The Esperance Nyungars, at the Frontier An archaeological investigation of mobility, aggregation and identity in late- Holocene Aboriginal society, Western Australia A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University September 2016 Myles Bevan Mitchell Research Contribution Declaration I, Myles Bevan Mitchell, declare that this thesis is all my own work, except for the acknowledged collaborations of co-authors in the published manuscripts that comprise Chapters 5 and 8 of this thesis, as detailed below. Chapter 5 Mitchell, M.B., D.R. Guilfoyle, D. Reynolds and C. Morgan. 2013. Towards Sustainable Community Heritage Management and the role of Archaeology. Heritage and Society 6 (1) pp. 24-45. As first co-author on this manuscript, my contribution was to develop the main concepts of the paper and establish the theoretical basis for the research. I also conducted the background research and wrote the literature review. I wrote the majority of text in this paper. Chapter 8 Gunn, R.G., M.B. Mitchell, and E. Webb. In press. The Rock Art of Marbaleerup and its place in the art traditions of Southwest Western Australia. Rock Art Research My contribution to this manuscript was to provide the research context through which to analyse the rock-art data. This is why the paper directly addresses the research questions in my thesis because I intentionally designed it to do so. I also provided some of the Esperance rock art data and assisted with the data analysis. The majority of data was provided by Gunn and Webb. Gunn conducted the majority of data analysis, which is the basis for his role as lead author. I contributed much of the text, especially the introductory sections, the discussion and conclusions. M.B. Mitchell ______________________ Date: II Dedicated to The Esperance Nyungars. Past, present and future. Acknowledgments My sincere thanks go to: Nyungar research participants Henry Dabb, Annie Dabb, Diane Clinch, Nicky Whitby, Gavin Clinch, Veronica Williams-Bennell, Kevin Reynolds, Doc Reynolds, Wayne Williams, Gail Reynolds-Adamson, Terrence “Yorky” Yorkshire, Terrence “Bubba Lee” Yorkshire, Gail Yorkshire-Selby, Elaine Bullen (deceased), Murray Bullen, Jeremy Smith, Candice Smith, Graham Tucker and Donald Abdulla. My supervisors Cressida Fforde, Moya Smith and Alex Mackay (and previous supervisors Peter Veth, Sally May and Jo McDonald). Mick Dodson for all your support. Ian and Laurel Fisher for your generous financial support. Everyone at National Centre for Indigenous Studies past and present. David Guilfoyle, Cat Morgan, Genevieve Carey and Robyne Reynolds. Robert (ben) Gunn and Esmee Webb Rod and Gaynor Mitchell My wife Jennifer Mitchell for unyielding love and support. My children Eliza and Tali Mitchell for putting up with dad being boring while writing this thesis. … and to everyone else who has contributed in so many ways. Thank you. III ABSTRACT This thesis documents the results of an Aboriginal community-based archaeological research project in the Esperance region, southern Western Australia. It is based on analysis of rock art, stone arrangements and flaked stone artefacts. The aim is to understand the role of the study sites – Belinup and Marbaleerup – within patterns of movement that underpinned society and economy in this region during the late-Holocene. The research explores concepts of identity (Jones 1997; Meskell and Preucel 2004) relating to the local Esperance Nyungar people, and the broader Noongar and Western Desert cultural blocs. It has been suggested that negotiations over territory, law and identity during the recent past were directly related to the expansion of the Western Desert cultural bloc (Gibbs and Veth 2002), which situates the study area at a dynamic frontier of cultural change. Exploration of these questions leads to a discussion about the historical construction of Esperance Nyungar identity. The study sites are hypothesised to have functioned in the past as aggregation locales (Conkey 1980). Investigation of this hypothesis is illuminative; firstly, for understanding more about the study sites; and secondly about the application of the aggregation concept, and its limitations for archaeology. The results inform a discussion of how mobility (Binford 1980; Kelly 1992) and aggregation can be usefully applied together to investigate the intersections of social and economic elements in hunter-gatherer settlement. As a conceptual tool for archaeology, identity is challenging because it cannot be directly interpreted from material culture in a simple way. Despite the challenges, identity is an important tool for understanding past societies. Identity is investigated here by mapping the occurrence of symbols across landscapes and considering how these may, or may not, relate to notions of identity and connections to place. The approach begins with what is known IV (contemporary identity and connection), and works backwards through time and outwards through space towards the unknown. Identity is a powerful way to link the archaeological past with the contemporary descendent community. The process of undertaking a community-based research partnership is discussed, with critical reflection on the challenges and successes. An argument is presented for how and why community input and ownership is critical to the success of archaeological research into Aboriginal pasts in Australia and abroad. The results demonstrate the inherent dynamism in Aboriginal society in southern Western Australia and highlight a historical legacy to the processes of cultural change underpinning Esperance Nyungar identity today. Those processes predate the colonial interruption, and continue into the post-Native Title era. This leads to a discussion and critique of the Native Title system, which often neglects to acknowledge the nuanced realities of Aboriginal societies and the inherent mutability of identity and connections across time and space. It is argued that the internal social dynamics of Aboriginal society are an important part of identity, as people continually negotiate who they are and how they relate to people and places. This constant process of identity-making is a fundamental part of Aboriginal culture and society now and into the distant past. V PRELUDE In the winter of 2007 I was engaged in fieldwork at Belinup, at the mouth of the Thomas River, east of Esperance. The fieldwork had been instigated by the local Esperance Nyungar Traditional Owners and involved a cultural heritage assessment of Belinup as part of the then Restoring Connections Project (South Coast Natural Resource Management). The approach suggested by the Elders was to conduct targeted archaeological and cultural surveys in the area burnt by bushfires during the previous summer, exposing cultural and archaeological materials in an area of known cultural significance, usually covered by the thick coastal scrub and banksia stands that surround Belinup. Our preliminary survey uncovered a rich suite of archaeological materials, predominantly flaked chert artefacts which scattered the ground (in varying densities) numbering in their thousands, extending over a large area (approximately five square kilometres). Central to this lithic landscape is a set of stone arrangements on a prominent granite outcrop overlooking the Southern Ocean. The results of these surveys provoked an immediate archaeological interest for me, and one question stood out in particular. The question had been posed by senior Elder Veronica Williams-Bennell who pointed out the distinct similarity in form between the Belinup stone arrangements and those in the Wittenoom Hills (Budjari Yorg), near Marbaleerup, another granite outcrop in Esperance Nyungar country, situated about 100km to the north-west. Veronica asked me how they were connected and if I thought that they shared the same function given the obvious similarities in form, and if so what that function may have been? I did not know the answer to any of these questions, particularly as I had not seen the stone arrangements at Budjari Yorg at that time. It struck me however that these were very good questions that gave rise to a number of interesting topics for archaeological investigation. This thesis presents my answer to those questions posed in the winter of 2007, to which I owe a debt of gratitude to the VI Esperance Nyungar people, for inviting me to explore the post bushfire landscape of Belinup and continuing to invite me to explore the cultural landscapes of Esperance Nyungar country; and especially to Veronica Williams-Bennell whose questions and observations provoked this research. VII TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT IV PRELUDE VI TABLE OF CONTENTS VIII LIST OF FIGURES XI LIST OF TABLES XIII 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 RESEARCH AIMS 3 1.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 7 1.3 THESIS STRUCTURE 8 1.4 ESPERANCE NYUNGAR RESEARCH PARTNERSHIP 10 1.4.1 THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL BASIS 10 1.4.2 PEOPLE, REPRESENTATION AND CULTURAL GOVERNANCE 13 1.4.3 STRUCTURE 15 1.4.4 SETTING UP THE RESEARCH PARTNERSHIP 17 1.5 TIME PERIOD FOR THE RESEARCH 19 1.6 OVERVIEW OF THESIS 22 2 SOCIO-CULTURAL CONTEXT: AT THE FRONTIER 25 2.1 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 25 2.2 CULTURE, IDENTITY AND LAW 26 2.3 IDENTITY AND NATIVE TITLE 32 2.4 A BRIEF SOCIAL HISTORY FOLLOWING EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT 35 2.5 WESTERN DESERT CULTURAL EXPANSION 43 2.6 ETHNO-HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE ESPERANCE REGION AS A CULTURAL FRONTIER 49 2.7 CHAPTER SUMMARY: AT THE FRONTIER 60 3 ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL CONTEXT: AT THE FRONTIER 62 3.1 CHAPTER