GES Honours Program Topics
2 potential Honours
thesis projects in GES
(that would suit students with any or a combination of the following
course backgrounds: geomorphology, zoology, biogeography, palaeoenvironmental
history, archaeology, anthropology [ Project
2 ], indigenous studies [ Project
2 ])
See Geography Honours Thesis list 1990-2005 for the broad scope of past research topics
Torres Strait is a 150km-wide watery realm separating the Australian and New Guinean mainlands, home to Torres Strait Islanders. On some islands, population densities of over 100/km2 existed at the time of initial European contact, which is an order of magnitude greater than the highest densities documented for Aboriginal Australia. Torres Strait was put on the world anthropological map by Alfred Haddon and colleagues on the 1898 Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits. Haddon documented in detail cultural features of each of the three distinctive Islander groups Western, Central and Eastern. While the Central Islanders interacted with their neighbours, Islanders from the Eastern and Western groups did not. Interactions involved huge dugout canoes and oscillated between enmity (raiding/headhunting) and amity (trade/exchange). Islander settlement focused on home islands supplemented by seasonal visits to smaller islands. Subsistence involved cropping (e.g. yams, sweet potatoes, bananas) supplemented by plant collection and specialized fishing and hunting of marine animals. These essential features of Torres Strait lifeways form part of what has been termed the Torres Strait Cultural Complex. Yet despite this ethnographic detail, very little archaeological research has been undertaken in the region and very little is known about the origin and history of Torres Strait Islanders.
Globally, Torres Strait is most famous as the place where the Melanesian and Australian (Aboriginal) cultural and ecological domains meet and as a transition zone between the horticultural and hunter-gatherer worlds. Coring of reefs and islands reveals the Straits were established 8000-7000 year ago and that island formation is ongoing. Thus, Islander society must have developed within this period and functioned as a bridge and barrier for diffusion of cultural traits (and flora/fauna) between NE Australia and Melanesia. However, we have little understanding of the nature or antiquity of the early occupation of Torres Strait. Were the Straits abandoned following rising post-glacial seas, only to become re-occupied 3500-2000 years ago, in line with major population movements across the Pacific? Or was occupation continuous from 9000 years ago when the Straits consisted of continental hills and plains to subsequent island formation? What was the nature of island occupation and population dynamics during this time?
These questions can be addressed through 2 potential Honours thesis. In August 2001, Bruno David (GES) and the Badu and Moa Island communities excavated 3 archaeological sites on these large islands of Western Torres Strait. The two potential Honours projects aim at addressing the questions listed above. Please note that there is a team of researchers already established in GES on Torres Strait Quaternary research (Bruno David and Liam Brady: archaeology; Simon Haberle and Cassandra Rowe: palaeo-biogeography)
Project 1.
One of the archaeological sites excavated is a large rockshelter near the centre of Badu Island. The site is currently known as Badu 15. This site contains a deep sedimentary sequence spanning the last 3500 years BP. Cultural materials are present only in the top third of the deposit (currently undated, but soon to be dated). This thesis Project would aim to study the sediments, to geomorphologically determine whether or not people are implicated to have been present at the site or in the nearby environment through the entire 3500 year sequence, or whether they are only implicated to be present during the last 2500 years or so (in line with currently available archaeological evidence elsewhere). So far, archaeological research in Badu and elsewhere in Torres Strait has focused on the archaeology of individual sites. Geomorphological research will enable details of broader landscape processes to be revealed, and in so doing suggest whether or not people are present during times when archaeological sites may be particularly hard to find (eg when people are passing through the landscape rather than sedentary).
Potential supervisors: Meredith Orr, Bruno David, John Grindrod
Project 2.
Off the western coast of the island of Badu is the small islet of Berberass, an important cultural place to Badu Islanders. An archaeological midden was excavated there (site Badu 19), revealing the earliest known evidence of people anywhere in Torres Strait (dated to about 2500 BP). Below the cultural materials are beach sands. There are many animal bones, sea shells and land snails in this site, both before and during the period of human occupation. This thesis is to identify the species of fauna present so as to arrive at a landscape history, with details of human occupation, for this part of Berberass.
Potential supervisors: Bruno David, John Grindrod, Simon Haberle