Shades of red: Peter Worsley’s rock art research on Groote Eylandt

Abstract

These were bad times, doing anthropology under McCarthy … What happened with McCarthy in the U.S. happened everywhere in the 1950's. It was awful and we thought they were going to arrest all the Communists. I buried my C.P. [Communist Party] literature in the garden. (Worsley et al. 1989:00:50:51)Worsley feared that his academic career was in ruins 'because you couldn't become an anthropologist without doing fieldwork of course, it's the end …' (Worsley et al. 1989:59.07). But soon after his New Guinea plans were scuppered, Frederick Rose 'solved my life problem for me', Worsley recalled (Worsley and Thomas 2010-11:Session 5, 01:05:00).