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The archaeology of landscape, ontology and experience

A major focus of research concerns investigations into the intangibles of life: world views, social experience, cosmologies. I have hitherto focused on tracking material traces of the Dreaming, as 'traditional' Aboriginal ways of understanding the world, in various parts of Australia. Of key importance here is an attempt to situate regional social histories in systems of meaning, whether this be from a diachronic or a synchronic framework. My current research towards these aims focuses on Aboriginal Australia (the Dreaming), Torres Strait Islander spiritscapes, and Rumu (Papua New Guinea) clan-based notions of the afterworld.

  • 2006 by B. DAVID, B. Barker & I. McNiven (eds). The Social Archaeology of Australian Indigenous Societies . Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra.
  • 2006 by B. DAVID. Archaeology and the Dreaming: toward an archaeology of ontology. In I. Lilley (ed.), Archaeology of Oceania: Australia and the Pacific islands , pp. 48-68. Blackwell, London.
  • 2005 by M. Langton & B. DAVID. Nature and culture in a forest park: William Ricketts and his sanctuary, Victoria. In J. Lydon & T. Ireland (eds), Object Lessons: archaeology and heritage in Australia , pp. 71-88. Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne.
  • 2005 by B. DAVID and I. McNiven. The sea, the spirits and the ancestors. In S. Wright (ed.), Sesserae: the works of Dennis Nona , pp. 7-10. Queensland College of Art, Brisbane.
  • 2005 by B. DAVID. Sur les traces de l 'ancienne religion des Aborigènes d'Australie. Religions et Histoire 2: 36-43.
  • 2005 by B. DAVID, J. Crouch & U. Zoppi. Historicizing the spiritual: bu shell arrangements on the island of Badu, Torres Strait. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 15(1): 71-91.
  • 2005 by B. DAVID. Review of C. Smith and H.M Wobst's 'Indigenous Archaeologies: decolonizing theory and practice'. Archaeology in Oceania 40: 119-20.
  • 2005 by B. DAVID & I.J. McNiven. The spirits in the art. In Fremantle Arts Centre, Print Matters , pp. 32-33. Fremantle Arts Centre, Fremantle.
  • 2005 by B. DAVID. Rock art and oral traditions in Torres Strait. The Courier Mail 3 May, p. Headst@rt 3.
  • 2005 by B. DAVID. Review of T. Heyd and J. Clegg's Aesthetics and Rock Art . Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society . Internet WWW document, at URL : http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prehistoric/index.html
  • 2004 by B. DAVID. Intentionality, agency and an archaeology of choice. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 14(1): 67-71.
  • 2004 by S. Haberle & B. DAVID. Climates of change: human dimensions of Holocene environmental change in low latitudes of the PEPII transect. Quaternary International 118-119: 165-179.
  • 2004 by B. DAVID. Rock-art and the experienced landscape: the emergence of late Holocene symbolism in north-east Australia. In C. Chippindale and G. Nash (eds), The Figured Landscapes of Rock-Art: Looking at Pictures in Place , pp. 153-181. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
  • 2004 by M. Langton & B. DAVID. Art as social momentum: coming into being in Yolŋu art. Archaeological Review from Cambridge 19(1): 47-60.
  • 2003 by L.M. Brady, B. DAVID, L. Manas & the Mualgal (Torres Strait Islanders) Corporation. Community archaeology and oral tradition: commemorating and teaching cultural awareness on Mua Island, Torres Strait. TheAustralian Journal of Indigenous Education 31: 41-49.
  • 2003 by M. Langton & B. DAVID. William Ricketts Sanctuary, Victoria (Australia): sculpting nature and culture in a primitivist theme park. Journal of Material Culture 8(2): 145-168.
  • 2002 by B. DAVID. Landscapes, Rock-art and the Dreaming: an archaeology of preunderstanding . Leicester University Press, London.
  • 2002 by B. DAVID and M. Wilson (eds). Inscribed Landscapes: marking and making place . University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu.
  • 2002 by B. DAVID, M. Langton & I. McNiven. Re-inventing the wheel: indigenous peoples and the master race in Philip Ruddock's 'wheel' comments. PAN - Philosophy, Activism, Nature 2: 31-46.
  • 2002 by M. Wilson & B. DAVID. Introduction. In B. DAVID and M. Wilson (eds), Inscribed Landscapes: marking and making place , pp. 1-9. University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu.
  • 2002 by B. DAVID & M. Wilson. Spaces of resistance: graffiti and indigenous place markings in the early European contact period of northern Australia. In B. DAVID and M. Wilson (eds). Inscribed Landscapes: marking and making place , pp. 42-60. University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu.
  • 2002 by B. DAVID. Review of J.L. Pearson's 'Shamanism and the Ancient Mind: a cognitive approach to archaeology'. Oceania 73(1): 81-82.
  • 2002 by B. DAVID. Review of J. Doring's 'Gwion Gwion: secret and sacred pathways of the Ngarinyin Aboriginal people of Australia'. Rock Art Research 19: 140.
  • 2002 by B. DAVID. Making sense: embodying the past. CambridgeArchaeological Journal 12: 267-268.
  • 2002 by B. DAVID. Comment on Winkelman's 'Shamanism and Cognitive Evolution'. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 12: 88-89.
  • 2001 by B. DAVID. Review of David S. Whitley's 'Handbook of Rock Art Research'. The Artefact 24: 47-48.
  • 2001 by B. DAVID. An agency of choice? Cambridge Archaeological Journal 11(2): 270-271.
  • 2001 by B. DAVID. Lino-print exhibition tours Canada and England. Torres News 455 (20-26 July), pp. 1, 3.
  • 2000 by M. Wilson, J. Sanhampath, P.D. Senembe, B. DAVID, N. Hall & M. Abong. 'Tufala kev blong devil': people and spirits in north west Malakula, Vanuatu - implications for management. Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites 4: 151-166.
  • 2000 by B. DAVID. Review of J. Elkins' 'On Pictures and the Words That Fail Them'. Rock Art Research 17 (2): 136.
  • 2001 by B. DAVID. An agency of choice? Cambridge Archaeological Journal 11(2): 270-271.
  • 1999 by B. DAVID & M. Wilson. Re-reading the landscape: place and identity in NE Australia during the late Holocene. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9 (2): 163-188.
  • 1999 by B. DAVID. Whither Landscapes? The rise and fall of a concept. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9 (2): 294-295.
  • 1999 by B. DAVID & H. Lourandos. Landscape as mind: land use, cultural space and change in north Queensland prehistory. Quaternary International 59: 107-123.
  • 1998 by B. DAVID, I. McNiven, V. Attenbrow, J. Flood & J. Collins. Of Lightning Brothers and White Cockatoos: dating the antiquity of signifying systems in the Northern Territory, Australia. In T. Murray (ed.), Archaeology of Aboriginal Australia: a Reader , pp. 290-304. Allen & Unwin, St. Leonards. Paper originally published in 1994 in Antiquity 68: 241-251.
  • 1997 by R. Fullagar & B. DAVID. Investigating changing attitudes towards an Australian Aboriginal Dreaming mountain over >37,000 years of occupation via residue and use wear analyses of stone artefacts. CambridgeArchaeological Journal 7(1): 139-144.
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