Writing & Archive

Essays, fieldwork updates, and research reflections (2008–present)

 

Bye, Wordpress!

blog
It’s been a while between updates here, but today we’re back online. The site has languished for a few years, and I’ve never been very happy with the look and feel of it.…
May 20, 2023
Mick Morrison
 

In Covid times we teach online

I have been busy of late teaching a unit ARPA352/552, Public Archaeology and Cultural Heritage management, here at UNE. It has been quite a long break for me from teaching…
Aug 2, 2021

Too long between posts…

site-status
So I’m not sure what happened, but it is almost five years since my last post here. I have a love-hate relationship with social media, but that was excessive. I certainly…
Apr 23, 2020

Shell mound at Weipa full

Stuck in the midden with you…

middens
my-research
heritage
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…
Jun 5, 2015
 

Pitfalls for new professional archaeology bloggers

archaeology
teaching-and-learning
This is the last of three posts for students in my Introduction to Professional Archaeology topic, as well as other people who are new to blogging about archaeology. You can…
Oct 15, 2014

Publish or perish? Research blogging helps to develop a wide range of important academic skills that will help you to advance your career

The benefits of blogging for professional archaeologists

archaeology
teaching-and-learning
how-to
In a post earlier this week I provided a brief account of why blogging is of interest to archaeologists and also touched on aspects of the history of ‘archaeo. blogging’. I’v…
Oct 14, 2014

Social media and professional archaeology in retrospect

archaeology
teaching-and-learning
This is the first of two posts directed at students enrolled in an online topic that I teach at Flinders University on Professional Archaeology.  The focus of this week’s…
Oct 12, 2014

Dating shell mounds at Weipa, Cape York Peninsula

archaeology
middens
I was just emailed this rather nifty word cloud that the Editors of Australian Archaeology have generated for a paper I have coming out in that journal later this year. It’s…
Oct 10, 2014
 

Call for papers: Indigenous Knowledge, Stewardship and Heritage Management session at the 2014 Australian Archaeological Association Annual Conference

news-and-reviews
Annie Ross and I are convening a session at the Australian Archaeological Association Annual Conference in Cairns entitled ‘Indigenous Knowledge, Stewardship and Heritage…
Jun 10, 2014

Sugarbag scar on a dead Cooktown ironwood tree

Dating Aboriginal Scarred Trees in north eastern Australia

culturally-modified-trees
heritage
in-plain-english
my-research
archaeology
This week and next I’m back in Weipa (NE Australia) working on a research project with Alngith People — Traditional Owners of the western Weipa Peninsula — as well as Dr…
Oct 23, 2012
 

Fieldwork update, Weipa 2012 (and reflections on a decade of work)

heritage
my-research
I’ve just arrived in Weipa again for a few weeks of  work with the Anhatangaith and Alngith groups. It will likely be the most relaxed field trip I’ve had here for some…
Jun 28, 2012
 

Minimising the misery and pain: tips for completing a Doctoral Thesis

teaching-and-learning
how-to
Long time readers  know that I’m a relatively freshly minted PhD graduate (2010 vintage) and a quick browse through some of my earlier posts here or on twitter would no…
Mar 30, 2012
 

Australian Indigenous archaeology and cultural heritage wrap, 5 March

news-and-reviews
archaeology
heritage
I try to keep a close eye on new papers, books and so on relevant to Australian Indigenous archaeology and collate much of this information in Zotero. I thought it might be…
Mar 4, 2012

Close up of the nib of a caligraphic pen found on the former Weipa mission site. Date reads: ‘June 15.86’. Photo by Masters in Archaeology Student Amy Della-Sale

A calligraphy pen on an Aboriginal mission site?

weipa-mission
aboriginal-history
my-research
There has been a little interest in this image below and so I thought a brief post was worthwhile to give it the context it deserves. Full credits for the image go to Amy…
Feb 27, 2012
 

Archaeology, publishing and profit

archaeology
news-and-reviews
There’s been a bit of talk on the Australian Anthropology Society email list (AASNet) about open and commercial publishing, and the future of academic publishing in…
Jan 19, 2012

Area of Muluridji country cleared for cattle grazing in the past few decades.

“Mapping country” again: the Muluridji heritage project, Mareeba

aboriginal-history
heritage
mareeba
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…
Oct 11, 2011

A tree felled to obtain honey and wax

Spatial statistics and the archaeology of sugarbag scarred trees

my-research
culturally-modified-trees
tech-and-geospatial
This past few months I’ve been prompted into working on some scarred or culturally modified tree data that I recorded near Weipa  during a series cultural heritage…
Sep 20, 2011

CC Image by Ben Hoskings, http://www.hoskingindustries.com.au/

Asking questions about heritage management in Australia

archaeology
heritage
I sometimes wonder whether archaeology as a discipline in Australia has been bought.
Sep 20, 2011

Close up of the nib of a caligraphic pen found on the former Weipa mission site. Date reads: ‘June 15.86’

Updated research profile

my-research
archaeology
heritage
I’ve finally found time to go in and update my research profile.
Sep 19, 2011

Gliding frigate bird

I still care about blogging

site-status
Yes, it’s true. Despite having dropped out of various social media universes this past few months, I still maintain that it’s critical for archaeologists and other…
Sep 18, 2011

Escarpment edge at Split Rock Art site, near Laura

Weipa fieldwork wrap, part 1

aboriginal-history
archaeology
my-research
weipa-mission
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…
Jul 24, 2011

Preliminary plan of the mission site

Into the field…

aboriginal-history
heritage
my-research
weipa-mission
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…
Jun 17, 2011

Field methods fieldschool student drafts a plan

Apologies for the break (and a brief update)

teaching-and-learning
site-status
What can I say? Work is frantic at the moment and consequently my blog and twitter stream are a great deal quieter than normal. That’s academic teaching for you. However…
May 24, 2011

Ring of Fire / Johnny Ainsworth

A burnin’ ring of fire: Four Stone Hearth 115

archaeology
blog-carnivals
Welcome everyone to the 115th Four Stone Hearth Blogging carnival! (my apologies for the Johnny Cash reference).
Mar 30, 2011

Figure 1. Location of Albatross Bay, north Queensland, Australia

The shell mounds of Albatross Bay, Cape York Peninsula

archaeology
in-plain-english
middens
my-research
It has been some time since I last blogged about archaeology so in this post - which is a contribution to the Four Stone Hearth blogging carnival - I am taking up a question…
Mar 29, 2011
 

Four Stone Hearth 115 this week

blog-carnivals
A gentle reminder about the upcoming Four Stone Hearth blog carnival that I’m hosting here this week. The post will go up on Wednesday/Thursday Australian time, so please…
Mar 26, 2011
 

Four Stone Hearth - a themed anthropology blog carnival

blog-carnivals
Four Stone Hearth is a long running blog carnival that focuses upon anthropology in the American sense: that is, archaeology, bio/social/cultural anthropology and…
Mar 20, 2011

New South Wales Archaeology On-LIne

Archaeological grey literature in New South Wales

archaeology
heritage
Yesterday, Agata Mrva-Montoya (@agatamontoya) at the University of Sydney forwarded me a wonderful resource for those who have an interest in accessing ‘grey literature’…
Mar 17, 2011
 

The risks of professional blogging

archaeology
teaching-and-learning
heritage
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:
Mar 14, 2011
 

Digital archaeology: a workshop

teaching-and-learning
tech-and-geospatial
archaeology
I have agreed to present a half day workshop in my Department here at Flinders University on what I am calling ‘Digital Archaeology’. It’s aimed graduate students in our arch…
Feb 23, 2011

Ground Orchid, Weipa

Fieldwork beckons

heritage
my-research
weipa-mission
I’m glad to report that after a seven month stint here in Adelaide I’m finally able to get back up to north Queensland to do some fieldwork. Teaching and University life is…
Jan 21, 2011
 

Community heritage databases: an open approach

heritage
tech-and-geospatial
Databases for storing archaeological or cultural heritage information are not something that one hears spoken about too often despite the fact that they are the backbone of…
Jan 20, 2011

A late night rant: new media and netiquette

news-and-reviews
rock-art
This evening via Twitter, @blackfellas pointed out a story that was published on the Australian Broadcasting Commission website about a rock art ‘breakthrough’ in Western…
Jan 6, 2011
 

Editing styles in Zotero - help needed!

tech-and-geospatial
I am trying to edit a style in Zotero to suit the formatting requirements of the journal Australian Archaeology, however I seem to have hit a couple of problems.
Dec 29, 2010
 

The underbelly of an archaeology fieldschool

teaching-and-learning
weipa-mission
In June-July next year I am running an Indigenous archaeology fieldschool for students enrolled at Flinders University (see About.com’s post on fieldschools if you’re not…
Dec 8, 2010

‘Typewriter of Capricon’ (CC Licensed image by Flickr User, Emdot (Marya))

Publish (high quality research) or perish

archaeology
So you may or may not have noticed that I’ve been a little quiet of late, both here and on twitter so I thought it worth a quick post explaining why this is the case: I  can…
Nov 26, 2010
 

AAA conference is here again

archaeology
news-and-reviews
It’s conference season again here in Australia and all of the major anthropology and archaeology organisations have held or will soon hold their annual conferences. The only…
Oct 26, 2010
 

A proposal for a blogging carnival focussing on Indigenous Australia

indigenous-australia
This year, there seems to be an increasing number of people writing about Indigenous Australia on the web. When I say writing on the web, I mean using twitter, blogs and…
Oct 7, 2010
 

Student Tweeting - and learning?

teaching-and-learning
I just read a short post  at the Chronicle of Higher Ed about twitter and teaching and one quote in that story struck me:
Oct 5, 2010

Human responses to climate change in Australia over the past 2000 years

news-and-reviews
Williams, Ulm, Goodwin and Smith have just had a paper published in the Journal of Quaternary Science that explores broad patterns in human occupation and environmental…
Sep 20, 2010

Courtesy of Gideon Burton (CC)

Blogging and University based learning

teaching-and-learning
I’m developing an online/flexible delivery mode version of a topic I’m teaching this semester here in the Department of Archaeology at Flinders University. The subject is a…
Sep 15, 2010

Violent ‘un-balancing’

Heritage and the Aboriginal philosophy of country

heritage
The past few years has seen a proliferation in the breadth and scope of academic literature surrounding theory and method in heritage studies. In this post, I want to…
Aug 4, 2010
 

Change in scenery

site-status
Over the past few years I’ve been based in Cairns, far north Queensland, working as a heritage advisor for Aboriginal community groups and developers. However the past…
Aug 3, 2010

Ceramic Dolls Head (scale = 1 cm)

North Queensland fieldwork projects, 2010-11

mareeba
my-research
weipa-mission
Today I’m happy to report I have been successful with two funding applications to carry out fieldwork projects in north Queensland over the next  year or so. The funds -…
Jun 18, 2010

Interesting things in my library #7 (Flickr User AussieRupe - Rupert Scammell)

This digitised life … (with Zotero)

tech-and-geospatial
There are quite a few open source applications around that are at the point of being sufficiently well developed to be of practical use for a professional on a day to day…
Jun 2, 2010
 

Hello world!

site-status
Well, if you happened across this site during the past few days you will have received a ‘website not found’ error of some sort. My apologies for this: the reason is that I…
Mar 29, 2010
 

New paper: Mission-based Indigenous production at the Weipa Presbyterian Mission

aboriginal-history
archaeology
weipa-mission
In 2007 Jane Lydon, Jeremy Ash and I co-convened a conference session at the ‘New Ground’ Australian Archaeology joint conference at the University of Sydney on the…
Mar 17, 2010

Mapping cultural landscapes: the Alngith Cultural Heritage Project

aboriginal-history
heritage
weipa-mission
Over the past half year or so I have been working on a project documenting the cultural heritage of the Alngith People (pronounced Al-ngit where ‘ng’ is the same as in…
Mar 11, 2010
 

PhD is done!

archaeology
middens
At long, long last I am happy to report that my doctoral dissertation is through the examination process and came out largely unscathed. Although I need to make some minor…
Feb 3, 2010
 

Australian Archaeology Association Conference 2009

aboriginal-history
archaeology
news-and-reviews
September to December is typically the ‘conference season’ in Australia and is when most major archaeology conferences are scheduled. The largest of these is the Australian…
Oct 27, 2009
 

An update

site-status
My apologies for the lengthy hiatus between posts on this site;  as followers of my twitter feed would be aware I have recently submitted my Doctoral thesis for examination…
Sep 22, 2009
 

Evidence for genetic links between Indian and Australian populations ~55,000 years ago

archaeology
news-and-reviews
palaeoanthropology
New genetic research reported in the July edition of BMC Evolutionary Biology (1) suggests shared mitochondrial DNA between some ‘relic tribes of India’ and Australian…
Jul 26, 2009
 

Barks, Birds and Billabongs: legacy of the 1948 American-Australian scientific expedition to Arnhem Land

aboriginal-history
news-and-reviews
The National Museum of Australia are hosting a symposium exploring the legacy of the 1948  American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land, northern Australia.…
Jul 2, 2009
 

Zotero 2.0 and archaeology

how-to
tech-and-geospatial
Bibliographic software are an essential part of the software suite of many researchers, providing an important means of organising citation data and associated documents and…
Jun 21, 2009

New book: “New directions in archaeological science”

archaeology
news-and-reviews
The Terra Australis monograph series has traditionally provided an important publication opportunity for researchers working in the Australasian region, particularly for…
Jun 21, 2009
 

Publishing with Google Earth and Google Map products

how-to
tech-and-geospatial
Note: this is a post that originally appeared at my old blog and generated a reasonable amount of interest there, so I am posting it again here.
Jun 4, 2009
 

FGIS: a useful (and free!) random and systematic sampling tool

how-to
tech-and-geospatial
Leszek at Free Geography Tools has written a brief post about using a freeware GIS tool (FGIS) that would be of some value for archaeos engaged in field sampling (on any…
Mar 4, 2009
 

Australian Archaeology Web Resources @ Ozarch

news-and-reviews
Gary Vines and the community of users at the Ozarch Google Group (previously posted about here) have developed a really handy list of Australian Archaeology web resources.…
Feb 27, 2009

History of Indigenous wellbeing at Weipa

aboriginal-history
archaeology
weipa-mission
I apologise for the slim offerings to be found here on my blog so far this year. By way of explanation (particularly for my regular readers!) I have had a touch of writers…
Feb 17, 2009
 

Research tools and the web: finding and keeping track of references

how-to
tech-and-geospatial
The internet has revolutionized the research process providing a range of new, on demand sources for scholarly articles. In today’s post I wanted to briefly look at some…
Feb 1, 2009
 

Ozarch: new google group for Australian archaeology!

news-and-reviews
Anyone familiar with the recent demise of the Australian archaeology list-server, Ausarch-L may be interested to know there is now an alternative: Ozarch.
Jan 8, 2009
 

Download web maps to your garmin GPS

how-to
tech-and-geospatial
Readers may be interested in a new service from Garmin that allows you to download results from web-based mapping applications directly into your Garmin GPS device. Window’s…
Jan 7, 2009

Holocene climate change: some useful reviews

environmental-issues
news-and-reviews
At the moment I am reading up on evidence for climatic variability during the past 5,000 years or so as part of my PhD dissertation. There is a fairly substantial and…
Dec 30, 2008
 

Off to AAA!

news-and-reviews
I’m off to the AAA annual conference in Noosa today (For non-Aussie readers that’s the Australian Archaeological Association). I have posted about our paper and the session…
Dec 2, 2008
 

David Horton on the web: from archaeology to watermelons and social justice

news-and-reviews
I am pleased to say that I have just rediscovered a wonderful blog by David Horton, a self proclaimed ‘greeny’, social justice advocate and - in a former life or career(?) -…
Nov 27, 2008

gvSIG - new opensource GIS software

tech-and-geospatial
The government funded gvSig project is a free and open source Geoinformation System (GIS), that enables you to interactively visualize, manage, modify and analyze spatial…
Oct 20, 2008
 

New research on Arnhem Land rock art

rock-art
Daryl Guse, a PhD candidate working on Aboriginal rock art in the Wellington Ranges area, western Arnhem Land (Northern Territory) recently forwarded me a link to a story on…
Sep 27, 2008
 

Arcview on a mac?

how-to
tech-and-geospatial
A little while ago I purchased a new macbook pro after discovering that they now run Windows. As far as laptops go, MBPs are brilliant: they take no time at all to to…
Sep 21, 2008
 

Fieldwork blogging hiatus

site-status
Because I’m not set up to blog whilst on fieldwork there may be a series of hiatus’ between posts over the next few months due to extensive fieldwork commitments. You see…
Sep 21, 2008
 

AAA conference 2008: the land and sea session

aboriginal-history
environmental-issues
heritage
A few months back I posted about a session that Daryl Guse, Cameo Dalley and I had proposed for the Australian Archaeological Association conference in Noosa this year. You…
Sep 12, 2008
 

Blogging for graduate students

how-to
John Hawks has an excellent series of essays on blogging, research and academia. John’s blog has been around for years - from at least 03 or 04 as far as I remember, and…
Jul 26, 2008

New book: archaeology of ancient Australia

aboriginal-history
archaeology
news-and-reviews
I’ve just finished reading a few select chapters from Peter Hiscock’s new book, Archaeology of Ancient Australia (2008) published by Routledge. The book is a fairly wide…
Jul 25, 2008

AAA 2008: the Indigenous land and sea management session

archaeology
environmental-issues
I just thought I should give a quick plug to a session at this years Australian Archaeology Association Conference where a couple of colleagues and I are convening a…
Jul 24, 2008
 

Archaeological survey and geotagging

how-to
tech-and-geospatial
As a consultant archaeologist time is always valuable and so it is important to have a robust system for recording and capturing field data quickly. By the same token…
Jun 18, 2008
 

Introduction

site-status
Welcome, this is a blog about all things archaeology and in particular, those that interest me and which relate to my research. I hope to use this as something of a record…
May 5, 2008
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