Community-Driven Archaeology in GunaiKurnai Country

In 2017, the Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation invited Monash University to together research and help tell the stories of the GunaiKurnai Old Ancestors and GunaiKurnai Country.

The 2024 Tom Brown Lecture will show what has been done to date, how it is being done. Uncle Russell Mullett, Elder and Registered Aboriginal Party Manager, and archaeologist Professor Bruno David will discuss a range of findings and community research priorities from across GunaiKurnai Country spanning the inland mountains to the sea, from remarkably preserved rock art and ritual installations found deep in limestone caves to coastal sites and landscapes threatened by sea level rise. Driven by community priorities, these partnership endeavours are fundamentally embedded in the Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation’s Caring for Country plans and aspirations.

About the speakers

Uncle Russell Mullett (in absentia) (Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation)

Uncle Russell is a proud Kurnai man who has been professionally involved in Aboriginal Cultural Heritage since 1989, starting as a Cultural Research Officer. Russell is currently the Registered Aboriginal Party Manager for Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation (GLaWAC), and an Inspector and Authorised Officer under the Commonwealth Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Cultural Heritage Protection Act and Victoria’s Aboriginal Heritage Act.

Additionally, Russell has been a member of the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council Board since 2021, is the current Chairman, and is a member of the Council’s Ancestral Remains Policy and Repatriation Support Committee. Russell is a board member of the Gunaikurnai Traditional Owners Land Management Board – a body corporate set up to ensure knowledge and culture of GunaiKurnai people is recognised in the management of Joint Managed parks and reserves between GLaWAC and the State.

Professor Bruno David (Monash University; The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage)

Bruno is an archaeologist based at the Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, Monash University (Melbourne). Bruno’s research specialises on the archaeology of Indigenous Australia and Melanesia. He is interested in the entire span of Indigenous occupation of those regions, with active research interests on the antiquity of occupation, rock art and symbolism, oral traditions, and historicising ethnographically-documented cultural expressions through archaeological methods.

Bruno is undertaking long-term research with Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation (GLaWAC) on the effects of current and predicted sea level changes along the coast of GLaWAC country. Working inland in the foothills of the Snowy River Valley north towards the alpine country, he and Uncle Russell co-led the team that explored evidence of an ethnographically documented Aboriginal ritual dated to the last ice age.

The lecture will be followed by a reception serving light refreshments.

Image courtesy of The Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation