{"id":6859,"date":"2025-04-24T04:55:33","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T04:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/?page_id=6859"},"modified":"2025-04-24T11:53:25","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T11:53:25","slug":"t06-s01-papers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/t06-s01-papers\/","title":{"rendered":"T06\/S01: Sacred Streams, Changing Currents: Perspectives from the Past for a Sustainable Future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

FORMAT: PAPER PRESENTATIONS WITH DISCUSSION<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Convenors:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duncan Keenan-Jones, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK; duncan.keenan-jones@manchester.ac.uk<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amanda Hansford, Austral Archaeology, Australia; amandah@australarch.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nicole Monk, Austral Archaeology, Australia; nicolem@australarch.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Water is a fundamental resource that shapes landscapes, cultures, and lifeways. For Indigenous communities, its importance extends beyond sustenance and utility; it embodies cultural, spiritual, and social significance that persists across generations. This session examines the critical role of water in the lives of people, integrating perspectives from archaeology, ethnography, and contemporary cultural studies to explore its multidimensional importance in both past and present contexts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The session invites interdisciplinary contributions that illuminate how communities managed, accessed, and revered water resources in diverse environments and its impact on foraging communities. Water provided important locations for foraging, a magnet for terrestrial and aerial species, foragers and aquatic life. Human management of water could also alter the distribution of plant species. Archaeological studies of water infrastructure, foraging patterns, settlement patterns and resource management will provide insights into adaptations to changing climates and landscapes. Ethnographic accounts and oral histories will contextualise these findings, demonstrating the continuity of water\u2019s cultural significance and its role in sustaining identity and heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the face of modern challenges such as water scarcity, climate change, and resource disputes, this session also seeks to highlight how traditional ecological knowledge and Indigenous practices offer critical lessons for sustainable water management today. By bridging past and present, participants will explore how Indigenous knowledge systems can inform global conversations about resource stewardship and environmental resilience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This session aims to foster dialogue among archaeologists, Indigenous people, and policymakers, underscoring the enduring connections between water, community, and culture. It calls for reevaluating water as not merely a resource but a cultural cornerstone that defines humanity\u2019s relationship with the natural world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Papers:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Fish, Forage, and Tradition: An Ethnoarchaeological Exploration of Aquatic Resource Utilisation in Maikal Hills, Central India<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Akash Kumar Srivastava, Dept of Humanistic Studies, Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University) Varanasi, India<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Central India is the crucial watershed region of the subcontinent, while it is also home to several Indigenous groups. The Maikal Hill of this region is the most affluent zone in both of these cases, because it is the origin point of the significant rivers Narmada and Son, both of which have prehistoric importance, and because it has the largest concentration of the Gond and Biaga communities, the prominent Indigenous groups of the country. The dynamic relationship between these groups of the Maikal Hills and their use of water resources is examined in this research. The study looks into the customary fishing methods and foraging techniques used by Gonds and Baigas using an ethnoarchaeological methodology. With a long history of living beside the region\u2019s rivers and forests, these tribes have evolved highly skilled methods for catching fish and other aquatic species, which reflects their profound knowledge of the surroundings. Drawing from extensive fieldwork conducted in the tribal villages of Dindori and Anuppur, this research integrates archaeological data with contemporary ethnographic observations to reconstruct past subsistence strategies. A key focus in this paper is given to the Indigenous knowledge systems that guide fishing practices, including specialised tools, seasonal fishing patterns, and communal resource management. The study also examines the role of aquatic resources in the broader subsistence economy of these communities, which is characterised by a combination of hunting, gathering, and agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fish Traps and Fishing in a Sacred River, Traditional Cultural Practices Endangered by Water Over-extraction<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarah Martin, Independent Scholar, Australia<\/em>
Badger Bates, Toorale Kurnu Barkandji Joint Management Committee, Australia<\/em>
Michael Kennedy, Wilcannia Local Aboriginal Land Council, Australia<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fish traps and fish weirs built by Indigenous people in the Murray Darling Basin, south-eastern Australia, are an important component of the traditional social, spiritual and economic systems. This paper outlines recent research on the Baaka (Darling River) focussing on Barkandji knowledge of in-stream stone fish traps as well as wooden and earthen bank fish traps and weirs used on the floodplains. Archaeological evidence includes remnant traditional stone fish traps, as well as deliberately reconfigured stone town weirs and old bridge footings that continue to be used as fish traps. An oral history project details traditional cultural knowledge of complex social processes and modification of landscapes associated with fish traps and weirs, including observed hydrological and ecological responses and benefits. The oral history also explores the physical, spiritual, cultural and social effects of recent reduction of water flow and quality, resulting from upstream crop irrigation. Collateral local extinction or near extinction of fish and other aquatic species have severely limited fish trap use and fishing in general for the Indigenous communities living along the river. Barkandji are rebuilding a traditional stone fish trap and monitoring species response, asserting their cultural identity and rights to manage the sacred Baaka water flows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Digging Ourselves into a Hole: The Case Against Blanket Methodologies<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nicole Monk and Amanda Hansford, Austral Archaeology, Australia<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The southwest region of New South Wales (NSW) is a distinctive environmental and cultural landscape, with the Murray River serving as its ecological and cultural lifeline. Since European colonisation in the nineteenth century, the introduction of domestic and feral herbivores has led to severe land degradation, including accelerated soil loss through sheetwash, aeolian deflation and gullying. Fanning (1999) estimated that soil erosion in this region has occurred at rates approximately 145 times higher than natural levels. In the decades since climate change has further intensified these processes. Traditional Owners hold extensive knowledge of this degradation and its consequences for the preservation of cultural heritage. However, current archaeological practice in NSW often employs a uniform test excavation methodology\u2014systematically placing test pits at fixed intervals across landscapes\u2014without accounting for regional geomorphological variation. This approach may be inappropriate where natural soil profiles have been significantly altered or destroyed. This paper critically examines the effectiveness of standard archaeological testing methods in the southwest of NSW and considers the perspectives of Traditional Owners regarding the potential for unnecessary excavation to cause further harm. We propose a more tailored, landscape-sensitive approach to heritage impact assessment that respects both the environmental context and Indigenous cultural values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indigenous Fishing at Stony Crossing, Mithaka Country, Queensland Australia<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duncan Keenan-Jones, University of Manchester, UK<\/em>
Max Gorringe, Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation, Australia<\/em>
Jamie Shulmeister. University of Canterbury, New Zealand<\/em>
Trudy Gorringe, Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation, Australia<\/em>
Samantha Stephens, University of Queensland, Australia<\/em>
Caeli Connolly, University of Canterbury, New Zealand<\/em>
Josh Gorringe<\/em> and<\/em> Shawnee Gorringe, Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation, Australia\u00a0<\/em>
Michael C. Westaway, University of Queensland, Australia<\/em>
Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation, Australia<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Diving into the Desert research project, in partnership with the Mithaka people (SW Queensland), seeks to understand how Indigenous communities managed cycles of drought and flood in Australia\u2019s arid Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre Basin, and to learn from this to manage Australia\u2019s inland rivers sustainably. To do so, we integrate terrestrial and maritime archaeology with Indigenous knowledge and environmental and flow modelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ethnographic accounts testify to large-scale trapping and preservation of fish during flood periods, and limited evidence in the form of fish otoliths has been recovered from excavations of Indigenous dwellings (gunyahs) on Mithaka Country. Mithaka oral history locates fish traps at Stony Crossing, one of the nearest permanent waterholes to these gunyahs. In 2024, a land-based team (including Elders and rangers from the Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation and drone pilots from Disaster Relief Australia) identified potential fishing weirs\/pens in mostly dry creek beds at Stony Crossing, likely used during floods and as the floodwaters receded. Newly discovered stone arrangements, together with stone tools found on the waterhole banks and the Mithaka oral history and fish remains mentioned above, provide tantalising new evidence of Indigenous activity near these weirs. We outline a possible methodology for the next stages of investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tools of Resistance: Aboriginal Innovation in a Colonial Landscape<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amanda Hansford, Austral Archaeology, Australia<\/em>
Douglas Williams, Access Archaeology; Archaeology, University of Queensland, Australia\u00a0<\/em>
Alexander Beben, Austral Archaeology, Australia<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This paper explores how Aboriginal communities in western New South Wales engaged with introduced European materials in ways that reflect continuity, resilience, and cultural adaptation. Archaeological evidence recorded by Austral Archaeology reveals the widespread use of glass as a substitute for stone in tool-making, demonstrating technological continuity within rapidly changing colonial contexts. Scarred trees, created by community members still within living memory, further illustrate the persistence of traditional practices into the recent past. Earth mounds containing European artefacts show how introduced materials were incorporated into long-established occupation places. These features represent both cultural disruption and innovation within enduring systems of knowledge, mobility, and place-making. Through collaboration with Aboriginal communities, this research integrates oral history and landscape knowledge to reconstruct ancient networks that have persisted across millennia. The adaptive reuse of foreign materials within traditional frameworks challenges the assumption that contact with agriculture or colonisation marked a clear break in cultural lifeways. Instead, the evidence underscores the capacity of Aboriginal societies to incorporate change while maintaining strong ties to land, ancestors, and ecological knowledge. This paper contributes to broader discussions on redefining \u2018forager\u2019 societies through the lens of Indigenous experience and archaeological insight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Balance of Law and Lore: Mithaka Perspectives on Protecting Water in the Channel Country<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joshua Gorringe, Shawnee Gorringe, Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mithaka Country, located in Kirrenderri, the heart of the Channel Country region of the Lake Eyre Basin, has a culturally vibrant and rich history intertwined into the many rivers and channels. Our people have culturally significant dreamtime stories (such as the Wood-Duck Dreaming) that follow each of the three major rivers, the Diamantina, Georgina, and the Cooper, as well as their feeders. Each story has a purpose tied to caring for and maintaining the fragile ecosystem and sustaining our people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presently, in Queensland, we have no legal right to protecting water, and what\u2019s in the water. Legislation and government policies consistently have our hands tied behind our backs, and so we continue to lose out not just environmentally, but culturally. Infrastructure built by our ancestors such as fish traps are bulldozed to make way for roads, and unsustainable agriculture is devastating the region, with overgrazing, and the introduction of invasive and introduced flora and fauna to the waterways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving forward, how do we balance law and lore? We argue that the implementation of better-informed community and Traditional Owner driven policy, and implementation of useful and relevant guidelines are the start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Navigating Inevitable Transitions: Displacement-Led Development and Indigenous Health Risks with a Special Focus on Hydro-Social Dissonance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rakesh Kumar, Consultant\u2014 Archaeology, Earth and Environment, WSP; National Institute of Advanced Studies, IISc Campus, India; Visting Faculty and Board member, Indian Knowledge System Centre, GLA University, India<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The transition from foraging to permanent settlement is often seen as an inevitable result of modernisation, driven by infrastructure expansion, land-use shifts, and ecological changes. However, when forcibly accelerated through displacement-led development, integration models, and the capitalisation of nature (CoN), it disrupts indigenous health, identity, and socio-environmental relationships. State-driven interventions impose transformation rather than fostering organic evolution, eroding agency and increasing health risks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A key consequence is the breakdown of indigenous water-based lifeways. Large-scale water projects, such as dams and privatised systems, redefine water access as a commodity rather than a socio-cultural entity. This hydro-social dissonance weakens traditional water management, leading to poor sanitation, rising waterborne diseases, and the loss of hydro-therapeutic traditions. As displacement severs spiritual and ecological ties, communities become reliant on unstable sources, increasing vulnerability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This study employs ethnographic research and spatial analysis across 15 hunter-gatherer and forager communities in Kerala, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introducing the Adaptive Indigenous Resilience Framework (AIRF), this paper advocates for participatory governance, ecological stewardship, and socio-economic self-determination. AIRF prioritises indigenous agency, integrating traditional knowledge with sustainable development. By addressing displacement-induced vulnerabilities, AIRF offers a structured, culturally coherent model for long-term resilience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aquatic Lifeways and Landscape Management: Underwater Archaeological Survey on Mithaka Channel Country, Australia<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ania Kotarba-Morley, Environment Institute, University of Adelaide, Australia<\/em>
Trudy Gorringe, Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation, Australia<\/em>
James Hunter, Australian National Maritime Museum, Australia<\/em>
Andrzej Pydyn, Centre for Underwater Archaeology, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland<\/em>
Mateusz Popek, Centre for Underwater Archaeology, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland\u00a0<\/em>
Joshua Gorringe, Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation, Australia<\/em>
Michael C. Westaway, School of Social Sciences, University of Queensland, Australia<\/em>
Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation, Australia<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This paper presents findings from an underwater remote sensing archaeological survey conducted in November 2024 on Mithaka Country, focusing on four significant waterholes: King Creek, Mackhara Waterhole, Stony Creek, and Brumbrie Waterhole. Located within Australia\u2019s Channel Country\u2014a landscape defined by its ephemeral rivers and intermittent flooding\u2014this region was historically inhabited by the Mithaka people, whose sophisticated management of aquatic ecosystems supported semi-sedentary lifeways and complex subsistence strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Utilising advanced remote sensing technologies including side scan sonar and bathymetric mapping, the research team\u2014led by Mithaka Aboriginal Rangers, in collaboration with underwater archaeologists\u2014identified potential archaeological signatures of fishing and water management infrastructures. These include stone alignments, possible fish holding pens, weirs, and traps, corroborated by ethnohistorical sources and oral histories. Environmental assessments revealed ecological factors underpinning site attractiveness, highlighting areas strategically chosen by Mithaka people to maximise resource exploitation and minimise vulnerability to environmental fluctuations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The survey outcomes demonstrate a complex integration of cultural, ecological, and hydrological knowledge employed by Mithaka and emphasise Indigenous expertise in landscape management, particularly regarding water resource optimisation in arid conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nama, Bushmen, Foragers-With-Sheep: Complex Enduring Foraging Strategies in Arid South-western Africa <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kiah Johnson, University of Cambridge, UK<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The arid southern Namib region of south-western Africa presents the same extreme environmental challenges in the present as it has for ten thousand years: extreme temperatures, stochastic weather events, and droughts that can last decades. Throughout, aided in part by the perennial Gariep\/Orange River, humans have moved through and lived as part of the landscape, largely by using transhumance strategies based on regional resources. Archaeological sites such as Spoegrivier (Webley 1992; 2001) offer some of the earliest evidence of livestock (ovicaprine) so far south, around 2000 BP, and while sheep and goats were incorporated into some existing lifeways, core mobility mechanisms appear similar to earlier foraging strategies comparative to the rest of southern Africa until colonial expansion in the 1800s. Presently, the word \u2018Bushman\u2019 has been reclaimed from a pejorative colonial term to describe people culturally and ancestrally connected to foraging. This presentation will explore the relationship between land-use, borders and the perception of two distinct local lifeways: Nama pastoralism, and Bushman foraging, and how local archaeology and ethnohistory is expanding and complicating understandings of socioecological relationships, conflict, and community in the Namib and other resource-scarce areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FORMAT: PAPER PRESENTATIONS WITH DISCUSSION Convenors:\u00a0 Duncan Keenan-Jones, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK; duncan.keenan-jones@manchester.ac.uk Amanda Hansford, Austral Archaeology, Australia; amandah@australarch.com.au Nicole Monk, Austral Archaeology, Australia; nicolem@australarch.com.au Water is a fundamental resource that shapes landscapes, cultures, and lifeways. For Indigenous communities, its importance extends beyond sustenance and utility; it embodies cultural, spiritual, and social significance that persists across generations. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1157,"featured_media":276,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-6859","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"pmpro-has-access","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6859"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7234,"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6859\/revisions\/7234"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}