Mirani Litster
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 240616 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Mirani Litster |
| NOMBRES | Mirani |
| APELLIDO | Litster |
| FIRMA | LITSTER M |
| AFILIACIONES | Australian National University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0843-1628 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 23 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 108 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 22 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2007 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 7 |
Just data? Legacy issues, ethics and consent in publication
This Editorial is a reflection on some of the issues arising from the growing trend in archaeology to re-evaluate legacy collections and data. This trend has no doubt been driven (in part) by the d
Coercion and Pacification on the Frontier
The Native Mounted Police were a paramilitary organization that operated across Queensland, Australia during the nineteenth century. Archaeologically they are represented by numerous camp sites occupied for varying durations, from just a few weeks to several decades. Living in these camps were White officers and the Aboriginal troopers serving under them, accompanied by the female partners of the troopers and sometimes of the officer(s), and thei…
Other’ artefacts
[Extract] Fifty years ago, Australian archaeology was a young discipline operating under a sympathetic Whitlam Government, during a period of significant Aboriginal rights activism and heritage protection (Murray 1998). In August 1974, the World Heritage Convention was ratified and in the following year the Australian Heritage Commission and Register of the National Estate were created, raising the profile of historical and Indigenous heritage ac…
Beyond hinges and spires
Quantification, as one of the pillars of the zooarchaeological subdiscipline, is an invaluable component of the toolkit researchers use to study past people-animal interactions. Despite being the subject of rigorous (zoo)archaeological debate, the calculation of Minimum Number of Individuals (MNI) values remains one of the main methods of quantifying the relative abundance of taxa within faunal assemblages. Choosing the appropriate quantification…
When the Foreign Becomes Familiar
By investigating the materiality of colonial encounters, specifically the consumption of introduced commodities by Indigenous peoples, archaeologists can explore questions concerning value, agency, consumer choice and localization. This has the significant capacity to broaden understandings of intercultural encounters and challenge colonial narratives. Glass beads represent one of the earliest foreign material culture introductions to the Indigen…
New archaeological discoveries in north-central Timor-Leste indicate sociocultural adaptations to landscape change during the Holocene
During the Holocene, Wallacea saw dramatic sociocultural changes during the Pre-ceramic, Neolithic, Metal-age, and Colonial periods, as well as climatic and associated environmental changes that affected the landscapes and ecologies of islands. These environmental and cultural processes appear to have influenced human socioeconomic adaptations throughout the archipelago. Here, we present new anthropological and archaeological data demonstrating t…
Archaeology of the Waiat mysteries on Woeydhul Island in Western Torres Strait
Secret societies, involving restricted and hierarchically organised initiation rituals, are conspicuous in the chronicles of many past and present societies. These rarely leave a substantial written record and yet archaeology can provide vivid insight into past performances, for example in relation to Roman 'mystery cults'. Far less research, however, has focused on Australia and the Pacific Islands. This article presents archaeological evidence …
Glass Beads from Australian Indigenous Sites
Late Holocene coastal land-use, site formation and site survival
This paper introduces primary data on site contents, chronology and stratigraphy for four subsurface middens, which formed through the late Holocene on the Dampier Peninsula. Data from one surface midden collection are also presented. In this monsoonal coastal locality, variations in dune stability and sand flux are critical to archaeological site formation and preservation. Site specific factors determining sand sequestration into topsoils inter…
Human responses to the late Holocene freshwater transition on the northern coastal plains of the Alligator Rivers region in western Arnhem Land
Little is known about cultural change on the inlets of the northern subcoastal plains of the Alligator Rivers region during the transition period between sea-level highstand c.8,000 BP and the establishment of freshwater wetlands (c.2,000 BP to present). The research presented here begins to fill this gap by illustrating differences in Indigenous land-use at two sites only a few kilometres apart and both dating to c.1,000 years ago. Located on th…
Glass beads from Australian Indigenous sites
Maldivian Archaeology
The Archaeology of Portable Art
The development of complex cultural behaviour in our own species is perhaps the most significant research issue in modern archaeology. Until recently, it was believed that our capacity for language and art only developed after some of our ancestors reached Europe around 40,000 years ago. Archaeological discoveries in Africa now show that modern humans were practicing symbolic behaviours prior to their dispersal from that continent, and more recen…
Archaeology of Portable Art
Developing approaches for understanding Indigenous Australian glass bead use during the contact period
Research into Indigenous bead use in Australia has emphasised the use of organic materials, such as seeds, reeds, bone and shell, in contrast to recently introduced beads made from glass. Indigenous collections housed at both Australian and international institutions, however, contain material culture that incorporates glass beads, such as chokers, necklaces and biting bags, in addition to both archaeological finds and ethnographic photos that il…
Indigenous built structures and anthropogenic impacts on the stratigraphy of Northern Australian rockshelters
Malarrak 1 is currently the northernmost excavated rockshelter on the Australian mainland, located in the Wellington Range in north western Arnhem Land. The site contains a rich late Holocene deposit, with extensive contact rock art, stone artefacts, shell, bone, contact materials, ancestral human remains, and other cultural material. Excavation of the Malarrak 1 rockshelter and analysis of its sediments revealed many impacts on site formation pr…
The archaeology of Maliwawa
The archaeology of Bald Rock 1, Bald Rock 2 and Bald Rock 3 at the sandstone outcrop of Maliwawa has established ∼25,000 years of Indigenous occupation in the Wellington Range, northwestern Arnhem Land. Flaked stone artefacts were found from the beginning of the sequence, with ground-edge axes, pounding and grinding technology and ochre recovered from deposits dating from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the recent contact period. Maliwawa was o…
Is It Ritual? Or Is It Children? Distinguishing Consequences of Play from Ritual Actions in the Prehistoric Archaeological Record
This paper identifies a significant interpretive issue for prehistoric archaeology: distinguishing adult ritual actions from the activities of children in the archaeological record. Through examining ethnographic accounts of recent hunter-gatherer children and reconsidering archaeological patterns and assemblages in light of these data, we explore how the results of children's play can be-and likely have been-misinterpreted by archaeologists as e…
Symbols of Power
Depictions of firearms in Australian Aboriginal rock art provide a unique opportunity to archaeologically explore the roles that this type of material culture played in times of culture contact. From the earliest interactions with explorers to the buffalo shooting enterprises of the twentieth century—firearms played complex and shifting roles in western Arnhem Land Aboriginal societies. The site of Madjedbebe (sometimes referred to as Malakunanja…
Colonisation of Remote Oceania
The colonisation of the Mariana Islands in Western Micronesia is likely to represent a long‐distance ocean dispersal of more than 2000 km, and establishing the date of human arrival in the archipelago is important for modelling Neolithic expansion in Island South‐East Asia and the Pacific. In 2010, Clarket al. published a paper discussing a number of radiocarbon dates from the Bapot‐1 site on Saipan Island, but a disparity between charcoal and ma…
Small, individually nondescript and easily overlooked’ 1
This paper examines the interactions between Indigenous traditional owners, Macassan trepangers and European settlers in northwest Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. The recovery of an assemblage of beads from six archaeological sites within the Manganowal estate (Djulirri, Malarrak 1, Malarrak 4, Bald Rock 1, Bald Rock 2 and Bald Rock 3) in the Wellington Range, supports the case for the introduction of these items to Arnhem Land in the pre-Missio…
Looking for the proverbial needle? The archaeology of Australian colonial frontier massacres
Amongst other issues, the ‘History Wars’ raise the question as to whether or not sites of conflict on the Australian colonial frontier will be preserved in the archaeological record. We explore this question through a consideration of what the expected nature of any such evidence might be, based on general and specific historical accounts and an understanding of site formation processes. Although limited success has been achieved to date in locat…
Thesis Abstracts
Is It Ritual? Or Is It Children? Distinguishing Consequences of Play from Ritual Actions in the Prehistoric Archaeological Record
This paper identifies a significant interpretive issue for prehistoric archaeology: distinguishing adult ritual actions from the activities of children in the archaeological record. Through examining ethnographic accounts of recent hunter-gatherer children and reconsidering archaeological patterns and assemblages in light of these data, we explore how the results of children's play can be-and likely have been-misinterpreted by archaeologists as e…
Colonisation of Remote Oceania
The colonisation of the Mariana Islands in Western Micronesia is likely to represent a long‐distance ocean dispersal of more than 2000 km, and establishing the date of human arrival in the archipelago is important for modelling Neolithic expansion in Island South‐East Asia and the Pacific. In 2010, Clarket al. published a paper discussing a number of radiocarbon dates from the Bapot‐1 site on Saipan Island, but a disparity between charcoal and ma…
Looking for the proverbial needle? The archaeology of Australian colonial frontier massacres
Amongst other issues, the ‘History Wars’ raise the question as to whether or not sites of conflict on the Australian colonial frontier will be preserved in the archaeological record. We explore this question through a consideration of what the expected nature of any such evidence might be, based on general and specific historical accounts and an understanding of site formation processes. Although limited success has been achieved to date in locat…
The archaeology of Maliwawa
The archaeology of Bald Rock 1, Bald Rock 2 and Bald Rock 3 at the sandstone outcrop of Maliwawa has established ∼25,000 years of Indigenous occupation in the Wellington Range, northwestern Arnhem Land. Flaked stone artefacts were found from the beginning of the sequence, with ground-edge axes, pounding and grinding technology and ochre recovered from deposits dating from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the recent contact period. Maliwawa was o…
Small, individually nondescript and easily overlooked’ 1
This paper examines the interactions between Indigenous traditional owners, Macassan trepangers and European settlers in northwest Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. The recovery of an assemblage of beads from six archaeological sites within the Manganowal estate (Djulirri, Malarrak 1, Malarrak 4, Bald Rock 1, Bald Rock 2 and Bald Rock 3) in the Wellington Range, supports the case for the introduction of these items to Arnhem Land in the pre-Missio…
Indigenous built structures and anthropogenic impacts on the stratigraphy of Northern Australian rockshelters
Malarrak 1 is currently the northernmost excavated rockshelter on the Australian mainland, located in the Wellington Range in north western Arnhem Land. The site contains a rich late Holocene deposit, with extensive contact rock art, stone artefacts, shell, bone, contact materials, ancestral human remains, and other cultural material. Excavation of the Malarrak 1 rockshelter and analysis of its sediments revealed many impacts on site formation pr…
Symbols of Power
Depictions of firearms in Australian Aboriginal rock art provide a unique opportunity to archaeologically explore the roles that this type of material culture played in times of culture contact. From the earliest interactions with explorers to the buffalo shooting enterprises of the twentieth century—firearms played complex and shifting roles in western Arnhem Land Aboriginal societies. The site of Madjedbebe (sometimes referred to as Malakunanja…
New archaeological discoveries in north-central Timor-Leste indicate sociocultural adaptations to landscape change during the Holocene
During the Holocene, Wallacea saw dramatic sociocultural changes during the Pre-ceramic, Neolithic, Metal-age, and Colonial periods, as well as climatic and associated environmental changes that affected the landscapes and ecologies of islands. These environmental and cultural processes appear to have influenced human socioeconomic adaptations throughout the archipelago. Here, we present new anthropological and archaeological data demonstrating t…
Archaeology of the Waiat mysteries on Woeydhul Island in Western Torres Strait
Secret societies, involving restricted and hierarchically organised initiation rituals, are conspicuous in the chronicles of many past and present societies. These rarely leave a substantial written record and yet archaeology can provide vivid insight into past performances, for example in relation to Roman 'mystery cults'. Far less research, however, has focused on Australia and the Pacific Islands. This article presents archaeological evidence …
Late Holocene coastal land-use, site formation and site survival
This paper introduces primary data on site contents, chronology and stratigraphy for four subsurface middens, which formed through the late Holocene on the Dampier Peninsula. Data from one surface midden collection are also presented. In this monsoonal coastal locality, variations in dune stability and sand flux are critical to archaeological site formation and preservation. Site specific factors determining sand sequestration into topsoils inter…
Human responses to the late Holocene freshwater transition on the northern coastal plains of the Alligator Rivers region in western Arnhem Land
Little is known about cultural change on the inlets of the northern subcoastal plains of the Alligator Rivers region during the transition period between sea-level highstand c.8,000 BP and the establishment of freshwater wetlands (c.2,000 BP to present). The research presented here begins to fill this gap by illustrating differences in Indigenous land-use at two sites only a few kilometres apart and both dating to c.1,000 years ago. Located on th…
When the Foreign Becomes Familiar
By investigating the materiality of colonial encounters, specifically the consumption of introduced commodities by Indigenous peoples, archaeologists can explore questions concerning value, agency, consumer choice and localization. This has the significant capacity to broaden understandings of intercultural encounters and challenge colonial narratives. Glass beads represent one of the earliest foreign material culture introductions to the Indigen…
Thesis Abstracts
Looking for the proverbial needle? The archaeology of Australian colonial frontier massacres
Amongst other issues, the ‘History Wars’ raise the question as to whether or not sites of conflict on the Australian colonial frontier will be preserved in the archaeological record. We explore this question through a consideration of what the expected nature of any such evidence might be, based on general and specific historical accounts and an understanding of site formation processes. Although limited success has been achieved to date in locat…
Small, individually nondescript and easily overlooked’ 1
This paper examines the interactions between Indigenous traditional owners, Macassan trepangers and European settlers in northwest Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. The recovery of an assemblage of beads from six archaeological sites within the Manganowal estate (Djulirri, Malarrak 1, Malarrak 4, Bald Rock 1, Bald Rock 2 and Bald Rock 3) in the Wellington Range, supports the case for the introduction of these items to Arnhem Land in the pre-Missio…
Symbols of Power
Depictions of firearms in Australian Aboriginal rock art provide a unique opportunity to archaeologically explore the roles that this type of material culture played in times of culture contact. From the earliest interactions with explorers to the buffalo shooting enterprises of the twentieth century—firearms played complex and shifting roles in western Arnhem Land Aboriginal societies. The site of Madjedbebe (sometimes referred to as Malakunanja…
Colonisation of Remote Oceania
The colonisation of the Mariana Islands in Western Micronesia is likely to represent a long‐distance ocean dispersal of more than 2000 km, and establishing the date of human arrival in the archipelago is important for modelling Neolithic expansion in Island South‐East Asia and the Pacific. In 2010, Clarket al. published a paper discussing a number of radiocarbon dates from the Bapot‐1 site on Saipan Island, but a disparity between charcoal and ma…
The Archaeology of Portable Art
The development of complex cultural behaviour in our own species is perhaps the most significant research issue in modern archaeology. Until recently, it was believed that our capacity for language and art only developed after some of our ancestors reached Europe around 40,000 years ago. Archaeological discoveries in Africa now show that modern humans were practicing symbolic behaviours prior to their dispersal from that continent, and more recen…
Archaeology of Portable Art
Developing approaches for understanding Indigenous Australian glass bead use during the contact period
Research into Indigenous bead use in Australia has emphasised the use of organic materials, such as seeds, reeds, bone and shell, in contrast to recently introduced beads made from glass. Indigenous collections housed at both Australian and international institutions, however, contain material culture that incorporates glass beads, such as chokers, necklaces and biting bags, in addition to both archaeological finds and ethnographic photos that il…
Indigenous built structures and anthropogenic impacts on the stratigraphy of Northern Australian rockshelters
Malarrak 1 is currently the northernmost excavated rockshelter on the Australian mainland, located in the Wellington Range in north western Arnhem Land. The site contains a rich late Holocene deposit, with extensive contact rock art, stone artefacts, shell, bone, contact materials, ancestral human remains, and other cultural material. Excavation of the Malarrak 1 rockshelter and analysis of its sediments revealed many impacts on site formation pr…
The archaeology of Maliwawa
The archaeology of Bald Rock 1, Bald Rock 2 and Bald Rock 3 at the sandstone outcrop of Maliwawa has established ∼25,000 years of Indigenous occupation in the Wellington Range, northwestern Arnhem Land. Flaked stone artefacts were found from the beginning of the sequence, with ground-edge axes, pounding and grinding technology and ochre recovered from deposits dating from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the recent contact period. Maliwawa was o…
Is It Ritual? Or Is It Children? Distinguishing Consequences of Play from Ritual Actions in the Prehistoric Archaeological Record
This paper identifies a significant interpretive issue for prehistoric archaeology: distinguishing adult ritual actions from the activities of children in the archaeological record. Through examining ethnographic accounts of recent hunter-gatherer children and reconsidering archaeological patterns and assemblages in light of these data, we explore how the results of children's play can be-and likely have been-misinterpreted by archaeologists as e…
Glass beads from Australian Indigenous sites
Maldivian Archaeology
Glass Beads from Australian Indigenous Sites
Late Holocene coastal land-use, site formation and site survival
This paper introduces primary data on site contents, chronology and stratigraphy for four subsurface middens, which formed through the late Holocene on the Dampier Peninsula. Data from one surface midden collection are also presented. In this monsoonal coastal locality, variations in dune stability and sand flux are critical to archaeological site formation and preservation. Site specific factors determining sand sequestration into topsoils inter…
Human responses to the late Holocene freshwater transition on the northern coastal plains of the Alligator Rivers region in western Arnhem Land
Little is known about cultural change on the inlets of the northern subcoastal plains of the Alligator Rivers region during the transition period between sea-level highstand c.8,000 BP and the establishment of freshwater wetlands (c.2,000 BP to present). The research presented here begins to fill this gap by illustrating differences in Indigenous land-use at two sites only a few kilometres apart and both dating to c.1,000 years ago. Located on th…
Archaeology of the Waiat mysteries on Woeydhul Island in Western Torres Strait
Secret societies, involving restricted and hierarchically organised initiation rituals, are conspicuous in the chronicles of many past and present societies. These rarely leave a substantial written record and yet archaeology can provide vivid insight into past performances, for example in relation to Roman 'mystery cults'. Far less research, however, has focused on Australia and the Pacific Islands. This article presents archaeological evidence …
New archaeological discoveries in north-central Timor-Leste indicate sociocultural adaptations to landscape change during the Holocene
During the Holocene, Wallacea saw dramatic sociocultural changes during the Pre-ceramic, Neolithic, Metal-age, and Colonial periods, as well as climatic and associated environmental changes that affected the landscapes and ecologies of islands. These environmental and cultural processes appear to have influenced human socioeconomic adaptations throughout the archipelago. Here, we present new anthropological and archaeological data demonstrating t…
Coercion and Pacification on the Frontier
The Native Mounted Police were a paramilitary organization that operated across Queensland, Australia during the nineteenth century. Archaeologically they are represented by numerous camp sites occupied for varying durations, from just a few weeks to several decades. Living in these camps were White officers and the Aboriginal troopers serving under them, accompanied by the female partners of the troopers and sometimes of the officer(s), and thei…
Other’ artefacts
[Extract] Fifty years ago, Australian archaeology was a young discipline operating under a sympathetic Whitlam Government, during a period of significant Aboriginal rights activism and heritage protection (Murray 1998). In August 1974, the World Heritage Convention was ratified and in the following year the Australian Heritage Commission and Register of the National Estate were created, raising the profile of historical and Indigenous heritage ac…
Beyond hinges and spires
Quantification, as one of the pillars of the zooarchaeological subdiscipline, is an invaluable component of the toolkit researchers use to study past people-animal interactions. Despite being the subject of rigorous (zoo)archaeological debate, the calculation of Minimum Number of Individuals (MNI) values remains one of the main methods of quantifying the relative abundance of taxa within faunal assemblages. Choosing the appropriate quantification…
When the Foreign Becomes Familiar
By investigating the materiality of colonial encounters, specifically the consumption of introduced commodities by Indigenous peoples, archaeologists can explore questions concerning value, agency, consumer choice and localization. This has the significant capacity to broaden understandings of intercultural encounters and challenge colonial narratives. Glass beads represent one of the earliest foreign material culture introductions to the Indigen…
Just data? Legacy issues, ethics and consent in publication
This Editorial is a reflection on some of the issues arising from the growing trend in archaeology to re-evaluate legacy collections and data. This trend has no doubt been driven (in part) by the d
Archaeology (18 obras) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (17 obras) · Geography (13 obras) · History (10 obras) · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies (10 obras) · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies (8 obras) · Ecology (7 obras) · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies (7 obras) · Indigenous (7 obras) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (7 obras)