Duncan Wright

Email: duncan.wright@monash.edu
Phone: (03) 99056239

Biographical statement and research interests

Duncan Wright holds a research position at Monash University with research projects in West Papua (Onin Peninsula), Northern Territory (Western Arnhem Land) and Western Torres Strait. Previously he was a lecturer at the Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies (Monash University) and an occasional lecturer at Flinders University. Duncan’s PhD examined the archaeology of community emergence and development on Mabuyag in the Western Torres Strait and his Masters The archaeology of rock island settlement in Palau, Micronesia.

I am interested in the archaeology of indigenous Australia and the Pacific; coastal and island studies and community archaeology. The archaeology of islands is a prominent focus for my research, particularly social responses to isthmus to island transition. A second prominent research interest is community archaeology, whereby oral histories are used as a starting point for archaeological research. A community approach was fundamental to doctoral research in the Torres Strait and continues to be a basis for my current research.

Current / pending projects

ARC Discovery project (Chief Investigators: Drs. Tim Denham and Mark Donohue. Timeline: 2009-2013).
Topic: “New Guinea’s place in Southeast Asia: a study integrating archaeology, linguistics and genetics”.

Monash/ ANU project funded research project (Drs. Tim Denham, Duncan Wright, Sally K. May and Matiu Prebble. Timeline: 2010-2013).

Topic: “Calendars, Chronologies and Past-Environmental Change in the North: rock art, archaeological and palaeoecological perspectives”.

ARC DECRA (Chief Investigator: Duncan Wright. In prep).
Topic: “Establishing the first detailed chronology of mid-Holocene human settlement in the Western Torres Strait”.

Selected publications

1. Wright, D. (under review). The archaeology of community on Mabuyag (Mabuiag) in the Central Western Torres Strait, North East Australia. Australian Archaeology.
2. Wright, D. (under review). Is a village a village if no one lives there? Negotiated histories on Mabuyag in the central Western Torres Strait. Terra Australis.
3. Wright, D. (in press). “Mid Holocene maritime economy in the western Torres Strait”. Archaeology in Oceania 46: 23-27.
4. Wright, D. and Jacobson, G. (in press). “Convergence of ceremonial and secular? The Archaeology of Dabangai village on Mabuyag in Western Torres Strait”. In I.J. McNiven (ed.) Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, Cultural Heritage Series. Volume pending.
5. Wright, D. and Dickinson, W. 2009. Movement of ideas not materials: The discovery of locally manufactured pottery on Mabuyag Island in the Western Torres Strait, Archaeology in Oceania 44: 38-41
6. McNiven, I.J. and Wright, D. 2008. Ritualised Marine Midden Formation in Western Zenadh Kes (Torres Strait). In G. Clark, F. Leach and S. O’Connor (eds), Islands of Inquiry: Colonisation, Seafaring and the Archaeology of Maritime Landscapes. Terra Australis 29, ANU Press, Canberra: 133-148
7. Clark, G. and Wright, D. 2007. Reading Pacific Pots. In: A. Anderson, K. Green and F. Leach (eds.), Vastly Indigenous: The Archaeology of Pacific Material Culture in Honour of Janet Davidson. Otago University Press, Dunedin:173-190.
8. Clark, G., Anderson, A. and Wright, D. 2006. Human Colonization of the Palau Islands, Western Micronesia. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 1: 215-232
9. Clark, G. and Wright, D. 2005. On the Periphery? Archaeological Investigations at Ngelong, Angaur Island, Palau. Micronesica 38(1): 67-91.
10. Clark, G. and Wright, D. 2003. The Colonisation of Palau: preliminary results from Angaur and Ulong. In Sand, C. (Ed.), Pacific Archaeology: assessments and prospect, pp. 85-94. Les Cahiers de l'Archéologie en Nouvelle-Calédonie.

Story telling!

Wright, D. in press. “A church built from sky: archaeology in Papua New Guinea”, Guardian Weekly
Wright, D. June 12-18 2009. “Letter from Papua New Guinea: Transported by the spell of the storyteller” Guardian Weekly
Wright, D. May 1-7 2009. “Letter from Torres Strait: A wedding, a dugong and a feast” Guardian Weekly