TY - JOUR
T1 - Beyond bridge and barrier
T2 - Reconceptualising Torres Strait as a coconstructed border zone in ethnographic object distributions between Queensland and New Guinea
AU - McNiven, Ian J.
N1 - Funding Information:
For helpful information on museum collections of New Guinea and Australian Indigenous material culture I thank Rebecca Fisher, Kate Khan and Michael Mel (Australian Museum, Sydney), Brit Asmussen and Dave Parkhill (Queensland Museum, Brisbane), Stephen Zagala (South Australian Museum, Adelaide), Chris Urwin (Museums Victoria, Melbourne), Julian Millie and Catherine Thorpe (Anthropology Museum, Monash University, Melbourne) and Lisa Graves (Bristol Museum). For helpful information on New Guinea material culture I thank Rob Skelly (Monash University), Barry Craig, Richard Aldridge and Col Davidson, and on Cape York Peninsula Aboriginal material culture I thank Lindy Allen. Thanks to Rachel Hendery for the invitation to present an earlier version of the paper at the ‘Across the Sea’ workshop at the University of Western Sydney in October 2018. I presented another version of the paper at the Oceanic Arts Society (OAS) in Sydney in June 2019. Thanks to Jim Elmslie for the invitation to present and OAS audience members for helpful and informative feedback. Base maps courtesy of CartoGIS Services Manager, The Australian National University, Canberra. Tim Denham provided helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, as did two anonymous referees
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022. Queensland Archaeological Research.All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - For over 200 years, Western scholarship has presented Torres Strait variously as a bridge and barrier to cultural influences between mainland New Guinea and Australia. An alternative approach is to see Torres Strait as neither a bridge (permeable boundary) nor a barrier (impervious boundary) but as a socially and culturally co-constructed border zone. Central to this new approach is conceptualisation of the Coral Sea Cultural Interaction Sphere (CSCIS) that centres on a series of ethnographicallyknown, canoe-based, long-distance maritime exchange networks that linked communities and information on objects over a distance of 2000 km along the south coast of Papua New Guinea and the northeast coast of Australia. The CSCIS emphasises Indigenous agency and the shared/selective uptake of objects and ideas by potential recipient communities across Torres Strait and their New Guinea neighbours to the north and mainland Australian neighbours to the south. Object distribution maps created using data derived from anthropological texts and museum online catalogues reveal continuities and discontinuities in the distribution of selected objects across the study area. These maps illustrate three forms of object uptake: (1) shared uptake of double-outrigger canoes and bamboo smoking pipes between New Guinea, Torres Strait and Australia; (2) selective uptake of dog-tooth necklaces and cone shell armbands between New Guinea and Torres Strait and not Australia; and (3) selective uptake of nautilus bead headbands and shell-handled spearthrowers between Australia and Torres Strait and not New Guinea. Archaeological evidence for temporal changes in the geographical spread of pottery indicates that the CSCIS was historically dynamic, with numerous reconfigurations over the past 3000 years. Enhanced understanding of the CSCIS requires the addition of contemporary Indigenous perspectives
AB - For over 200 years, Western scholarship has presented Torres Strait variously as a bridge and barrier to cultural influences between mainland New Guinea and Australia. An alternative approach is to see Torres Strait as neither a bridge (permeable boundary) nor a barrier (impervious boundary) but as a socially and culturally co-constructed border zone. Central to this new approach is conceptualisation of the Coral Sea Cultural Interaction Sphere (CSCIS) that centres on a series of ethnographicallyknown, canoe-based, long-distance maritime exchange networks that linked communities and information on objects over a distance of 2000 km along the south coast of Papua New Guinea and the northeast coast of Australia. The CSCIS emphasises Indigenous agency and the shared/selective uptake of objects and ideas by potential recipient communities across Torres Strait and their New Guinea neighbours to the north and mainland Australian neighbours to the south. Object distribution maps created using data derived from anthropological texts and museum online catalogues reveal continuities and discontinuities in the distribution of selected objects across the study area. These maps illustrate three forms of object uptake: (1) shared uptake of double-outrigger canoes and bamboo smoking pipes between New Guinea, Torres Strait and Australia; (2) selective uptake of dog-tooth necklaces and cone shell armbands between New Guinea and Torres Strait and not Australia; and (3) selective uptake of nautilus bead headbands and shell-handled spearthrowers between Australia and Torres Strait and not New Guinea. Archaeological evidence for temporal changes in the geographical spread of pottery indicates that the CSCIS was historically dynamic, with numerous reconfigurations over the past 3000 years. Enhanced understanding of the CSCIS requires the addition of contemporary Indigenous perspectives
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85132511014&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.25120/qar.25.2022.3885
DO - 10.25120/qar.25.2022.3885
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85132511014
VL - 25
SP - 25
EP - 46
JO - Queensland Archaeological Research
JF - Queensland Archaeological Research
SN - 0814-3021
ER -