About CAS

2008 President's Report - Helen Cooke

Greetings again, members and friends!

2008 has been a very busy year for us all. Our intrepid committee has worked with grace and good humour and I thank them for their support, Wendy took over from Kat as treasurer half way through the year and has brought in our audited statements in time for the AGM. Kat is on notice to talk to us next year about what she dug up overseas. Sue has helped organize events, with Faye, as well as keeping the bookwork up to date. Tegan brought Old News into the 21st century and has won accolades from many members. Our other members have helped with planning and bringing our schemes home.

This year we completed the work on the three 2006/07 ACT Heritage Grants gained with the National Trust (ACT). The reports are all on our website: Crinigan's Hut conservation and guide; Consultation for interpretive signs on two Aboriginal stone procurement sites and an inventory of the archaeological collections in the ACT Heritage store.

The project on the ACT Store was a sad business; the 'store' is a steel shed and the participants had to work with no tables, chairs, toilet or kitchen facilities and no electricity, so no light, cooling or heat. Morning starts were delayed until the fog lifted and artefact containers could be dragged into the sunlight to be examined. Cold mornings and hot afternoons made working conditions unpleasant. The worst shock was on opening two shipping containers in which some items were stored and finding that they had been leaking rustily for years, ruining some literature and objects. Although most of the items belonged to the ACT Museums side, we salvaged some furniture from a historic site and stored it in slightly less damaging conditions in the shed. For our trouble we received reprimands from the custodians and instructions to put everything back. Naturally we ignored this instruction and we did not notice any change to the remaining soggy contents of the containers in all the time we worked there.

ACT is not the only heritage authority with storage problems for its historic collection. Governments are not eager to commit funds to looking after this material; heritage may be considered as a 'boutique' item, only getting dribbles of funding after all the hospitals, schools and roads have been sorted.

This is an issue that should be considered by heritage professional organizations with a view to targeted lobbying for secure, environmentally sound storage for heritage objects and facilities for researchers. There is no way a student could be expected to undertake further study of this material without at least basic hygiene facilities and power. We recorded everything by hand and Llanon spent half of his life entering the data; we would have preferred to start electronically but with the lack of power and abundance of dirt, spiders and damp, this was not possible. We have started discussions with other heritage professionals and organisations to see if we can find an appropriate front on which to lobby.

One of our other grant projects was a coup for CAS; with the assistance of Dave Johnston consultation was achieved with all four of the Representative Aboriginal Organisations recognised by the ACT Heritage Council and the two interpretive signs were installed at Girrawah Park in Ngunnawal and Mulligans Flat. CAS salvaged an Aboriginal site at Gungahlin about 16 years ago and I think this is the first project on Aboriginal heritage sites in ACT to be completed by a community group since that time. The guidelines (available on our website) may assist other groups and individuals to take on projects and studies on Indigenous sites.

Currently I am analysing the Crinigans artefact collection for the next ACT grant and networking with museums and other archaeologists to see if there could be some standardising of recording formats. CAS is also working with the Conservation Council on a joint project to research and prepare cultural and natural heritage visitor brochures for the Gungahlin area. Anyone wishing to help may contact me by phone, email or in person at meetings.

I would like to mention another issue which troubles me and is making it difficult to uphold CAS's aim to encourage local archaeological studies. There is very little if any research on local project being undertaken by our local universities. The Pacific seems to be the choice place for research, and who can deny the allure of warm seas and blue skies. But our own backyard has not had the benefits of modern archaeological studies and techniques. How thrilled we all were when Jo Flood produced Pleistocene dates in our mountains. Many CAS members assisted with her research and some archaeological careers were launched in the process. What research has there been since? ANU has field schools some years at Kiandra, which I am sure will make an interesting publication one day. But students seek good supervisors to ensure that their studies gain the best results and promotion - and these supervisors are not interested in local projects. This is another facet of the lack of adequate storage and curation of the ACT's archaeological heritage objects, no interest from the bureaucracy and no impetus from academia to prompt them to action.

However CAS has sailed through this year financially secure and rich in presentations from a wide range of speakers, from bananas to shipwrecks and everywhere in between. At least we keep interest in all aspects of archaeology alive.

And we owe much to John and Maria Crinigan for building their hut and producing descendants with a love of history and commitment to conserving and promoting their part of our heritage! Crinigans Hut has provided CAS with opportunities to excavate an early historic site, to learn to record, store and analyse the artefacts and to practice cultural heritage management. We have been involved for 17 years with aspects of this journey with the descendants, and the grants have paid our insurance bills allowing us to undertake the research and conservation. Marilyn and I gave a presentation to the recent ASHA conference and had some positive feedback on our community archaeology. This week we were interviewed for a film to be distributed to ACT schools on early Canberra.

So be proud, CASers, of our achievements and please don't be shy about offering to help. No experience necessary, training on the job provided and a pleasant experience guaranteed.

Helen Cooke President, 19 November 2008

2006 President's Report - Helen Cooke

Thank you all for your continuing support and interest this year, and especially the committee members - Kristie, Emma, Richard, Adrian, Peter and Cameron.

2006 has been a learning year for me, getting a handle on how the Society had changed in the 12 years since the last time I was President. We have had a keen committee, new faces for me except for Peter White - we were on the committee together last century.

Some old faces still here, lots of new ones. A variety of interests.

I have been disappointed that there is very little archaeological fieldwork anywhere in ACT or nearby NSW. We were unable to find somewhere to visit this year, but look forward to our visit to the ANU excavation at Kiandra in mid February next year, courtesy of Ian Farrington. The excavations are at the Government camp and probably the hospital - both built in 1860. Details of where to meet etc will be sent out soon.

However we had a good variety of speakers, starting with Professor Matthew Spriggs in his traditional slot at our first meeting for the year. Happily Matthew has agreed to keep the flame alive with the next thrilling installment of Vanuatu in February next year.

We had more speakers giving new perspectives on Pacific archaeology such as Peter Bellwood and tonight's speaker, Dr Geoff Clark.

Other speakers showed us some indigenous museums in North America and discussed the history of the local Aboriginal people. Michael Westaway's enthusiasm and generosity in answering questions took us on a nostalgic journey for some, to Lake Mungo. Ingereth McFarlane and Mike Smith took us in our imaginings to the central desert, a welcome change in Canberra winter. And Adrian presented his thesis findings on an abandoned settlement.

The low numbers of people at some of these very interesting topics led me to consider the wisdom of night meetings in June and July, so we will trial something a bit different next year.

CAS has also been successful in getting 3 ACT Heritage Grants, with the assistance of the National Trust (ACT Branch) in the management of these. We have started planning how we achieve the tasks for these: to stabilize for public access the ruins of John Crinigan's hut at Amaroo and compile interpretation; to work with local Aboriginal groups to develop interpretation for Girrawah Park in Ngunnawal and to prepare an inventory and conservation advice for the ACT Heritage Unit's store. I am hoping that some of the junk, excuse me, examples of material culture, that I collected last century are still there.

We welcome any assistance members may offer in planning and achieving the work for these grants and we hope to generate at least one student project from the material.

It would be good to see our membership numbers rise. Please share your Old News with your friends. We would particularly welcome more student members, whose numbers seem to drop when we don't have an active member who is part of the ANU faculty. Any ideas from those of you with academic links would be very welcome.

Helen Cooke

2004 President's Report - Professor Graham Connah

Canberra Archaeological Society: Annual General Meeting
held at the Australian National University, 7.30 PM, 17 November 2004

The 41st year of this Society can hardly be said to have been its easiest. It started well enough with fair attendances at its lectures and a successful fieldtrip to the ANU's excavations at Kiandra, where we were shown around by Ian Farrington and Lyndsay Smith, to whom our thanks are due. Later in the year Ladislav Nejman ran another fieldtrip to sites on the South Coast and most recently he ran a very ambitious one to Lake Mungo, in which over 20 people participated. I would like to extend our thanks to Lad for his efforts with these fieldtrips, which were amongst our more successful activities during the year.

However, attendance at the lectures became poor during the winter months and only picked up again in October after very low numbers in July, August and September. This was disappointing because our lectures provide a wide selection of archaeological topics and topics relevant to archaeology and all our speakers spend time and effort in preparing them. Inevitably, if speakers find themselves talking to such small audiences, it will become more difficult for the Society to find lecturers in the future.

In the case of this year the situation was also compounded by the out-of-town absence of several committee members for substantial periods and we are particularly indebted to those who held the fort in their absence, particularly to Bob Legge who, with some difficulty, produced the Newsletter for two months and looked after the meeting suppers as well.

Previous to that Mavis Fowler had generously given her time to organize the suppers. In respect of the Newsletter during the rest of the year, I think that it is most important that we thank Sylvia Schaffarczyk for her editorial work, which has been carried out in spite of heavy commitments to her own studies. Also coming to the Society's rescue on more than one occasion has been Marilyn Folger, to whom our thanks are due. Perhaps she will relent her previous decision and return to the Society's committee, we certainly need her.

As in previous years, it is also necessary to thank the School of Archaeology and Anthropology for its continued sponsorship of the Society and to thank Sue Fraser in the School for her frequent assistance with Society affairs. We have to pay the University for the use of its lecture theatre for our meetings and half of that cost is met by the School and half by ourselves. This is why we continue to have a gold-coin collection at each meeting, because the number of subscription-paying members of the Society remains very small. However, in spite of the concern I have just expressed about attendances at lectures, I think that the Treasurer will shortly tell us that the Society remains financially modestly healthy and we very much appreciate his efforts in this respect. Most often when organizations like ours suffer from failing interest, there is a financial crisis as a result, but this is not the case with our Society and for this reason I am more optimistic about the future than might sometimes appear to be the case. Certainly there is no necessity at the moment to increase the subscription to the Society.

As I have already indicated in the Newsletter, I would be very relieved to pass the Presidency of the Society on to someone else and to share some of the work of finding speakers, having now arranged 40 of them over the last four years. Matthew Spriggs, Peter White of Sydney University, and Michael Pearson are people with whom I am already negotiating for 2005 and I hope that Sylvia Schaffarczyk will assist me in getting together the programme for the coming year. However, I have to present a paper at a conference in Britain in January and, having just published a new book in August this year, I have another overseas publisher's deadline to meet by the end of next year.

In short, this brings me to the subject of the elections that we will shortly hold for next year's officers and committee. Even allowing for some present participants agreeing to continue, we are at least in need of a new President and a new Secretary, that latter position being perhaps the most important one in a Society of this character. I am fully aware how busy everybody is these days but I do hope that we can fill these and the other positions with members who will commit themselves to the support of as broad a spectrum of the Society's activities as possible. I would also respectfully remind you that both those nominating and those voting at this meeting should be paid-up members of the Society. However, should this not be the case in any instance then I am sure that the Treasurer will be more than happy to take payment before we proceed further, and to count it as a 2005 subscription.

I have a deeply engrained conviction that societies like the Canberra Archaeological Society remain important because they provide a meeting point for people of similar interests and, in our case, particularly between students and experienced archaeologists, between university people and non-university people, and between professionals and non-professionals. There are some people who clearly doubt this and who make it apparent by not supporting the Society but I suspect that history could prove them wrong in the long term.

I have just recorded a lecture on a CD for the December meeting of a local history society in the north of England of which I was long ago a member. That society has been going for over 72 years and an archaeological society in the same area for over 150 years. Indeed, the whole idea of people with similar interests, whatever they might be, banding together into groups providing mutual benefits and stimulation is very old indeed. At least as early as the Hellenistic Period, some 2000 years ago, such organizations already existed. I would doubt very much that we are going to see the end of them in our time. So, in conclusion, might I wish us all a very pleasant Christmas and the Society a successful New Year, for many years to come.