Exploring the Legacy of the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition.

Akerman, Kim

Exploring the Legacy of the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition Martin Thomas and Margo Neale (eds) 2011 ANU E Press, Canberra, xvi, 471pp.: ill. (some col.), maps, ports.; 25cm, ISBN 9781921666445 (pbk), 9781921666452 (eBook)

As a person interested in the 1948 American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land from a very young age--first introduced to the topic via Colin Simpson's (1952) account Adam in Ochre--in 1967 I purchased Anthropology and Nutrition, volume 2 of the Records of the Expedition (Mountford 1960). A complete set was to follow by 1969.

In 1980 I had my first opportunity to visit western Arnhem Land and this was followed with very brief periods of fieldwork in the area between the East Alligator River and Maningrida in 1985-87, 1989 and 2008. Needless to say, in my early days in the area I took the opportunity to familiarise myself with archaeological, rock art and other locations and sites around Gunbalanya (Oenpelli) that I had long been aware of through my reading. Later, while at the National Museum of Australia (1987-89) I also had the opportunity to see artefacts and works of art collected during the expedition--tangibles that linked a meeting of cultures in the past with my own present. In 2000 I was introduced via Richard Fullagar to Peter Bassett-Smith, cinematographer on the expedition, with whom I enjoyed a number of fine conversations and who generously gave me copies of material that he had relating to the trip. At that stage I brought the fact that Peter was alive and well to staff in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University, hoping there would be follow up.

In my formative years the Records of the Expedition were of great importance and it is a pleasure to see that the expedition itself has continued to resonate through time.

The National Museum is to be congratulated in initiating the 2009 symposium Barks, Birds and Billabongs, from which this collection of papers is drawn. For the first time the expedition is treated in its entirety. Within the covers of Exploring the Legacy of the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition, the history of the events leading to its creation, the internal politics and problems of infrastructure, recording and communication, as well as detailed examination of the various scientific quests and their results are all examined in minute detail. More importantly, the convenors and the editors have seen the importance of presenting the Indigenous viewpoints and engagements at both the time of the expedition and the current period. One important result of the seminar was the return of the last of the human remains collected by the expedition from the Smithsonian Institution in the United States.

The book itself is broken into three broad parts bracketed between the introduction by Martin Thomas and an epilogue by Margo Neale, which place the expedition and seminar in context. The three parts are:

* Part 1 Engagements with Aboriginal Cultures, incorporating eight essays

* Part 2 Collectors and Collections, incorporating six essays

* Part 3 Aboriginal Engagements with the Expedition, incorporating five essays.

Each essay is written in an informative, well-researched narrative style that reveals the often deep attachments that the authors have with the region and its people. The one exception is the paper 'Nation building or cold war: Political settings for the Arnhem Land Expedition' by Kim Beazley. Rather than the focus being situated within Arnhem Land, Beazley presents a fascinating account of the politics of the period, and the political rationale for the expedition itself. The revelation that archaeologist Frank Setzler and politician Arthur Calwell had such a long and enduring correspondence after the conclusion of the expedition was most enlightening and reminds one that scientists may have other lives and interests apart from their research.

The other papers examine the politics within the expedition itself, the nature or character of some of the members - a delightful examination here by Bruce Birch of how the impact of biologist David H Johnson's activities on the Cobourg Peninsula have resonated down into the twenty-first century. There are the words of the late Gerry Blitner, who worked with the expedition in East Arnhem Land; and there are revealed the unforeseen repercussions of placing restricted materials into the public arena. McKenzie and Hamby deal with collections of material made during the expedition, the first dealing with McCarthy's collection of string figures, the latter with fibrecraft, particularly basketry.

If I perceive any faults they are ones purely of omission not commission. I would have liked to see a contribution on the archaeological work carried out at Gunbalanya and also another paper on the rock art work in the same area. Archaeological work by Rhys Jones, among others, has now firmly placed the antiquity of human occupation of tropical Australia within the region. McCarthy perceived a lithic assemblage that he termed Oenpellian. My own interest in this lay in determining the possible function of a singular use--polished flake found in great numbers in the region (Akerman 1998). McCarthy only dealt with the topic of western Arnhem Land rock art in a brief appendix, and he sketched a stylistic sequence of sorts. Through the work of people such as George Chaloupka and Paul Tagon, the importance of the rock art sequence of western Arnhem Land, first recorded in detail by McCarthy, is now recognised as one of the most significant bodies of rock art that flows from the prehistoric to contemporary times.

A further point: I would have liked to see an appendix simply listing all the results of the expedition--whether papers or films and on all subjects anthropological and relating to the botany and zoology of the area, and an inventory of the collections and their locations.

The volume itself, however, could not have a better review than can be found in the first essay by editor Martin Thomas. Apart from providing a background to the expedition and its members, Thomas, in an elegant summary, introduces each contributor to the current work.

This is a good book! It is well written throughout--by people who have a deep attachment to their respective subjects and who are familiar with the people and environment of Arnhem Land. In it the expedition comes alive--and one is almost transported and placed in a vantage point to see the various dramas that it embraced unfold. I place it happily beside my set of expedition records.

REFERENCES

Akerman, Kim 1998 'A suggested function of Western Arnhem Land use-polished flakes and eloueras' in R Fullagar (ed.), A Closer Look: Recent Australian studies of stone tools, Sydney Archaeological Computing Laboratory, University of Sydney, pp.32-40 (SUAMS 6).

Mountford, Charles P (ed.) 1956-66 Records of the American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land, vols 1-4, Melbourne University Press.

--(ed.) 1960 Records of the American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land: Anthropology and nutrition, vol. 2, Melbourne University Press.

Simpson, Colin 1952 Adam in Ochre: Inside Aboriginal Australia, Angus and Robertson, Sydney.

Reviewed by Kim Akerman, Adjunct Professor within Archaeology, University of Western Australia <kimakerman@tastel.net.au>