A transformative archaeology: Archaeology as a tool for public good

For anyone who studied archaeology from the 1980s onwards, Australian Archaeology has always been there. Many of the scholars who established and drove the earliest issues of Australian Archaeology, including long-term editors Betty Meehan and Val Attenbrow, are still forces in the field. In another 50 years our students and our students’ students—and their students’ students—will have responsibility for nurturing Australian archaeology—the discipline as well as the journal. How might what we are doing today play out through these coming generations?

While other authors for this special issue will address areas crucial to the future of the discipline such as digital archaeology, dating and advances in scientific techniques, my own contribution anticipates a future that responds to a call by Atalay et al. (2016:7–8) to refit archaeology with new purposes and fresh aspirations that ‘transcend the interests of professional archaeologists’ and serve the ‘pressing present needs of communities outside of our discipline’. In doing so, I draw upon what I have learnt from Aboriginal people in the Barunga region of the Northern Territory since 1990 and with Ngadjuri people in South Australia since 1998.

This re-thinking of the purpose of archaeology is timely. I have a sense that archaeology in Australia is at a new crossroads. The last crossroads was in the late 1980s and 1990s when archaeologists had to face the question in the title to Isabel McBryde’s (1985) book Who Owns the Past? The answer was (and is): Aboriginal people. This fed into a disciplinary reckoning in other countries with Indigenous populations (Nicholas and Andrews 1997). In Australia, archaeologists responded by developing new approaches to working with Aboriginal people or conducting research in countries without Indigenous populations. In 2023, the new crossroads has emerged naturally from that earlier one, through the growing number of Aboriginal archaeologists who are shaping the discipline.

The closer relationships between archaeologists and Aboriginal people that emerged after the crisis of the early 1990s led to an increase in the number of Aboriginal people studying archaeology over time. However, this process was secured in 1994 through the efforts of Isabel McBryde, who established a Special Entry Scheme to encourage the enrolment of Aboriginal students in the Australian National University’s Department of Prehistory and Anthropology (Read 2005). While the body of Indigenous Australian scholars has grown since then at the time of writing I am aware of only four people who have a PhD in archaeology who publicly identify as Indigenous: Christopher Wilson, graduated Flinders University 2017; Kellie Pollard, graduated Flinders University 2019; Emily Poelina-Hunter, graduated University of Melbourne 2019; and Malcolm Connolly, graduated University of Cambridge 2022. There are many more who have completed Masters and undergraduate programs in archaeology as well as a significant body of highly experienced cultural heritage officers. Working independently and in tandem, these scholars are changing the discipline, and their students will change the discipline, too. While it took decades for Aboriginal people to gain a purchase in academic archaeology, this movement is now irreversible. Over the next 50 years, Indigenous Australian archaeologists will contribute to Australian archaeology by creating an identity that is different from archaeology in other parts of the world, and perhaps more closely linked to other nations with Indigenous populations. Indigenous knowledges will enrich our interpretations of archaeological data and become more embedded in archaeological practice and ethics. Although there will be overarching commonalities, I anticipate diversity that matches the cultural, social and linguistic diversity of Aboriginal Australia in response to the ‘shifting and complex intersections between different people with different histories, experiences, languages, agendas, aspirations and responses’ (Nakata 2007:323). Practices will change, foci will shift, and we will need new terms for new ideas.

Australian archaeology has advanced understandings of Indigenous social and technical achievements, provided evidence for successful Native Title determinations and heritage nominations, and increased Indigenous skills in heritage recording and management. However, despite our best intentions, our priorities are still set by the discipline and our work is not directed by Indigenous aspirations that do not conform with a disciplinary agenda. The Uluru Statement from the Heart (2017) initiated a new chapter of truth-telling about colonial history and archaeology that can bring unique value via strengths that have not yet been fully tapped. Archaeology can play a role in exposing truth on colonial frontiers (Burke et al. 2023; Wallis et al. 2021), promoting Indigenous voice (Ouzman 2023; Pollard et al. 2021), pursuing social justice (Smith et al. 2019), and identifying and redressing discrimination and inequalities (Ralph et al. 2021). Recent studies have demonstrated how archaeologists can use cultural heritage to strengthen a sense of community and provide a therapy for trauma (Schaepe et al. 2017), and to foster resilience, wellbeing and social cohesion (Everill and Burnell 2022; Holtorf and Högberg 2021; Smith et al. 2022).

How might we channel these capabilities to drive a transformative agenda? Those of us who work with Aboriginal people in remote areas are aware that we have been able to do little to impact the poverty that exists in these communities. Given that many Indigenous communities are enmired in poverty and live with food insecurity on a daily basis it seems reasonable to question the value that archaeology has for these communities. This poverty is untenable, and yet it is seemingly intractable. Among the communities with whom I work in the Roper Gulf Region of the Northern Territory, the median weekly income for people aged 15 years and over is $241 (ABS 2023) and food insecurity is reinforced by prices that are up to 50% more expensive than in capital cities (National Rural Health Alliance 2020). Will the situation be the same in 50 years? Can archaeology impact upon this underlying poverty and disadvantage? Is it possible for archaeologists to significantly contribute to redressing social and economic issues of such magnitude?

I would like us to think a little more radically. Worldwide, archaeologists are questioning the value and relevance of their discipline, especially in light of an historical complicity in colonialism (Atalay et al. 2016; Schneider and Hayes 2020). How will this concern play out in the coming generations of Australian archaeologists, a number of whom will be Indigenous? In addition to a research agenda directed towards disciplinary-based questions, I hope these generations will seek to develop a transformative archaeology that addresses questions determined by the social, cultural, and economic needs of Indigenous communities. We could use archaeology as a tool to support Indigenous cultural knowledge and heritage values in a much more cohesive and focused manner and use this as a basis for concurrently developing sustainable employment, education, equity and enterprise opportunities. Archaeology has the capacity to contribute to these struggles and many of us are working at the edges of such a vision. However, we have not yet made the concerted, cohesive effort that is essential to bring about the long-term changes needed for archaeology to effectively redress injustice and inequality. New relationships will be vital to this process. If we work together, we could help people to transform their lives for generations to come. This is the transformation I would like to see in Australian archaeology over the next 50 years.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.