Investigating the role and significance of heritage and protecting it for the future
The interests of this research theme are captured in an article co-authored by the theme leaders for the open access journal Heritage. In the article, 'New and emerging challenges to heritage and well-being: a critical review', Professors Paul Taçon and Sarah Baker consider how, in the past decade or so, scholarship has documented the ways in which interacting with different forms of heritage impact individual and/or community well-being, as well as the harm to human well-being that occurs when heritage is damaged or destroyed. As the article abstract states: 'We bring the results of a review of this literature together, defining both heritage and well-being in relation to each other and exploring the relationship between heritage and well-being. New and emerging threats to heritage and, in turn, well-being are outlined, as well as new ways of preserving heritage for future generations. The future of heritage is discussed along with the importance of the concept of "living heritage". We conclude that heritage is essential for contemporary and future well-being, and that if we do not better care for heritage then human health will be negatively impacted."
Theme leaders: Professor Paul Taçon and Professor Sarah Baker
Our research
This research theme draws together academics working in diverse areas to develop new research projects on the role and significance of heritage in the contemporary world, as well as new ways to protect and present it for future generations.
Potential projects in this theme include an interrogation of the connections between heritage and well-being in varied settings such as Indigenous heritage sites and community institutions involved in preserving popular culture; and connections between heritage, place and memory in increasing understandings of the construction of identity at local, national and international levels. Research in this theme has a strong focus on Indigenous rock art and preserving cultural heritage. Strengths lie in the community-led nature of the projects, working and engaging directly with communities throughout each project stage. This research informs cultural policy development with a focus on both tangible and intangible heritage.
Place, Evolution and Rock Art Heritage Unit
The Place, Evolution and Rock Art Heritage Unit (PERAHU) plays a vital role in this research stream, linking Griffith staff and students to a highly collaborative international network of researchers and Indigenous peoples undertaking innovative visual, symbolic, landscape and cultural evolution research across Australasia. PERAHU’s vision is to advance global knowledge about human cultural evolution during the past 50,000 years and to highlight the importance of rock pictures as datasets that provide unique insights into the past, especially since the end of Pleistocene.
Aboriginal Rock Art and Cultural Heritage Management in the Sandstone Country of Southeast Cape York Peninsula
The Laura Sandstone Basin of Cape York Peninsula hosts one of the richest bodies of rock art in Australia and the world, documenting the life-ways of generations of Aboriginal Australians from their original settlement, through major environmental changes, to European invasion. This vast area, much of which is now jointly managed as National Parks by Traditional Owners, remains virtually unexplored archaeologically. With a team of ten researchers from six universities working alongside six Industry Partners, this project will record the unique rock art and archaeology of Cape York Peninsula. This will provide a framework for sustainable management of this unique cultural heritage so it endures for future generations. Findings from the project may have profound implications for our understandings of the cultural behaviour and dispersal of the earliest modern humans to colonise Australia.
ARC DECRA recipient
Dr Jillian Huntley has been awarded $468,027 for her 2022 ARC Discovery Early Career Research Award project "Colour change: Artistic/ritual responses to climate flux in Australasia." Jillian will seek to understand people’s use of art and ritual in the most climatically dynamic region on Earth.
ARC Future Fellowship recipients
Dr Sally May has been awarded an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship worth $961,139.00 in 2021 for her project titled "Painting Country: the life and legacy of western Arnhem Land rock painters." Her project, working closely with traditional owners and their communities, will generate new understandings of Australia’s past by exploring the lives of Aboriginal rock art artists.
Human evolutionary biologist Professor Tanya Smith has been awarded an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship worth $1,075,728 in 2020 to investigate prehistoric human population growth by analysing the teeth of ancient children. Her Future Fellowship project aims to investigate prehistoric human population growth by documenting nursing behaviour, developmental stress, and fine-scaled climate variation directly from the teeth of ancient children.
ARC Laureate Fellowship recipient
Professor Paul Taçon, Griffith’s chair of Rock Art Research, and director of the Place, Evolution and Rock Art Heritage Unit, was awarded a $2.5 million 2016 Australian Laureate Fellowship by the Australian Research Council for the project ‘Australian Rock Art History, Conservation and Indigenous Well-being’.
ARC projects
Wright D, Clark G, Huntley J. 'Waiet: Archaeology of a Torres Strait Islander ritual pathway' ARC-DP210102739 (2021-2024) (Value $342,871)
Smith T, Williams I, Green D. 'Constructing robust climate proxies to explore human and primate evolution' ARC-DP210101913 (2021-2023) (Value $349,765)
May, S.K., Tacon, P., Brady, L., Wesley, D., Rademaker, L., Jalandoni, A., Taylor, L., Goldhahn, J. 'Art at a crossroads: Aboriginal responses to contact in Northern Australia' ARC-SR200200062 (2021-2023) (Value $273,828)
Baker, S., Cantillon, Z. 'Reimagining Norfolk Island’s Kingston and Arthur’s Vale Historic Area' ARC-SR200200711 (2021-2023) (Value $229,108)
Wallis, LA., Burke, H., Griffiths, B., Hadnutt, N., Wall, V. ‘Fugitive Traces: Reconstructing Yulluna experiences of the frontier’ ARC- SRI200200157 (2021-2023) (Value $263,414)
Wallis, LA., Burke, H., Huntley, J., Osborn, J., Barker, B., Aubert, M., Jones, T., Spooner, N., Cole, N. ‘Aboriginal rock art and cultural heritage management in Cape York Peninsula’ ARC-LP190100194 (2020-2025)(Value $1,342,000)
Taçon, P., May, S., Brady, L., Wright, D., Goldhahn, J., Sanz, ID. ‘ History Places: Wellington Range rock art in a global context’. ARC-DP160101832 (2016 – 2018). Total funding amount $490,100.
Baker, S. ‘Do-it-yourself popular music archives: an international comparative study of volunteer-run institutions that preserve popular music’s material culture.’ ARC-DP130100317 (2013-2015). Total amount funding $272,000.