Archaeology and the National Museum of Australia

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The Australian Archaeological Association and Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists Incorporated are pleased to note that the recent review of the National Museum of Australia:

• concludes that the Museum is an extraordinary achievement (p.2);
• found that there is no systemic political or cultural bias in the Museum's exhibitions (p.36); and
• calls for a stronger treatment of ''deep time'' in the Museum (p.32).

The associations are concerned that:

• the Review's call for a stronger focus on ''foundational'' figures such as James Cook, Ned Kelly, Matthew Flinders, and Burke and Wills risks a return to a dated and predominantly Anglo-Irish history that does not recognise the achievements of Indigenous Australians (nor indeed later settler groups of different ethnicities) in discovering, exploring and opening up the continent;
• any stronger focus of ''deep-time'' should not be at the expense of a strong exploration of environmental history over the last 200 years; and
• any redevelopment of the ''deep time'' theme should retain not just the history of the land and biota but also the long history of Indigenous people in Australia as chronicled by archaeologists over the last forty years.

The National Museum of Australia is a strong supporter of archaeology. It provided crucial backing for the inaugural National Archaeology Week in 2003 and has convened two significant archaeological conferences: an international congress on southern hemisphere deserts and a national meeting on archaeology and linguistics. A recent critique of the lack of archaeological content in the Victorian Museum referred to the National Museum of Australia as a model of best practice in this regard.

The associations congratulate the management of the Museum on the integrity with which they have both profiled and developed display thematics relevant to the disciplines of archaeology and Quaternary studies generally.