Project Aims

AWSANZ Conferences

Locational data standard

Sources

Contacts
 

Regional Contributions

South Australia

Tasmania

One of the first activities which AWSANZ organised was a two day conference on whaling archaeology which was held at and hosted
by La Trobe University, Melbourne, in July 1997. Contributors, primarily maritime and historical archaeologists and historians, came
from a wide variety of professional backgrounds including heritage managers, consultants, museum curators, and academics, and
provided broad geographic coverage on both sides of the Tasman. This was a significant coming together of scholars with expertise and
interests in whaling, and the conference papers are currently being edited for publication during 1998. 

From the 14th - 15th July 1997 the first AWSA conference was held at and hosted by La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria. Individuals attending the conference ranged from major  Australian Universities such as La Trobe, Flinders, James Cook, and Sydney, Government affiliated organizations such as the Victorian and South Australian Heritage Branches and the Parks and Wildlife departments of Tasmania and New South Wales to representatives from various archaeological consultancy firms.

The sixteen papers presented in the two days of the conference were on diverse topics. Papers ranged from regional overviews from Australian states and from Norfolk Island and New Zealand to case studies of particular sites, concluding with discussions of concurrent themes of the archaeology of Whaling. Special mention must be made of papers from Martin Gibbs, from James Cook University for investigations into the Nineteenth century whaling in Western Australia and to Nigel Prickett from the Auckland Museum on sites in New Zealand. These studies proved to illuminate the diversity of the characteristics of different sites as well as
illustrate succinctly the divergence of the whaling industry across borders and seas. Parry Kostoglou's paper proved to enhance ones understanding of whaling from a human perspective that is too often forgotten, adding an extra dimension to the conference's proceedings.

The final day workshop was an attempt to integrate work carried out into a broader context. Such a context was represented in the need for a common analytical framework for the recording and management of sites both terrestrial and maritime that were associated with whaling activity. The flirther aim of creating a common direction and heightened communication between academic, governmental and other professional organizations into an integrated body centered on contn'butors from the Southern Pacific will hopefully be one that will heighten our understanding all things whaling.

Nathan Richards