The exhumation of Yagan's head was the result of a geophysical survey and archaeological dig at a grave site in the Everton Cemetery, Liverpool in 1997. Yagan was an Aboriginal Australian warrior who was murdered in 1833 by British colonists, because of his resistance to the colonial British settlements in the Swan River Colony in Western Australia.
Yagan was an Aboriginal Australian warrior of the Noongar nation who played a key part in early indigenous resistance to European settlement and rule around the area of Perth, Western Australia. He was shot dead by a young settler, James Keates in 1833. Yagan's head was removed, preserved by smoking, and taken to England by Robert Dale, who gave it to the Liverpool Institute for display in a museum. [1]
By 1964, Yagan's head was badly decomposed, and the decision was made to dispose of it. The head was placed in a plywood box, along with a Peruvian mummy and a Māori head, and buried in Everton Cemetery's General Section 16, grave number 296. In later years, a number of burials were made around the grave, and in 1968 a local hospital buried 20 stillborn babies and two babies who had lived less than twenty-four hours, directly over the museum box. [2]
For many years, members of Perth's Noongar community sought to have Yagan's head returned and buried according to tribal custom. An application for exhumation of the head was made in 1994, but it was refused because next of kin permission to disturb the remains of the twenty-two babies could not be obtained. [2]
In 1997, two brothers, Martin Bates of the University of Wales, Lampeter and Richard Bates of the University of St Andrews, were commissioned by the Home Office to conduct a geophysical survey of the grave site, with a view to exhuming the remains via an adjacent plot without disturbing any other remains. [2]
The pair conducted surface surveys using ground penetrating radar and ground conductivity techniques. The ground penetrating radar yielded no information about the location of Yagan's head, as the highly disturbed graveyard soil contained many reflecting sources. However, the ground conductivity measurements showed an anomaly in the electromagnetic signature that it was thought might be caused by metal artifacts buried with the head. The apparent location of the remains confirmed the feasibility of accessing them via an adjacent plot. [3] [4]
A pit was then dug in an adjacent plot, to a depth of around 1.8 metres (6 ft), and a vertical ground conductivity test was conducted from within the pit. This test failed to detect the anomaly recorded in the surface test, however the conductivity plot did show an anomaly at the centre of the grave, indicating that the grave was dug to its full depth of 2.7 metres (9 ft) only at its centre. This suggested the burial of a small box, confirming the memory of the grave digger who claimed to have constructed a small box to house the buried remains. [3] [4]
After gathering evidence on the position and depth of Yagan's head, Bates reported the survey results to the Home Office, which eventually granted permission to proceed with the exhumation. Yagan's head was exhumed by tunnelling horizontally into the grave from the adjacent pit. The tunneling operation was "delicate and risky", as the tunnel passed underneath the remains of the babies, such that any collapse could potentially disturb them. According to Richard Bates, "the first shovel of dirt from the grave showed signs of the decayed box and the Peruvian mummy came next followed by the Māori head and finally Yagan's head". [3] [4]
The following day, a forensic palaeontologist from the University of Bradford positively identified the skull as Yagan's, by correlating the fractures with those described in an 1834 report by Thomas Pettigrew. [2]
Later that year, Yagan's head was handed over to a delegation of Noongars, who took it back to Australia. Reburial of the head was delayed, however, due to uncertainty of the whereabouts of the rest of his body and disagreement by elders about the importance of burying the head with the body. [2] They finally buried it in July 2010, in a traditional Noongar ceremony in the Swan Valley in Western Australia, 177 years after Yagan's death. [5]
Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objects in it, and covering it over. A funeral is a ceremony that accompanies the final disposition. Evidence suggests that some archaic and early modern humans buried their dead. Burial is often seen as indicating respect for the dead. It has been used to prevent the odor of decay, to give family members closure and prevent them from witnessing the decomposition of their loved ones, and in many cultures it has been seen as a necessary step for the deceased to enter the afterlife or to give back to the cycle of life.
The Noongar are Aboriginal Australian people who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the south coast. There are 14 different groups in the Noongar cultural bloc: Amangu, Ballardong, Yued, Kaneang, Koreng, Mineng, Njakinjaki, Njunga, Pibelmen, Pindjarup, Wadandi, Whadjuk, Wiilman and Wudjari. The Noongar people refer to their land as Noongar boodja.
Yagan was an Aboriginal Australian warrior from the Noongar people. Yagan was pursued by the local authorities after he killed Erin Entwhistle, a servant of farmer Archibald Butler. It was an act of retaliation after Thomas Smedley, another of Butler's servants, shot at a group of Noongar people stealing potatoes and fowls, killing one of them. The government offered a bounty for Yagan's capture, dead or alive, and a young settler, William Keats, shot and killed him. He is considered a legendary figure by the Noongar.
Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a geophysical method that uses radar pulses to image the subsurface. It is a non-intrusive method of surveying the sub-surface to investigate underground utilities such as concrete, asphalt, metals, pipes, cables or masonry. This nondestructive method uses electromagnetic radiation in the microwave band of the radio spectrum, and detects the reflected signals from subsurface structures. GPR can have applications in a variety of media, including rock, soil, ice, fresh water, pavements and structures. In the right conditions, practitioners can use GPR to detect subsurface objects, changes in material properties, and voids and cracks.
Everton Cemetery, in Long Lane, Fazakerley, Liverpool, opened in July 1880.
Jandamarra or Tjandamurra, known to European settlers as Pigeon, was an Aboriginal Australian man of the Bunuba people who led one of many organised armed insurrections against the European colonisation of Australia. Initially employed as a tracker for the police, he became a fugitive when he was forced to capture his own people. He led a three-year campaign against police and European settlers, achieving legendary status for his hit and run tactics and his abilities to hide and disappear. Jandamarra was eventually killed by another tracker at Tunnel Creek on 1 April 1897. His body was buried by his family at the Napier Range, where it was placed inside a boab tree. Jandamarra's life has been the subject of two novels, Ion Idriess's Outlaws of the Leopold (1952) and Mudrooroo's Long Live Sandawarra (1972), a non-fiction account based on oral tradition, Jandamurra and the Bunuba Resistance, and a stage play.
Alas Poor Yagan is an editorial cartoon created by Dean Alston and published in the Australian newspaper The West Australian on 6 September 1997. The cartoon, consisting of eight panels featuring Noongar activist Ken Colbung and three Indigenous Australian children, sparked controversy due to its content, leading to a racial discrimination complaint lodged with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The commission ruled that while the cartoon made inappropriate references to Noongar beliefs, it did not violate the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. The commission's ruling, which found the cartoon to be an "artistic work" published "reasonably and in good faith", has been the subject of academic debate, with some commentators expressing concern about the broad interpretation of the exemption provided under the Racial Discrimination Act. This decision was upheld upon appeal to the Federal Court of Australia.
Lieutenant Robert Dale was the first European explorer to cross the Darling Range in Western Australia.
Midgegooroo was an Aboriginal Australian elder of the Nyungar nation, who played a key role in Aboriginal resistance to white settlement in the area of Perth, Western Australia. Everything documented about Midgegooroo is mediated through the eyes of the colonisers, some of whom, notably G.F. Moore, Robert Menli Lyon and Francis Armstrong, derived their information from discussions with contemporary Noongar people, in particular the son of Midgegooroo, Yagan. Largely due to his exploits in opposing colonisation and his relationship with Lyon and Moore, Yagan has a much sharper historical profile than his father. Midgegooroo was executed by firing squad and without trial under the authority of Lieutenant Governor Frederick Irwin in 1833.
Kenneth Desmond Colbung AM MBE, also known by his indigenous name Nundjan Djiridjarkan, was an Aboriginal Australian leader from the Noongar people who became prominent in the 1960s. He was appointed an MBE and an AM for his service to the Aboriginal community.
Whadjuk, alternatively Witjari, are Noongar people of the Western Australian region of the Perth bioregion of the Swan Coastal Plain.
The Pinjarra massacre, also known as the Battle of Pinjarra, occurred on 28 October 1834 in Pinjarra, Western Australia when a group of Binjareb Noongar people were attacked by a detachment of 25 soldiers, police, and settlers led by Governor James Stirling. According to Stirling, "about 60 or 70" of the Binjareb people were present at the camp and John Roe, who also participated, estimated about 70–80. This roughly agrees with an estimate of 70 by an unidentified eyewitness. The attack at Pinjarra was in response to sustained aggression by the Binjarebs, including robberies and murder of settlers and members of other Nyungar tribes.
The Koreng, also spelled Goreng, are an indigenous Noongar people of south-west of Western Australia.
Mokare was a Noongar Aboriginal man from the south-west corner of Australia, who was pivotal in aiding European exploration of the area.
This is a timeline of Aboriginal history of Western Australia.
Panoramic View of King George's Sound, Part of the Colony of Swan River is a panoramic hand-coloured print published in 1834 by Robert Havell, based on sketches by Robert Dale.
The Myles Standish Burial Ground in Duxbury, Massachusetts is, according to the American Cemetery Association, the oldest maintained cemetery in the United States.
The repatriation and reburial of human remains is a current issue in archaeology and museum management on the holding of human remains. Between the descendant-source community and anthropologists, there are a variety of opinions on whether or not the remains should be repatriated. There are numerous case studies across the globe of human remains that have been or still need to be repatriated.
Reading Old Cemetery is situated in the eastern part of Reading, Berkshire, England. It is located immediately to the east of Cemetery Junction, a major road junction in Reading. The cemetery is Grade II listed.
Near-surface geophysics is the use of geophysical methods to investigate small-scale features in the shallow subsurface. It is closely related to applied geophysics or exploration geophysics. Methods used include seismic refraction and reflection, gravity, magnetic, electric, and electromagnetic methods. Many of these methods were developed for oil and mineral exploration but are now used for a great variety of applications, including archaeology, environmental science, forensic science, military intelligence, geotechnical investigation, treasure hunting, and hydrogeology. In addition to the practical applications, near-surface geophysics includes the study of biogeochemical cycles.