Heather Burke | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1966 (age 57–58) |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of New England |
| Thesis | Investments of Meaning: An Archaeology of Style, Social Identity, Capitalism and Ideology in a Nineteenth Century Australian Town |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | Flinders University |
Heather Burke FAHA (born 1966) is an Australian historical archaeologist and a professor in the College of Humanities,Arts and Social Sciences at Flinders University. [1]
Burke attended Mount Cotton State School and Marymount College (Gold Coast,Queensland). Burke obtained a bachelor's degree in archaeology from the University of New England in 1987,and a PhD from the same university in 1997. Her doctoral thesis investigated the expression of ideology through architectural style in the city of Armidale,New South Wales,during the period 1830–1930. It was published in 1999 as Meaning and Ideology in Historical Archaeology. [2]
Heather Burke was born at the Mater Hospital,Brisbane,to Roma Burke (née Dean),formally Askew,and Peter Burke in 1966. She is the youngest of four children;Terry,Lyndell and Robyn.
In a 2022 interview with Emily Kessel,Burke emphasised how she 'looks forward' to one of her family's traditions,watching Sharknado every Christmas in North Queensland. [3]
In her earlier life,Burke found an interest in the area of archaeology and pursued it as a PhD.
After completing her PhD,Burke worked in consulting archaeology,having previously taught briefly at the University of New England. She was subsequently employed within the archaeology program at Flinders University,where she is currently a professor.
From 2011 to 2015,she was the co-editor of the journal Australian Archaeology . [4]
Burke has called for improving graduate programs in archaeology to better prepare students for positions outside of academic research. [5] Together with Claire Smith,in 2004 she published the first edition of The Archaeologist's Field Handbook, a standard manual for teaching archaeological field methods,which was revised and expanded for a second edition in 2017 (the latter published with Michael Morrison). [6] Burke and Claire Smith were recipients of the 2004 Vice Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching (Team Award). [7]
As an archaeologist,Burke spends her time in laboratory-based classes,lecture-based classes,helping students design research projects,or spending long periods of time in various parts of Australia. Burke spends a significant portion in the field,searching for and recording artefacts and sites,excavating sites,and recording contemporary oral histories about why places are important to people today. [8]
Burke starred in the 2022 SBS documentary,"The Australian Wars",to present her knowledge on the frontier wars in early Australian history. [9]
Burke's current research focuses primarily on processes of contact and colonialism on the Australian frontier. She is a chief investigator of the ARC-funded project "Archaeology of the Native Mounted Police",which is investigating the experience of life in the Queensland NMP,Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal memories of the NMP,and the institution's history and development. [10] She is also part of the team (which includes the Western Cape Communities Central Sub-Regional Trust (Weipa) and the Queensland Museum) studying Indigenous foodways in the Cape York Peninsula,Far North Queensland. [11] [12]
She was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2021. [13]
Burke is involved as an investigator in multiple active grants,recorded by The Australian Research Council (ARC). [14] The project "Slow" Digitisation,Community Heritage and the Objects of Martindale Hall' commenced on 1 October 2020 and is anticipated to end 30 September 2023. [15] By utilising knowledge on Martindale Hall,SA,and the historically significant objects it contains,the investigation will focus on how community history,heritage,and cultural collections can be better preserved and made accessible through slow digitisation techniques. A concurrent project,'Fugitive Traces:Reconstructing Yulluna Experiences of the Frontier (2021-2024), [16] is a collaboration of Indigenous peoples,archaeologists,historians,anthropologists,museum curators and educators to create the first sustained history of a hitherto elusive Aboriginal experience of the frontier. It uses oral histories of a prominent Aboriginal family whose history is involved with the Queensland Native Mounted Police. A third project,'Aboriginal Rock Art and Cultural Heritage Management in Cape York Peninsula' (2020-2025) [17] documents generations of Aboriginal Australians from their original settlement,through major environmental changes,to European invasion through the analysis of rock art in the Laura Sandstone Basin of Cape York Peninsula.
Books
Journal Articles
Cape York Peninsula is a peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest wilderness in northern Australia. The land is mostly flat and about half of the area is used for grazing cattle. The relatively undisturbed eucalyptus-wooded savannahs, tropical rainforests and other types of habitat are now recognised and preserved for their global environmental significance. Although much of the peninsula remains pristine, with a diverse repertoire of endemic flora and fauna, some of its wildlife may be threatened by industry and overgrazing as well as introduced species and weeds.
Weipa is a coastal mining town in the local government area of Weipa Town in Queensland. It is one of the largest towns on the Cape York Peninsula. It exists because of the enormous bauxite deposits along the coast. The Port of Weipa is mainly involved in exports of bauxite. There are also shipments of live cattle from the port.
Norman Barnett Tindale AO was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist. He is best remembered for his work mapping the various tribal groupings of Aboriginal Australians at the time of European settlement, shown in his map published in 1940. This map provided the basis of a map published by David Horton in 1996 and widely used in its online form today. Tindale's major work was Aboriginal Tribes of Australia: Their terrain, Environmental Controls, Distribution, Limits and Proper Names (1974).
Australian archaeology is a large sub-field in the discipline of archaeology. Archaeology in Australia takes four main forms: Aboriginal archaeology, historical archaeology, maritime archaeology and the archaeology of the contemporary past. Bridging these sub-disciplines is the important concept of cultural heritage management, which encompasses Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sites, historical sites, and maritime sites.
The Las Palmas complex is an archaeological pattern recognized primarily on the basis of mortuary customs in the Cape region of Baja California Sur, Mexico.
Captain Matthew Flinders was a British navigator and cartographer who led the first inshore circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then called New Holland. He is also credited as being the first person to utilise the name Australia to describe the entirety of that continent including Van Diemen's Land, a title he regarded as being "more agreeable to the ear" than previous names such as Terra Australis.
Roger Llewellyn Dunmore Cribb was an Australian archaeologist and anthropologist who specialised in documenting and modelling spatial patterns and social organisation of nomadic peoples. He is noted for conducting early fieldwork amongst the nomadic pastoralists of Anatolia, Turkey; writing a book on the archaeology of these nomads; pioneering Australian archaeology and anthropologies' use of geographical information systems, plus genealogical software; and conducting later fieldwork documenting the cultural landscapes of the Aboriginal peoples of Cape York Peninsula.
The Gulf Country or North West Queensland is the region of woodland and savanna grassland surrounding the Gulf of Carpentaria in north western Queensland and eastern Northern Territory on the north coast of Australia. The region is also called the Gulf Savannah. The Gulf Country is crossed by the Savannah Way highway.
Claire Smith, is an Australian archaeologist specialising in Indigenous archaeology, symbolic communication and rock art. She was dean (research) of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Flinders University in 2017-2018 and, before that, head of the Department of Archaeology. She was president of the World Archaeological Congress from 2003 to 2014. Among her many publications is the Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology.
The American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land remains one of the most significant, most ambitious and least understood expeditions. Commenced in February 1948, it was one of the largest scientific expeditions to have taken place in Australia and was conducted by a team of Australian and American researchers and support staff.
The Colony of Queensland was a colony of the British Empire from 1859 to 1901, when it became a State in the federal Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. At its greatest extent, the colony included the present-day State of Queensland, the Territory of Papua and the Coral Sea Islands Territory.
Alice Gorman is an Australian archaeologist, heritage consultant, and lecturer, who is best known for pioneering work in the field of space archaeology and her Space Age Archaeology blog. Based at Flinders University, she is an expert in Indigenous stone tool analysis, but better known for her research into the archaeology of orbital debris, terrestrial launch sites, and satellite tracking stations. Gorman teaches modern material culture studies, cultural heritage management, and Australian stone tools. Gorman is also a founding member of the Archaeology, Science and Heritage Council of For All Moonkind, Inc., a nonprofit organisation developing and seeking to implement an international convention to protect human cultural heritage in outer space.
The Dingaal people, also known as Walmbarddha or Walmbaria, are an Aboriginal Australian people of Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland.
Laila Haglund is an archaeologist who played a key role in establishing consulting archaeology in Australia, and in drafting Queensland's first legislation to protect Aboriginal cultural heritage.
Sally Kate May, usually cited as Sally K. May, is an Australian archaeologist and anthropologist. She is an Associate Professor of Archaeology and Museum Studies at the University of Adelaide, Australia. She is a specialist in Indigenous Australian rock art and Australian ethnographic museum collections.
The Mount Cottrell massacre involved the murder of an estimated 10 Wathaurong people near Mount Cottrell in the colony of Victoria in 1836, in retaliation for the killing of two European settlers.
Lynley A. Wallis is an Australian archaeologist and Associate Professor at Griffith University. She is a specialist in palaeoenvironmental reconstruction through the analysis of phytoliths.
Billy Griffiths, also known as William Griffiths, is an Australian historian and writer, known for his book Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia (2018). As of April 2020, he is a lecturer at Deakin University in Victoria, and Associate Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage. Griffiths won the Ernest Scott Prize in 2019.
Mary Dallas (1952–2023) was Scottish-born Australian archaeologist, who specialised in the area of Aboriginal cultural heritage management.
