Bruce Veitch: 1957-2005.

Veth, Peter

Dr Bruce Veitch passed away in Perth in mid-March 2005 after a short battle with motor neurone disease. Bruce was married to archaeologist Fiona Hook and had a young son, Conall. Bruce was a co-director of the cultural heritage company Archae-Aus Pty Ltd with Fiona.

Bruce made a major impact on the practice and ethics of archaeological work in Western Australia. From his pioneering work on the Mitchell Plateau for his doctorate, to his collaborative cultural heritage work with Fiona in the Pilbara and elsewhere, he was known for his energy, persistence and honesty. He mobilised and published consultancy work, collabo-rated closely with the traditional owners whose sites he was working on and worked strategically with major industry players, such as Hamersley/Rio and BHP, as well as with colleagues in the Department of Indigenous Affairs and in the archaeological profession. This obituary tracks some of Bruce's more significant achievements.

Bruce completed his BA (Hons) at the University of New England in 1985, examining ethnohistorical sources and archaeological imprints of the pre-contact exploitation of bracken fern. For his Doctorate he carried out ethnoarchaeological, survey and excavation programs on the Mitchell Plateau of the remote northwestern Kimberley coast of Western Australia. His analysis of rockshelter deposits and mounded middens, in particular, generated discourses about the likely prime movers for economic and demographic change being embedded in either social process or changing environmental landscapes. The work of Dr Harry Lourandos was pivotal in these analyses and debates. His thesis specifically focused on a technological analysis of flaked stone from three Mitchell Plateau rockshelters. The University of Western Australia (UWA) awarded Bruce his Doctorate in 2000.

Most of Bruce's cultural heritage and collaborative research work over the last decade was in the Pilbara region--where mitigation projects included recovering and dating stone arrangements, linear middens and rockshelter habitation sites (see below).

Bruce was always field-active (a cruel irony given his disabling condition during the last six months of his life). In 1982 he participated in excavations with Graham Connah at Bagots Hill historic site, New South Wales, and with Mike Morwood at the Rocky Scrub Creek site, in south-eastern Queensland. In 1984 he participated in surveys with Luke Godwin within the Apsley Gorge of north-western New South Wales and then with Dan Gillespie and Hillary Sullivan on the rock-art assemblages of Kakadu National Park. In 1985 he acted as an excavation supervisor (with Graham Connah and Judy Birmingham) for a joint University of Sydney and University of New England project at Regentville. During the next year his field efforts accelerated and Bruce spent a month with Moya Smith engaged in anthropological study of Bardi fishing technology at Cape Levique, and with myself for three months carrying out the first field season of archaeological survey and excavation in the Great and Little Sandy Deserts of Western Australia.

By 1987 Bruce was establishing the base for his doctoral research on the Mitchell Plateau, negotiating with Wunambal people at Mowanjum (near Derby) and Kalumburu. Enrolled at UWA, Bruce carried out eight months of Mitchell Plateau fieldwork funded by AIATSIS. During the following years, while working (usually part-time) on his Doctorate, Bruce tutored casually at UWA (1989), carried out surveys for the Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery (1990), worked as a Heritage Assessment Officer for the WA Department of Aboriginal Sites (1992) and then as Manager of the Port Hedland Department of Aboriginal Sites office (1993).

Between 1993 and 1996 Bruce worked as a Senior Archaeologist for the company Anthropos Australia Pty Ltd, engaging in studies in the southern Lake Eyre region, the Little Sandy Desert, the WA Goldfields and on the arid north-western coastline near Onslow.

In 1997 he established the company Archae-Aus Pty Ltd with Fiona Hook and Gavin Jackson. As their Senior Archaeologist he worked in the WA Goldfields, Western Desert, the Pilbara uplands, the Burrup Peninsula, north-western Queensland and arid South Australia. In 1998 he completed his first native title report--destined for eventual litigation--for an area of the WA Goldfields, and in 1999 carried out the expert witness report, Karajarri Native Title Claim, for the Kimberley Land Council. This claim saw native title awarded by the Federal Court in 2004. He was also the expert witness for the Wanjina/Wunggurr-Wilinggin Native Title Claim, again for the Kimberley Land Council, which was successfully determined in 2004.

In 2003 Bruce oversaw the archaeological salvage/ excavation program of the Stone Arrangements Relocation and Dating Program, for BHP Billiton Iron Ore, Marditja Bunjima and the Innawonga, Bunjima Nyapialri Aboriginal communities. This ambitious project saw the survey, excavation and dating with relevant traditional owners (via hundreds of OSL dates) of stone arrangements scheduled for impact. In 2004, when already ill, Bruce participated in the Indigenous, maritime and historical archaeological field reconnaissance of Barrow Island, with colleagues from the company, the WA Maritime Museum and UWA.

What is clear from this precis is that Bruce was engaged in an extraordinarily broad range of archaeological endeavours across Australia--all of which were carried out closely with custodial and traditional owner support and participation and which were supervised and written up to a satisfactory conclusion. In addition to these productions, and his peer-reviewed papers and chapters (some of which are listed at end), Bruce presented some 15 papers on all aspects of his research and consultancy activities at both domestic and international conferences.

Bruce's dedication to his friends and the profession will make him sorely missed. The loss to his family is immeasurable. The numerous mourners at his funeral filed past Bruce's coffin his iconic and severely battered Akubra placed jauntily at one end. Votives, in the form of Western Australian (South-West, Pilbara and Kimberley) shellfish, were symbolically offered, in recognition of a truly admirable person and career.

Peter Veth, Director of Research, AIATSIS

<Peter Veth@aiatsis.gov.au>

Main publications for bracken fern use, Mitchell Plateau and Pilbara research

Veitch, B 1994, 'Hearth stones in the mound: one variable that may aid in the differentiation between shell mounds and megapode incubation mounds', in M Sullivan, S Brockwell & C Webb (eds), Archaeology in the north, Proceedings of the 1993 AAA Conference, Darwin, NT, N.A.R.U. Press, Darwin, pp. 167-75.

--1996, 'Evidence for Mid Holocene change in the Mitchell Plateau, northwest Kimberley, Western Australia', in P Veth & P Hiscock (eds), Archaeology of northern Australia, Anthropology Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane (Tempus 4), pp. 66-89.

--1999a, 'Shell middens on the Mitchell Plateau, west Kimberley WA: a reflection of a wider phenomenon?' in J Hall & I McNiven (eds), Australian coastal archaeology, ANH Publications, Department of Archaeology and Natural History, RSPAS, Australian National University, Canberra, pp.51-64.

--1999b, 'What happened in the Mid Holocene? Archaeological investigations on the Mitchell Plateau, north-west Kimberley, Western Australia', Doctoral thesis, University of Western Australia.

--2002, 'Aspects of the use and fire management of bracken fern (Pteridium esculentum)', in D Georghui (ed.), Fire in archaeology: papers from a session held at the European Association of Archaeologists, Sixth Annual Meeting in Lisbon 2000, Archaeopress, Oxford (BAR International Series 1089), pp. 45-54.

Veitch, B, Hook, F & Bradshaw, E (in press), 'A note on radiocarbon dates from the Paraburdoo, Mount Brockman and Yandicoogina areas of the Hamersley Plateau, Pilbara, Western Australia', Australian Archaeology.