of the
archaeological remains of the roads and drains. Students of the Conservatorium
assembled at the rally to protest against this threat to the improvements to their
school. They gathered with with their instruments and attempted to drown out the
speakers (The Sydney Morning Herald 3/7/98a). Many issues were raised in this
debate apart from the significance of the archaeological remains. Perhaps the
overriding concerns centred on the scale of the redevelopment of this significant
Materiality and National Origin Myths 260
early building and its impact on the landscape of the surrounding Botanic Gardens.
There is no doubt that the archaeological remains were eagerly seized upon by the
National Trust as further ammunition in their broader conservation issues for the
site. Nevertheless, newspaper articles reflect particular interest in the remains
themselves (see for instance The Sydney Morning Herald 27/6/98; 30/6/98; 1/7/98;
3/7/98a; 3/7/98b). Geraldine O’Brien, a heritage issues journalist, summarises what
these archaeological remains mean to her:
“ But old drains, like old mansions, have stories to tell and this one is our old
drain, a part of our story as the first European settlers on the fringe of this
continent. And it is vivid evidence of the valiant efforts of Governor Macquarie
and his lady to impose order on the alien shore, a romantic vision of landscape
on the scrabbly Australian bush” (O’Brien 1998).
Here O’Brien is consciously and enthusiastically linking these archaeological
remains to a foundational history which in particular heroises Governor Lachlan
Macquarie’s role in the development of Sydney. In this paragraph O’Brien urges
her readers to see the remains of these roads and drains as symbols of not only the
founding father and hero Macquarie, but also as emblems of the European struggle
against the Australian environment. She re-inforces the colonialist narratives
concerned with the civilising transformation of settlement by valorising the
European vision of landscape over the indigenous bush. Her words are so high
flown that they seem to be partly tongue-in-cheek. However, her article is clearly a
plea for the retention of the remains on the basis of their relationship to such
stories.
At the Heritage Council’s request, the site archaeologist Mary Casey was asked to
assess the heritage significance of these archaeological remains. She mounted an
argument that as part of Macquarie’s deliberate picturesque landscaping of the
domain, these remains were part of an archaeological landscape of high research
potential (Casey 1998a). In relation to the social significance of the remains, Casey
noted that the debate showed that some parts of the community valued this place as
the Conservatorium of Music, while other parts obviously focused more on the
Materiality and National Origin Myths 261
association with Macquarie, with whom they linked the archaeological remains.
(The term “social significance” is used in Australian heritage management
generally to cover contemporary communities’ attachment to places, see for
instance Johnston 1992; Byrne et al 2001). She also claimed that the issues raised
in the community campaign related primarily to the scale of the development that
was proposed, rather than to the archaeological items as such. Further, she
suggested that many claims made in the media about the rarity and date of the
remains were somewhat ill informed.
The Heritage Council was not satisfied with Casey’s assessment of the social
significance of the archaeological remains and subsequently suggested an
alternative (Heritage Council of NSW 1998). This stated that although not the
subject of “explicit study” the remains were socially significant due to a number of
factors:
• “Because the archaeological remains relate to the Macquarie family and first Government
House they are symbolic of the colonization of this country by the British and as such they
evoke powerful emotions in sectors of the non-indigenous community relating to the
establishment of order and authority in the new settlement”.
• “The existence of broad arrow or ‘convict’ bricks evokes images of hardship and suffering
throwing into relief the maturation and success of present day Australia”;
• “these remains might evoke a similar but opposite emotion in the indigenous community
centred on the complete modification and domination of the Sydney Landscape (sic) by the
invaders”;
In addition to the above points the Council stressed the association with the
architect Francis Greenway and the prominent location of the archaeological
remains within the Domain, which was perceived by the community as an “old and
hitherto protected precinct” (Heritage Council of NSW August 1998). The
Heritage Council of NSW therefore claimed very specifically that these
archaeological remains physically expressed historical understandings of identity
linked to several major mythic themes: the suffering of the convicts, the hostile
Australian environment, the colonial imposition of order and civilisation, and
Materiality and National Origin Myths 262
Macquarie as hero. The text also links these mythic themes explicitly to the
perception of a mature, successful, modern nation.
In Casey and Lowe’s second draft of their Archaeological Conservation
Management Plan (1998b) they attempted to address the Heritage Council’s
concerns for the social significance of these items through a review, at the Heritage
Council’s request, of media reports discussing the issue. Media reports were
suggested in this case as evidence of community feeling in the absence of any
other form of consultative research (pers.com. Mary Casey 2000). Mary Casey
raised several issues in this discussion:
• The short time available for a genuine attachment to be formed with the road
and drain remains led her to suggest that the attachment was an extension of
existing community esteem for the Macquaries;
• The fact that the Heritage Council had suggested that even attachments based
on “illogical or irrelevant” evidence need to be accepted. This was disputed by
Casey who quoted both the NSW Heritage Manual and Pearson and Sullivan’s
work as requiring professionals to accurately research places and correct
erroneous perceptions where they existed (NSW Heritage Office 1996; Pearson
and Sullivan 1995).
• Casey also claimed that the concerns held about the site, such as those
expressed in letters to newspapers, were generally about the scale and nature of
changes to the Greenway building and its landscape rather than the
archaeological elements discovered (Casey 1998b).
The Heritage Council eventually required the retention of some archaeological
elements in-situ, necessitating some amendments to the design but certainly not
avoiding the impacts of scale the National Trust and other activists feared
(Heritage Council of NSW 1998). This entailed the removal of sections of a
rockcut cistern and several lengths of drains, so that they could be reinstated in the
underground areas of the new building, in approximately their original location,
which in some cases will mean their suspension from the ceiling. It will also
Materiality and National Origin Myths 263
involve other displays and interpretations of archaeological information (pers.com.
Mary Casey).
Irrespective of the success of the resulting interpretation of archaeological remains
within this development, the reasons for their retention in-situ have been confusing
and disputed. The Heritage Council’s media release of 8 August 1998 focussed on
“the obvious public attachment to the site, both for its association with the
beginnings of European settlement in Australia and the Conservatorium of Music”.
The archaeologist involved here focussed on the research potential of these items,
but had difficulty in taking seriously a profound community attachment formed
within a few days of exposing something of a sort which she, literally, “digs up all
the time” (The Sydney Morning Herald 3/7/98). The success, or partial success, of
the campaign to save “Macquarie’s drain” is one which, in contrast to the previous
two case studies, relied very little upon archaeological processes of authentication.
And yet the materiality of these remains, and their exposure through archaeological
research, allowed heritage legislation to be invoked, and a decision to be made by
the state that they were worthy of protection to benefit some parts of the
community, while inconveniencing others, in this case, another arm of
government.
I want to draw several conclusions from this case study but to do so it is first
necessary to step back and take a wider view of heritage and social issues in
Australia. Several cultural commentators in Australia have recently commented
upon the perception that Aboriginal claims for sacred sites are proliferating, linked
to ever more tenuous claims for their importance. Saving such tenuous sites at the
expense of industry and development is seen as an illegitimate and unsupportable
demand on the nation (Gelder and Jacobs 1998: 125). On the other hand, others
have demonstrated how Native Title legislation demands that Aboriginal people be
able to develop and to demonstrate a local history to support their claims to land.
Denis Byrne comments:
“ it is interesting to observe the way that the process of identity building on the
part of one community is often derided or criticised by representatives of another
Materiality and National Origin Myths 264
community who appear to be blind to the identity building process they
themselves are engaged in” (Byrne et al 2001: 68).
In the white Australian community heritage is not generally conceived of as
“community building”, except in so far as activism may draw people together, or
successful heritage protection may raise a community’s “self esteem”. Issues of
community attachment or social significance have received much attention in
Australian heritage management during the late 1990s (Byrne et al 2001: 110).
This has been seen as a corrective to a heritage system focussed on materiality
rather than culture, a factor which had major implications for the management of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage. The arguments which “saved”
Governor Macquarie’s drain depended primarily on the community’s attachment to
them as symbols of identity, a form of heritage discourse that relates strongly to
concepts developed to explain Aboriginal attachment to places and, in fact, to
archaeological sites which have been crucial, material “pegs” upon which notions
of Aboriginal heritage have been hung. What is interesting about this case study is
that we see methodologies which were developed specifically to benefit
disenfranchised groups (groups which have little stake in the colonialist myths of
nation) to have their sacred or special places recognised by the state, being utilised
in order to extend the scope of the established national sacred. Archaeology
managed to prove the sacredness of the Conservatorium site in a way that
anthropologists have failed to do in cases such as the Hindmarsh Island Bridge (a
notorious Australian legal case where claims of an Aboriginal womens’ sacred site
were not proven to the satisfaction of the court, see Gelder and Jacobs 1999). The
fear reflected in this case was that individuals or groups could use this notion of
intangible heritage values, or sacredness, for their own benefit and against the
public good. The issue raised at the Conservatorium is where is the line between
social identity building and vested interests? Who is the arbiter between real
attachment, invention, and dishonesty. While the rhetoric of postmodern
archaeologists has been to allow multiple interpretations of places and things to co-
exist (see for instance Hodder at Catalhoyuk, Hodder 1998), this is rarely possible
within the day to day realities of heritage management in towns and cities.
Materiality and National Origin Myths 265
Conclusions: Archaeology, Materiality and Mythology.
In these archaeological projects associated with national origin mythologies we can
see a pattern of process. First is the choice or requirement to conduct
archaeological research related to a mythopoeic place or subject. Second, an
authentication process is played out before the public gaze, in some cases this is
the theatre of archaeological discovery, as at first Government House and the
Conservatorium of Music, while in the Endeavour case, the authority of scientific
testing also contributed to public confidence in the authenticity of the discovery.
The third part of the process is the sacralisation (the making sacred through the
aura of authenticity) of the places and objects through museum accession,
conservation, insurance, public display and presentation.
It is as yet unknown whether relics of the Endeavour will be discovered and find
their way back to Australia. If they do, their preciousness and fragility will
emphasise their sacred qualities. Such relics as these, shapeless lumps of wood,
rely on the faith of the beholder, like pieces of the true cross they have no power
for those who do not hold the stories in their heart. The relics of Macquarie which
may be retained within the enlarged Conservatorium have a less secure hold on
their sacred status. Outside the museum context and surrounded by the hubbub of
everyday life they may loose the ritualistic context necessary to keep their status as
icons secure. This process has been actively denied in the Museum of Sydney
leaving many members of the public in a somewhat dazed and confused state.
However this Museum has not shirked an involvement with myth, it has
experimented with a new kind of colonial poetics; focusing on the moments when
the march of imperial time towards Australia’s nationhood was subverted, or
forgotten. To do this the archaeological artefacts produced through excavation
were consciously removed from their context as evidence, in terms of their display
to the public. They were treated as an antiquarian collection of curiosities to avoid
making them seem sacred and fixed, and risking their permanent attachment to a
nationalist myth that is a source of conflict in Australian society. Is this the only
route to take for archaeological sites or objects that are highly mythologised, but
Materiality and National Origin Myths 266
because of this cultural richness, of continuing fascination for historians and
archaeologists?
These case studies have shown that the participation by archaeologists in the
interpretation in these places and things has been significantly curtailed due to their
perceived role as “technical authenticators”. In all of these cases, and many others
discussed in this thesis, archaeologists have been keenly aware of the multiple and
contested meanings inherent in Australian historic places, and to issues of
nationalism, colonialism and racism. Throughout this thesis I have treated
nationalism as an identity project which can be both positive and negative, creative
and constraining, neo-colonial and post-colonial. Most importantly it is a context to
be dealt with by the Australian community: not simply accepted or rejected, it is a
site for the creation of identity which needs to be acknowledged and responded to.
One of the issues that arises from this investigation of historical archaeology and
nationalism in Australia is the lack of fit between the notion of archaeology as a
cultural practice, the importance of representations of the past in identity
formations and social relationships, and the entrenched position of archaeologists
in the Australian heritage management framework as curators of the material and
empirical: the “inventorisers” of culture. I suggested in Chapter 4 that the
institutionalisation of “blackboxed” practices and procedures creates a disjuncture
between the direction of intellectual critique and its reflection in public policy;
what Byrne has recently called the “ship of practice sailing so far from the ship of
knowledge” that they are out of range of communication (Byrne et al 2001: 46).
These case studies all show that the established modes of practice for historical
archaeologists in heritage management limit their participation in the
interpretations of material culture, places and landscapes which are crucial
locations for contested mythologies of identity and nation.
The established myths of the nation in Australia remain largely the triumphant
myths of colonialism; which enable the powerful to populate the heritage
landscape with the ruins of empire. To intervene in this historical archaeologists
Materiality and National Origin Myths 267
must seek to broaden concepts of practice and seek opportunities to work through
museums, the media and heritage to explore materiality, myth and meanings.
Conclusions
Archéologues sans frontières: Thinking outside the nation.
“National consciousness, which is not nationalism, is the only thing which will
give us an international dimension” (Fanon 1968: 199)
“The decision as to how local or global a historical narrative or piece of social
scientific research need be cannot be determined by epistemological arguments
extraneous to the task at hand. It is the empirical researcher who should answer
this question; the philosopher has no business legislating the scope of research to
the empirical scientist…
The more difficult question …appears to me to be different: even while we
dispense with grand narratives, how can we rethink the relationship between
politics, historiography and historical memory?” (Benhabib 1999: 358, first
published in 1991)
Nationalism has been seen by most western archaeologists as the province of the
naive, the militaristic, the racist - as an atavistic regression from the realities of
globalisation and a sophisticated, (post) modern world view. Because of this
perception, the relationship between archaeology and nationalism has been
subjected to only a surface deconstruction and the mutual constitution of these
discourses within culture only partially understood.
With the collapse of meta-narratives there is a tendency to install an indistinct
theory of globalisation as the new “meta-meta-narrative”. Millenial dreams of
globalisation, as a world force which replaces nationalism with an identity that is
newer than modern, seem to be more a seduction by multinational capitalism than
a critique of it (Lazarus 1999: 47). The nation is a form of governance which
remains deeply embedded in the present world order. The meanings of nation, as
273
Archéologues sans frontières 274
they are constituted through discourse and cultural practice, are however,
situational, not absolute, not fixed, not even reliably consistent. While it has been
possible to identify areas of nationalist, modernist thought that are characteristic in
terms of their progressive historicism, their materialism, their emphasis on stable
identities and certain shared narratives of development, there are also forms of
postmodernist, nationalist imagining. I see no reason to think of these concepts as
“postnational”, simply because they are not linked to any proposed forms of
postnational governance, but retain a commitment to the nation as a symbol of
transcended colonialism. This is not to say of course that culture, history and the
“mobilisation of identities” should be primarily analysed within a national
framework (Appadurai 1996). Rather, I argue for the recognition of the nation as a
location for meaningful political action and thus as a formation which has had, and
will continue to have, cultural implications. I suggest that western attitudes to
decolonising or postcolonial nationalisms, as still striving towards modernity, are
based on judgemental, Eurocentric discourses which continue to embody the
legacies of imperialism, colonialism and Orientalism. Such discourses fail to
acknowledge the involvement of the non-west in the construction of modernity, as
active participants, not merely victims, in histories of imperialism and its
aftermath. Australian history epitomises these unequal experiences of modernity
and the inability of Eurocentric progressive historicism to account for the complex,
intertwined histories of decolonising nations.
The aim of this thesis has not been to present a manifesto for a non-nationalistic
practice of archaeology and heritage, but rather to develop a critique towards a
nationally aware practice. An historical archaeology of modernity, of globalisation
and locality, of colonialism, nation and diaspora, needs to think outside the
boundaries which disciplinarity and nationalism tend to impose. The discourse of
heritage can be deployed by groups as an act of community building. A heritage
discourse which is less nationally defined and confined, could be a means via
which the entangled cultural practices and histories of modernity are reconciled
with attachments to localities.
Archéologues sans frontières 275
One of the central theses in Lowenthal’s influential book, The Past is a Foreign
Country (1985), was his argument that western society was developing an
increasing sense of dislocation from the past. The cultures of modernity seemed to
have produced an increasingly radical sense of rupture between understandings of
lives as enmeshed in tradition and the past, and a sense of an inevitable hurtling
into the future. Perhaps the most poignant example of the effect of such a form of
modern consciousness is the way some elements of settler society in Australia,
elements still wedded to the colonialist definition of progress and development,
claim that the community today has no responsibility for the events of the past, that
our responsibilities are only towards the future. I discussed in Chapter 1 debates
about Australia’s past, debates about the “true facts” of colonial dispossession and
violence. These debates have turned on the issue of the responsibility for the
dispossession of Aboriginal people and contested beliefs over how the past is
manifested in present social relations between black and white in Australia. I came
across this letter to the editor when I was preparing the case study on the search for
the Endeavour:
“I take it we’ll soon be hearing Pauline Hanson and One Nation complaining
about the Government spending $52,000 to find the wreck of the Endeavour. After
all, we’re being asked to pay for something that happened over 200 years ago”
(The Australian 13/8/99).
This letter refers to the conservative political leaders in Australia who claim that
the present generation is not responsible for and should not have to “pay” for
things which happened in the past. It highlights the irony that the same
conservative leaders are prepared to pay for some things from the past but not for
others. Such critiques of the heritage programs of governments and institutions,
which reveal the political and ideological roles they serve, are a familiar practice.
Paradoxically, the heritage movement is often conceptualised as a holding on to the
past, but it is actually a practice which makes choices about the future. Through its
self-conscious representation of the past in the present, heritage discourse tends to
make the present seem the inevitable result of the past and this seeming
inevitability, effectively deflects responsibility for past events or their
Archéologues sans frontières 276
consequences. This sense has been achieved, at least in part, through the co-
constitutive relationship between progressive historicism and nationalist
discourses. This relies on a sense that the past is separate from the now - that
history is read in a book, not experienced through the form and conduct of social
relationships.
I have argued here for an approach to nationalism as a cultural artefact, constituted
through discourse and practice - negotiated and contested in complex, specific
locations. Following Thomas’ ethnographic approach, I assembled detailed local
case studies to highlight how archaeological practice, heritage management and
nationalist discourses have interacted in Australia since the 1960s (Thomas 1994).
This ethnographic approach aimed to disrupt disciplinary teleology where
archaeology is imagined as developing fuller and more accurate accounts of the
past, as opposed to providing accounts which satisfy changing cultural and
political interests.
In Chapter 3 I discussed the processes which constituted heritage value for
historical archaeological remains, articulating the authentic Australian experience
through material sites and relics, especially those relating to the industrialisation
and development of the land. The focus on the material and on the land has meant
that notions of settler traditions or cultural practices have not been incorporated
within the heritage management framework in Australia. Heritage discourses in
Australia reified the concept that identity and place were linked through a
historical and spiritual connection. Landscape and place are therefore constructed
through Australian heritage discourse as the holders of tradition and identity in
Australian settler society. This concept encourages a view of culture and cultural
identity as an essence that is absorbed from the environment, rather than learned
through culture and community. This form of heritage discourse also reinforces an
alignment of culture, land and nation.
Growing interest in Aboriginal historical archaeology has been a response, by
settler Australians, to issues of decolonisation. This has challenged disciplinary
Archéologues sans frontières 277
boundaries in archaeology and has been responded to in terms of inclusion of this
past “omission” of historical archaeological research. The desire to enfold
Aborigines and settlers within shared narratives of the past must also be seen as at
least partly constituted through the nationalist desire for the single story. This aim
has been expressed clearly by leading Aboriginal historian Henry Reynolds
(Reynolds 2001). There will be inherent tensions in Aboriginal historical
archaeology which are caused by the national context, where discourses of
inclusiveness may not totally disrupt notions of who is at the centre and doing the
“including”.
Despite its historical grounding in industrial archaeology and research focusing on
technology this did not describe an inevitable trajectory for the development of an
historical archaeological “discipline”. Heritage legislation and other broader
interests in heritage and history promoted research in diverse locations and this
encouraged historical archaeologists to deal with many aspects of social life in the
past. Historical archaeology, by its very nature, is a boundary crossing practice,
and with “modernity” as its subject, it is a practice which has become more popular
– seen as more relevant- in the context of postmodern intellectual influences. I
suggest that its recent expansion in the university sector in Australia relates more
to the acceptance of postmodern research objectives and issues of heritage within
archaeological circles, than to any consolidation of “disciplinary” achievements to
date.
However, as I have outlined in my case studies the entrenched position of
historical archaeologists in the Australian heritage management framework is as
“technicians”: as the “curators” and “recorders” of the material and empirical.
These authorised modes of practice have limited historical archaeologists’
participation in interpretations of material culture, places and landscapes which are
crucial sites for the competing mythologies of identity and nation. In particular it
has involved archaeology in the expansion of the national sacred, through the
singularisation of sites and relics which represent origins of both identity and
nation. In this context archaeology can become part of a ritualistic process of
Archéologues sans frontières 278
authentication. Such authentications relate not to the past, but confirm narratives of
progress and development, while maintaining the construct of a historically
continuous identity. I have argued that heritage can act as a form of surveillance of
the national past for powerful or State aligned interests. On the other hand the
discourse may also be deployed as resistance to these interests. But as I argued in
Chapter 6, authenticity itself is an aesthetic carefully constructed within the
national context.
Heritage management frameworks have tended to over-emphasise a bounded
national past and de-emphasise its involvement in broader spheres. Even the
context of empire has been downplayed in the “historic themes” of heritage.
Despite this limitation on heritage management archaeology, some research has
always sought a global context. This has been a familiar pattern throughout my
research: bureaucratised procedures tend to entrench limited, nationalist modes of
practice within the heritage management framework. And yet such research has
provided the seeds of its own critique. The problem however is the implementation
of change in the heritage bureaucracy. Critiques tend to be slowly absorbed by
bureaucracy, and then dealt with by adding another layer of requirements, rather
than through the overhaul of the systems which are based on empirical, scientific,
resource management methodologies.
This has implications for future historical archaeology in the context of heritage
management. My research clearly shows how procedures, policies and even basic
theoretical concepts become blackboxed within the context of heritage
management structures. This factor could be taken into account to some extent by
historical archaeologists involved in strategic planning. I have shown how the
relationship between heritage, nationalism and historical archaeology can be
constituted on two levels: the definition of heritage, as an inheritance, may be
constituted through nationalist narratives and origin mythologies; and on a second,
less overt level, practice, procedures, concepts of value and significance may be
mutually constituted through modernist, nationalist discourse.
Archéologues sans frontières 279
The far greater challenge that arises from my research is the possibility of a
heritage discourse that could encompass local, national and transnational contexts
for cultural practice relating to place and tradition. Currently the concept of
heritage is overwhelmingly confined to the national, but could communities benefit
from a concept of heritage that has more fluid borders? What would non-national
heritage be? UNESCO’s concepts of “World heritage” do not currently fulfill this
need. World heritage is a world of nations showcasing their unique treasures which
possess, not a national it is claimed, but a universal value (see for instance www.
unesco.org/whc and also comments in Bourke 1992). As Hamilakis (2000) and
Appadurai (1996) have shown, global communication networks are not a simple
antidote to narrow nationalisms, but can add to their recreation. Currently heritage
discourse in Australia contributes to several potential dislocations in the cultural
lives of communities: it locates identity in place and landscape, and not in cultural
practice; it locates the past in historic sites and not as embodied in practices and
traditions, and it dislocates cultural life from its histories beyond the national
territory. More fluid discourses of heritage and the past could assist in the
constitution of concepts that cultural identities are practised within communities,
made distinctive through personal and collective historical memories, and
constructed from a global cultural landscape.
There are interesting tensions in the practice of historical archaeology currently.
Practices in Australia, U.S.A., South Africa, Canada and New Zealand for
instance, have traditionally been very nationally defined (and confined), closely
linked to local heritage management structures, and often to particular community
concerns. With nationalism considered to be an essentially modern phenomenon, it
is hardly surprising that the archaeology of modernity is so defined by this
pervasive expression of cultural identity. However the tension to which I refer
arises from the desire, on the one hand, to contextualise historical archaeology
within the complex global networks of the colonial, modern period, while on the
other hand, make the most of the particularising concerns of the nationally
distinctive practice. In Australia this has led to a practice which is grappling
meaningfully with the issues of local communities, methodologies for community
Archéologues sans frontières 280
participation, and the realities of cultural difference. From the Australian
perspective calls for a world or global historical archaeology sound suspiciously
like another form of archaeological neo-imperialism, which belittles the
proliferation of locally defined archaeologies, and privileges, yet again, the
superior metropolitan discourse emerging from the Anglo-American core of the
“discipline” (Funari et al 1999).
How can we acknowledge the ongoing importance of nationalism, while
simultaneously disentangling its teleological effect from cultural and historical
analyses? Locally meaningful practices must also deal with the meaning of
“locality” in the contemporary global context. Though the local past may be the
object of interest, it seems unlikely that we can also say that such interests are also
purely local. This is to suggest that despite research aims towards deeply
contextualised local studies, an aspect of a reflexive practice is also the issue of
question formulation in the present, and in this case, issues of global cultural
contexts must be dealt with. One of the key questions, I suggest, that arises from
my study is how can we contextualise our current questions about the past within a
framework which does not dismiss the importance of the nation, but also deals
with broader, perhaps “global” cultural contexts for these questions?
One framework recently discussed by Stephen Muecke is that of “transnational
cultural studies” following the exemplar of Gilroy’s approach to “black modernity”
that was discussed in Chapter 1 (Muecke 1999a; Gilroy 1993). What would a
transnational historical archaeology look like? As my research progressed it
became clear that while the context for questions about the past should rightly deal
with frameworks of empire, frameworks of trading links and patterns of
immigration as current research is doing, these contexts were not necessarily the
ones within which to “problematise” in a Foucaultian sense, these histories. One of
the central “problematisations” in histories of Australia is decolonisation: the
perceived need to deal with colonial history and better understand neocolonialism.
These are the issues which drive the debates about Australia’s past which argue
about history, but which are really about future directions for the nation. In this
Archéologues sans frontières 281
way they involve perceptions of personal and national identity and contests over
the authorisation of possible identities. To contextualise such problems the
framework of the nation must be considered, but regional networks of decolonising
nations could supply a context to highlight different responses to decolonisation.
Muecke is focusing on the Indian Ocean “as a metaphor for international cultural
relations, and showing different responses to decolonisation” (Muecke 1999a:
188). A transnational historical archaeology could of course focus on other
decolonising settler societies, but it could also look at Australia in its Asian Pacific
region. The latter would be more challenging, but potentially more rewarding. In
its region, particularly from the point of view of Indonesia and Malaysia, Australia
has been termed the “last country to be decolonised, the place where the story
didn’t end happily, where the colonisers didn’t go home” (Millard quoted in
Curthoys 1999c: 32). How and why do issues about the past differ and are there
any shared concerns in this culturally diverse decolonising region, which is closely
linked in political and geographical terms? Identifying such networks for
discussion would help to subvert the old imperial networks and provide a critique
of experiences of modernity, the interpretation of which has been so dominated by
Eurocentrism.
At the beginning of this section I quoted Seyla Benhabib asking; “how can we
rethink the relationship between politics, historiography and historical memory?”
This seemed to summarise the broader issue I have been dealing with in this thesis.
While I have been exploring the relationships between nationalism, historical
archaeology and heritage, the outcome has been to think about ways for
archaeologists to question what it is we want to know about the past (historical
memory), how we think we can know it (practice or historiography) and what are
the broader implications of this research (politics). The nation has been at the heart
of many of the questions about the past that archaeologists and historians have
been interested in; nationalist thought has been constitutive of many aspects of
practice. Finding a national future through decolonisation or through
neocolonialism is also at the heart of current debates in the Australian community.
Archéologues sans frontières 282
How then to frame future archaeological research in the face of such complex
entanglements; and in the context of the collapse of the grand narratives of
progress and objectivity? I have just suggested that transnational frameworks may
provide an interesting context within which to develop creative, non-Eurocentric
responses to these problems, while the aim of this research has been to show, and
to provide some understanding of, how relationships between seemingly separate
areas of thought and practice are constructed within culture. Decolonisation or
neocolonialism in turn provide the imperatives to continue to interrogate the past in
Australia. In the end I agree with Benhabib, its not up to philosophers to legislate
the scope or locale of research, problems will continue to arise from interests,
individuals, communities and environments. My contribution has been to address
ways of thinking about their national context.
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