Aboriginal occupation traces in agricultural assemblages, Yorke Peninsula/Guuranda, South Australia. Belinda Gene Liebelt Bachelor of Archaeology (Hons) Flinders University Thesis presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Western Australia School of Social Sciences, Archaeology School of Humanities, History December 2016 Cover image: view across ploughed paddocks towards a homestead in the Mount Rat/Yalgi region, with displaced limestone piled along the fence (July 2013). i Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are advised that this thesis contains descriptions of non-Aboriginal people excavating or removing Aboriginal ancestral remains from country, as well as destroying Aboriginal cultural heritage, which may be distressing for some readers. ii Declaration of Authorship I, Belinda Gene Liebelt certify that: This thesis has been substantially accomplished during enrolment in the degree. This thesis does not contain material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in my name, in any university or other tertiary institution. No part of this work will, in the future, be used in a submission in my name, for any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution without the prior approval of The University of Western Australia and where applicable, any partner institution responsible for the joint-award of this degree. This thesis does not contain any material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. The work is not in any way a violation or infringement of any copyright, trademark, patent, or other rights whatsoever of any person. The research involving human data reported in this thesis was assessed and approved by The University of Western Australia Human Research Ethics Committee. Approval #: RA/4/16674 (Recognition of Ethics Approval from Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee: HREC CF12/0641 – 2012000261) This thesis does not contain work that I have published, nor work under review for publication. Signature: Date: iii Abstract Australian farmlands are often conceptualised by non-Aboriginal people as physically ‘cleared’ of Aboriginal people’s heritage and values, and as a result are imagined as culturally ‘white’. There are many causes for this, however one reason is distinctly visual. The outward appearance of farmed landscapes denotes European-transformed, environmentally stripped agrarian environments, which have been heavily disturbed and are extensively mono-cropped. These appearances are often deceptive and misleading. In this thesis I investigate the visibility of Aboriginal people’s occupation traces in agricultural farmlands. Using assemblage theory, I explore the ways that some of the physical components of Narungga Aboriginal people’s heritage—specifically waterholes, stone artefacts and Aboriginal human remains—are ‘entangled’ within white agricultural assemblages on farms and within farming landscapes on Yorke Peninsula/Guuranda in South Australia. I do this by exploring tension between the specific materialities of particular Aboriginal occupation traces with socio-material racial separation practices that try to visually and conceptually erase Aboriginal people (through evidence of their presence) from the farmed landscape. Through participant interviews and auto-ethnographic observations, I document how some rural non-Aboriginal Australians have ignored, obscured or damaged Aboriginal heritage, while others have collected, re-assembled, displayed or protected the various Aboriginal occupation traces they encounter. These processes are actively re-organising many of the tangible traces of Aboriginal heritage within rural settler colonial space. I also explore how these processes are associated with a range of non-Aboriginal people’s affective and emotional responses: fear, indifference, guilt or aversion, but also curiosity, nostalgia, joy, pride and responsibility. By examining these processes and the associated emotions they invoke, I identify a distinctive type of ‘white attachment’ to the materialities of Aboriginal heritage in settler colonial contexts. This attachment is neither Indigenous nor archaeologically derived, but is none-the-less influenced by both. I demonstrate how non-Aboriginal attachments to Aboriginal heritage are not only personal and individual, but also political and cultural, highlighting how affect and emotion are integral and often overlooked aspects of non-Aboriginal attachment to Aboriginal heritage in Australia. iv As a result of this research, I identify an ongoing and often unobserved aspect of Australia’s colonisation legacy: the treatment of appropriated Aboriginal heritage in agricultural farmlands. I argue that this example is emblematic of many farmland regions within Australia, where Aboriginal occupation traces are omnipresent yet ostensibly absent in the minds of local non-Aboriginal residents. Finally, I contend that instead of ‘cleared’ agronomic space, heritage practitioners must be sensitive to the fact that agricultural farmlands are dynamic, hybrid landscapes where Aboriginal people’s occupation traces are always present, reassembling and emerging. Further, we must be sensitive to non-Aboriginal people’s emotional attachments to this heritage, in order to encourage positive and active engagement in Aboriginal heritage protection into the future. I argue that the ethics and values attached to these complex reassembling processes—and that ultimately entwine Aboriginal heritage in exclusionary white agricultural networks—must be more comprehensively understood in order to support Aboriginal people’s own rights to access, protect and utilise their heritage within rural farmland regions. v Table of Contents Chapter 1: Aboriginal heritage in agricultural networks ............................................................... 2 1.1 The study area: Yorke Peninsula/Guuranda................................................................................................. 5 1.2 Materialising heritage in the rural landscape .............................................................................................. 8 1.3 Indigenous ontologies for materialising heritage ................................................................................... 10 1.4 Posthumanism – actor networks and material agency ......................................................................... 13 1.5 Re-evaluating the archaeological ‘assemblage’ ........................................................................................ 18 1.6 Emotion, entanglements and approaches to affect ................................................................................. 20 1.7 Methodology - entangling ANT and auto-ethnography ........................................................................ 23 1.8 Postcolonialism and whiteness studies ....................................................................................................... 27 1.9 Terminology, representation and confidentiality ................................................................................... 30 1.10 Outline: how this thesis is organised ............................................................................................................ 34 Chapter 2: Aboriginal heritage and settler colonial space .......................................................... 36 2.1 From ‘untamed wilderness’ to cultivated countryside ......................................................................... 37 2.2 Terra nullius and the ongoing ‘problem’ of Aboriginal heritage ...................................................... 40 2.3 Foundation myths: local histories of growth and demise .................................................................... 44 2.4 Cults of forgetfulness? Aboriginality and settler memory ................................................................... 47 2.5 Archaeological contributions to notions of Aboriginality .................................................................... 50 2.6 Australia racial segregation and heritage practice ................................................................................. 54 2.7 Encounters in place: can we fix the future through the past? ............................................................ 57 Chapter 3: The ‘contact zone’ on Yorke Peninsula/Guuranda................................................... 61 3.1 Peninsula geography: an ‘ill-shaped’ leg?.................................................................................................... 61 3.1 Timelines for colonisation: explorers and pastoralists ......................................................................... 63 3.2 Timelines for colonisation: farming and ‘settlement’ ............................................................................ 67 3.3 Existing Narungga occupation traces in agricultural landscapes ..................................................... 71 3.4 Narungga contributions to farming and shearing industries ............................................................. 79 3.5 The ongoing legacies of residential segregation ...................................................................................... 84 Chapter 4: Assemblages around Narungga waterholes ............................................................... 89 4.1 Water’s significance for physical and cultural existence ...................................................................... 90 4.2 Early