Search

In 2010, Elders from Mapoon watched "Time Team" and saw ground‐penetrating radar (GPR) and other non‐invasive scientific methods being used to identify cultural features on archaeological sites. This led Elders to express their desire for such techniques, particularly GPR, to be brought on country to assist with documenting and protecting cultural heritage sites. This paper explores how Mapoon families have employed these techniques in archaeological settings to reconnect and reimagine specific features in their cultural landscape, as well as to explore, create and renew narratives from their interpretations of the results from the project. We also investigate the nature of Traditional Owner interactions with these technologies in archaeological settings to understand their impact on how cultural identity and value are recreated and renewed, on "caring for country" programmes, and on modernising culturally appropriate forms of engagement with ancestors' remains. We apply these findings to a discussion of how Mapoon people think about their cultural history, identity and connections to country, particularly in relation to mortuary practices and settlement patterns from pre‐contact to the "mission time". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ground‐penetrating radar (GPR) and magnetic surveys were conducted on 13 earth mounds within Mapoon Aboriginal Lands, western Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. Detailed analysis of GPR profiles and amplitude maps of the mounds were compared to those from previously recorded, known burials at the Mapoon Mission Cemetery. Based on these models, burials were identified in ten of the 13 mounds. Both European‐style (coffin) and traditional burials were identified, suggesting that they were used for human interment for some time and that there may have been continuity of burial practice in these features after European contact. GPR and magnetics also indicate that a number of mounds had constructed floors or platforms at the base of the mounds, and evidence for burning. Stratigraphic layers identified with GPR show that many of these mounds have complex internal layering, suggesting multiple building episodes. Based on the GPR and magnetics results, in conjunction with ethnohistorical and oral history research, we conclude that the mounds are constructed features that appear to have had a long history of use for multiple purposes, including mortuary. These results demonstrate the cultural continuity of mortuary practices within Mapoon from pre‐contact times to the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A robust 3-D GPR dataset provides interpreters with a variety of methods for extracting important information at buried archaeological sites. An iterative approach that uses reflection profile analysis, amplitude slice-mapping, and often both in conjunction is often necessary as neither method by itself is sufficient. In northern Australia, two constructed mounds contain a number of cultural and geological horizons and features, which can be imaged with GPR. The reflection profiles display the modified ground surface prior to mound construction and some initial construction layers. On the pre-mound surface, amplitude maps of reflective layers that were built-up on the ground surface indicate that they were constructed in an intentional manner. Those surfaces were later covered by sand to produce mounds used for human burial. Human internments in the mound can only be seen in reflection profiles, but once discovered, the profiles can be re-sliced to produce high definition amplitude images of these remains. No one method of analysis can provide an overall interpretation of these complex internal mound features. When the methods are varied, depending on the results of one method, a detailed and varied analysis of certain aspects of the mounds' internal features are visible, leading to the generation of a number of hypotheses about how this area of northern Australia was used in the past. The 3-D data from GPR shows that this area was an important location on the landscape in the past, and was modified by the construction of a monumental mound, which was then used for human burials, and more recently, the construction of what was likely a ritual enclosure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]