I really didn’t ever think I would excavate another shell mound site. I mean, I did a whole PhD on the things and sieved and sorted and counted my way through hundreds of kilograms of samples. But as it happens, I am currently enjoying the warm weather at Weipa (north eastern Australia) while finalising my preparations for a two week project with the Alngith People, who are Aboriginal custodians of the western Weipa Peninsula.

We had a little positive media coverage in north Queensland last week after our community based heritage research project at Mareeba was picked up by the local Tablelands Advertiser and the Cairns Post. It ran front page which was wonderful because media coverage of Aboriginal history and heritage issues on the Tablelands has historically been fairly limited. In any case, I thought that a short blog post to supplement the story would be worthwhile.

I sometimes wonder whether archaeology as a discipline in Australia has been bought. When I began working towards a degree in archaeology in the mid 1990s it was a common view that there were no jobs and that most of my fellow students and I were unlikely to find any form of employment as archaeologists. Ten years later, the Australian economy expanded in part through mining and there was a boom in demand for archaeology graduates and experienced archaeologists to work in heritage management.

I’ve just returned from a month long research trip at Weipa where we were working to complete a plan of an early 20th Century Presbyterian mission site that I’ve been working on for the past few years. It was one of the most enjoyable research trips I’ve run in quite some time in no small part due to a great team of students who participated in the work and who suffered the relatively basic living arrangements with good humour and enthusiasm throughout.

In several days my small research team and I will be beginning the long drive from Townsville to Weipa where we’ll be based for a month long research trip investigating the history, archaeology and cultural significance of a former Aboriginal mission site. This is a community based project that Anhatangaith Elders requested that we undertake about 5 years ago. We’ve been working on it only when we’ve had funding and time and this trip will be the first field trip since 2008 when we mapped out the mission site and produced the site plan below.

Colleen at Middle Savagery has been facilitating a discussion about archaeology and blogging for the past few weeks and this week the question she poses is: What risks do archaeologists take when they make themselves available to the public via blogging? What (if any) are the unexpected consequences of blogging? How do you choose what to share? I thought I would participate in the discussion this week by considering blogging in relation to University students and recent graduates.