Tag: Massacre

Murdering Molvo Part I: The Events at Wonomo Waterhole

07/13/2020.Reading time 46 minutes.

By Iain Davidson, Heather Burke, Lance Sullivan and Lynley Wallis The nature of historical knowledge is complex, involving oral history, archaeology and (less often than is generally supposed) written documents, many of which begin with some sort of oral telling. Here we outline the historical knowledge of a particular series of events in northwest Queensland […]

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William Nichols, the NMP and the Murder of Aboriginal People at Irvinebank in 1884

08/25/2019.Reading time 30 minutes.

By Lynley Wallis In an earlier blog post I wrote about the challenges of finding contemporary physical evidence of deaths from the colonial frontier, and why such efforts are often akin to looking for a needle in a haystack (cf. Litster and Wallis 2011). Despite this, there are some rare instances where the specific location […]

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Needles in Haystacks: Why Finding Massacres in the Australian Archaeological Record is So Challenging

07/26/2019.Reading time 30 minutes.

By Lynley Wallis The publication of a map showing frontier massacre sites across Australia by eminent historian Professor Lyndall Ryan has generated enormous public interest in the past 12 months (Figure 1). The map represents a wonderful resource with substantive research behind it. However, users should be aware that the “massacre locations” shown on it (and most […]

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One-sided histories

08/12/2017.Reading time 10 minutes.

By Jacinta Koolmatrie Between 2-9 July 2017 I participated in a Flinders University based field school in Boulia, Queensland as part of “The Archaeology of the Native Mounted Police” project. Fieldwork began on a Monday and started with an introduction by team member Associate Professor Heather Burke who explained what was currently known about the Boulia Native […]

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