A Community-Based Approach to Documenting and Interpreting the Cultural Seascapes of the Recherche Archipelago, Western Australia

‘Out of sight, out of mind’ - towards a greater acknowledgment of submerged prehistoric resources in Australian science-policy as part of a common heritage

“…A resource or system cannot be managed unless it is measured or mapped (Borja and Elliott, 2021), or as Indigenous elder Edvard Hviding (2005) explains, "those who cannot name the good things of sea and land, cannot find them, and therefore cannot eat or otherwise benefit from them, nor will they know how to look after them well". This ultimately leads to a need for systematic assessment of ecological and cultural heritage resourcesboth known and unknown in coastal and marine settings (e.g., Gee et al 2017), such as was done for Groote Eylandt (Davies et al, 2020) and is being done for the Recherche Archipelago (Guilfoyle et al, 2019) (see locations on Box 1). The community-led study in the Recherche Archipelago is exploring the transformation of the coastal plain from the late Pleistocene, including traditional creation stories of the islands, to the more recent historical use of the archipelago (Box 1: Recherche Archipelago).…”

“…At the peak of the last Ice Age, approximately 21,000 years ago, the coastline would have extended 80 -100 km further offshore. Archaeological evidence for the use of the now submerged plain is in the form of stone artefacts, middens, man-made structures and other cultural features located on the islands of the Archipelago and also on the mainland from at least 13,000 years ago (Guilfoyle 2019).…”

“…Amongst the things that Diver (2017) (Weiss et al, 2013;Davies et al, 2020;Goolmeer et al, 2021;Macpherson et al, 2021), and this simply needs to be extended to include historic and prehistoric marine cultural heritage, such as in the community-led archaeological research program in the Recherche Archipelago (see Box 1 -Recherche Archipelago). As Guilfoyle et al,(2019) notes, the strength of this program is that the researchers, traditional owners and volunteers involved all bring different perspectives while sharing the same goal: to learn how best to understand, manage and protect these shared natural and cultural landscapes.…”

“…However, such features are required to be identified and assessed before being protected. For the most part, this kind of assessment has fallen under the banner of self-monitoring, e.g., Ports Authorities and traditional owner groups (Guilfoyle et al, 2019), or investigative monitoring by researchers, increasingly with Indigenous involvement, showing the importance of citizen science (see also Borja and Elliott, 2021).…”

“…Successful Traditional Use of Marine Resources Agreements (TUMRAs) exist for parts of the Queensland coast, with the largest recently set up with the Darumbal people on the southern Great Barrier Reef. Similar Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUA) exist for the Wagyl Kaip and Southern Noongar traditional owners, with new agreements being set up along other parts of southern Western Australia (Guilfoyle et al, 2019). For most parts, non-exclusive sea rights of Native Title holders largely limit them to being stakeholders rather than resource custodians in conventional (i.e., Western) commercial or ecosystem management (Kaye, 2001).…”