Journal articles on the topic 'Aboriginal antiquity'

The Native game of lacrosse has undergone a considerable amount of change since it was appropriated from Aboriginal peoples beginning in the 1840s. Through this reformulation, non-Native Canadians attempted to establish a national identity through the sport and barred Aboriginal athletes from championship competitions. And yet, lacrosse remained a significant element of Aboriginal culture, spirituality, and the Native originators continued to play the game beyond the non-Native championship classifications. Despite their absence from championship play the Aboriginal roots of lacrosse were zealously celebrated as a form of North American antiquity by non-Aboriginals and through this persistence Natives developed their own identity as players of the sport. Ousted from international competition for more than a century, this article examines the formation of the Iroquois Nationals (lacrosse team representing the Haudenosaunee Confederacy in international competition) between 1983-1990 and their struggle to re-enter international competition as a sovereign nation. It will demonstrate how the Iroquois Nationals were a symbolic element of a larger resurgence of Haudenosaunee “traditionalism” and how the team was a catalyst for unmasking intercommunity conflicts between that traditionalism—engrained within the Haudenosaunee’s “traditional” Longhouse religion, culture, and gender constructions— and new political adaptations.

Sandra Bowdler reported in the last issue of ANTIQUITY (62: 517–23) on the controversy surrounding the recent repainting of Wandjina figures on the rocks of the western Kimberley, northwest Australia. Here is an Aboriginal Australian's view of the repainting project and its significance, along with an explication and further discussion of implications.

On the basis of recent archaeological evidence it seems that humans first entered the Australian continent about 60,000 years ago. These first ocean-going mariners had a high level of technological and economic skill, and had spread right across Australia into a wide variety of environments by about 35,000 years ago. Pigment showing clear signs of use occurs in almost all Australia's oldest known occupation sites, and evidence of self-awareness such as necklaces and beads has been found in several Pleistocene rock shelters. Rituals were carried out in connection with disposal of the dead, for at Lake Mungo there is a 25,000-year-old cremation, and ochre was scattered onto the corpse in a 30,000-year-old inhumation. Complex symbolic behaviour is attested at least 40,000 years ago by petroglyphs in the Olary district, and other evidence suggests a similar antiquity for rock paintings. The special focus of this article is cognitive archaeology, the study of past ways of thought as derived from material remains, particularly the development of early Australian artistic systems.

Notice was taken in ANTIQUITY last year of the Australian bicentennial, and in particular of the remarkable ‘art of the First Fleet’, the ethnographic record provided by the watercolour artists of the contact years around Botany Bay. This note, held over into the bicentennial-plus-one year, finds further insight by tying closer together the painter's record, the ethnographic collections, and the archaeological record.

This article examines the utility of, and embarrassment around, strategic essentialism in Tasmanian Aboriginal public culture. My argument is informed by extensive participant observation in community-led education programs. Australia’s Tasmanian Aboriginal community has historically been defined by outsiders in terms of racial and cultural deficiencies. These judgments preceded and followed their supposed 1876 extinction. These education programs, catering primarily to elementary school students, idealized Tasmanian Aboriginal culture by emphasizing continuity and connection into deep antiquity. They also included moments in which private anxieties about essentialism, deficiency, and what I term their taxonomical fuzziness are made public. The delicate interplay between essentialism and private feelings about loss, appearance, and cultural inferiority is best understood in relation to Herzfeld’s “cultural intimacy.” I argue that approaching public culture through this concept forces researchers to engage with the pervasive fluency of stereotypes through which Native and Indigenous voices regularly must speak in order to be heard.

In north central Virginia there is a local tale - The Legend of Jump Mountain, which purports to explain the origins of the Hayes Creek Indian Burial Mound. A highly romantic legend, it immortalizes post colonial intertribal warfare during the early nineteenth century while ignoring the antiquity of the mound and the local descendants of its aboriginal creators. It is not at all uncommon to find such romantic tales in Indian country where the Native people have become invisible and there remain significant tribal artifacts common to the landscape. However, the standing claim to authenticity remains a matter of significant concern. In this essay, the author considers the tale's effectiveness assessing Indian origins, local history and tribal heritages, as well as the implicit stereotypes and the romantic illusion that it may generate in the popular imagination.

Professor John Mulvaney, pioneer and champion of Australian archaeology, offers us some reflections from the vantage point of his eightieth year. On his retirement 20 years ago Antiquity was glad to publish his Retrospect (Mulvaney 1986), in which he described his awakening interest in history at Melbourne, his first visit to the Rollright Stones and his fruitful encounters with Gordon Childe, Graham Clark, Glyn Daniel, Mortimer Wheeler and many other great figures of the 50s, 60s and 70s in classrooms at Cambridge and in the field in England and Australia. This paper remains a classic of archaeological history which readers will find in our electronic archive (at http://www.antiquity.ac.uk). It ended with his (victorious) battle for the archaeological heritage of the Franklin River heritage of Tasmania in the early 1980s.Now he reflects on the subsequent decades in which much has changed. Of especial interest to our readers will be Professor Mulvaney's current assessment of the Aboriginal-European discourse and the management of the Australian heritage.

In 1980, during excavation of a floodway connected with the construction of the New Brisbane Airport, stone artefacts were observed within the sediments by Mr. Bill Ward, CSIRO Soils Division. His alerting of the state authorities led to further investigations by one of the authors (JH). Such interest was sparked by the fact that, on geomorphic grounds, the site promised an antiquity of at least 4000 years BP. Subsequent test excavation (by JH) in 1984 yielded an in situ stone artefact assemblage with a backed blade component which was associated with an anomalous date of about 1,100 B.P. In order to resolve the problem posed by this association, further excavation was undertaken in July-August 1987 by members of the Field Archaeology class (AY225) of the University of Queensland Department of Anthropology and Sociology under the supervision of Jay Hall and Ian Lilley. This paper is a preliminary report combining findings of both excavations and offers substantive support for an early mid-Holocene Aboriginal occupation of the shores of Moreton Bay.

The ancient Ukrainian zoonym “shchur”, which has long been used for various animals, but most often for large burrowing rodents represented in the aboriginal fauna of Ukraine by the genus Arvicola, is considered. At the same time, this name is also used as a synonym for the word “krysa” (= rat), and in this sense is often identified with the genus Rattus (“patsiuk” = rat) to denote various large rodents from distant lands following a principle “ the small = mice, the large = rats”. Therefore, the name “shchur” is often considered ambiguous and thus worth either forgetting or using only for the alien species. Etymological hypotheses are considered, of which the most relevant to zoological specifics is the one that explains the connection with burrows, ground, and night. This set of features determines the general ecomorphological type: large long-tailed underground mouse-like rodents with expressed nocturnal activity, which appearance in human economies is undesirable. The history of use of the name “shchur” in the special literature, mainly in zoological reviews and other zoological studies, in the period from 1874 to 2020 is analysed. The widespread use of the nomen to denote different groups of animals, and especially rodents of the ecomorphological type “large mice”, which are representatives of the genera Arvicola and Rattus, is shown. Analysis of old sources showed that the name “shchur” was originally used as a common “generic” name for all species as well as some intraspecific forms of both genera, with the definition of semantic differences in the species modifier: water, common, ground, nomadic, basement, black, ship, mill, and so on “shchur”. Unambiguous fixation of Ukrai­nian generic names as equivalents to scientific generic names required the typification of all names, which took place in the Ukrainian scientific nomenclature in the late XIX and early XX centuries. As a result, the name “rat” is proposed to be assigned to the genus Arvicola, and for the genus Rattus to be recorded as the Ukrainian equivalent of the nomen “patsiuk” (“rat”). Arguments are presented to recognise the antiquity of the zoonym “shchur” and therefore to recognise its importance for the designation of aboriginal rodent species, and especially of “water shchur” (water vole, Arvicola amphibius) voles of the genus Arvicola in general. The practice of traditional naming of laboratory rats as “shchur”, as well as the use of the name “shchur” with appropriate definitions to refer to other genera, inclu­ding muskrats (“musk shchur” or “musk rat”), nutria (“marsh shchur” or “marsh rat”) and various representatives of distant faunas (bamboo or spiny tree-rats, etc.) in the Ukrainian zoonymics should be abolished.

The article is devoted to the Russian researcher of China and Manchuria Alexei Osipovich (Iosifovich) Ivanovsky (1863–1903) and his “Materials for the History of Native Tribes in Southwestern China” (in three books) published in 1887 and 1889. The article describes the historical context, which motivated the creation of encyclopedias and albums with information about the aboriginal peoples living in different areas of the Chinese empire and beyond. Life and work of A.O. Ivanovsky have been studied insufficiently; therefore, the article describes his biography with detailed indication of sources concerning life and contribution of this researcher. It is concluded that throughout his scientific career the researcher was engaged in collecting and classifying various knowledge related to China: he wrote a dictionary and biographical articles for large encyclopedias, during his trip to China he collected samples of the Solon and Dahurian languages, studying the peoples of southwestern China he also adhered to the principle of accumulating the maximum possible number of sources on the subject under study. The article analyzes his monograph "Materials for the History of Native Tribes in Southwestern China" in two aspects: 1) Used key sources (Chinese encyclopedias, geographical descriptions, dynastic histories, local gazetteers); 2) Described peoples, generally termed by names “Mani” and “Liao”, as well as using names derived from these two terms. The structure of the text is characterized by heterogeneity, such as: 1) the first volume uses chronological principle, it covers the period from antiquity to the end of the Song dynasty; the third volume covers the period of the three dynasties (Yuan, Ming and Qing). 2) the second volume uses the territorial principle, the second book is divided into 3 chapters, each is discussing the provinces Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan. The publication of the text itself and its content were affected by the financial and organizational difficulties experienced by the author. The article is accompanied by a table compiled to illustrate the work of A.O. Ivanovsky with one of the Chinese sources, “miao album” illustrating peoples of Yunnan "Illustrated Description of the Peoples of the South and West of Yunnan Province" (preface 1837), republished by Saint-Petersburg University Press in 2020.

Archaeologists regard the demonstration of human antiquity in 1859 as a major breakthrough in the development of prehistoric studies. However, the significance of this event, although acknowledged by other disciplines, is largely passed over. We investigate why this is so by examining the procedures that the antiquary John Evans and the geologist Joseph Prestwich used to make their argument. We present previously unreported documents from the Royal Society's Library that show how they built their case for a prehistory without history. Instead it fell to two other antiquaries-archaeologists, John Lubbock and General Augustus Lane-Fox, to flesh out the discovery of deep time. Lubbock supplied a contemporary human face for the makers of Palaeolithic stone tools in the form of Tasmanian aborigines, and Lane-Fox, through his artefact-based ‘philosophy of progress’, presented a model of a stratified mind that contained primeval elements. These events, which took place between 1859 and 1875, set the pattern for research into human origins for the next century.

Saami, Danish archaeology and the origin of the DanesWith the Romantic Movement came a need for the Danish people to have a national identity. That is, a history, a language and, in broad terms, a culture. At the end of the 18th century, it was said that the Danes came from Troy with Odin, while in 1814 Rasmus Rask established a link between the Scandinavian tongues and the civilised languages of Greek and Latin, with roots extending back to Sanskrit. In the mindset of Roman­ticism, people and culture were organic and cohesive entities. Consequently, when Christian Jürgensen Thomsen discovered the Stone Age, the question arose as to the identity of the people to whom this technology belonged. It could clearly not be the Danes, because they had never had stone technology but always agriculture and iron, as was evident from Classical Antiquity’s accounts of the Goths.According to this cultural-historical app­roach, there was only one possible explanation: the Finns or Saami were the original people in Denmark. Rasmus Rask confirmed this by finding Finnish words in Danish place names, and a major study by the great Swedish archaeologist Sven Nilsson came to the same conclusion. But the reputation of the Finns since Classical Antiquity, with their homeland in the far north, was of such a demonic character that Danish archaeologists had no desire either to see them as the original inhabitants of Denmark or later, with the advent of modernity, as the ancestors of the Danish people. The Finns, “the Skrithiphinoi”, were namely, as inhabitants of the outer fringes, one of the three most demonised peoples in the world. The two others were, from the middle of the 17th century, the Khoikhoi, “the Hottentots”, in the far south, and, from the end of the 18th century, the Australian aborigines, “the Blackfellows”, as the ultimately most distant peoples in relation to Europe.To explain Danish archaeology’s view of the Finns, it is shown how they were demonised over time. Reference is made to the important criteria in each epoch, from Classical Antiquity’s secular condemnation of this most distant northern people – more distant and wretched than the Scythians – through Christianity’s vilification of their witchcraft and magic and the Age of Enlightenment’s focus on racial hierarchy, to the Romantic Movement’s ideas about peoples as self-­contained and virtually eternal entities. The article concludes with a discussion of why it was so important for Danish archaeology, in the 19th and early 20th century, to deny any connection between the Saami and Denmark’s early history.Ole HøirisAfdeling for AntropologiInstitut for Kultur og SamfundAarhus Universitete

Рассматривается один из основных ландшафтных кодов культурной географии – «вода/река», его анализ позволит понять особенности формирования хозяйственной специфики и духовных ценностей бродячих охотничье-рыболовных племен Восточной Сибири. Территории кочевания этих племен за последние 2 тыс. лет существенно сократились, и в настоящее время Нелемнинский наслег – земли родовой общины «Тэки Одулок» в Верхнеколымском улусе Республики Саха (Якутия) – единственное в своем роде место компактного проживания потомков древнего населения. Для северных кочевников юкагиров (охотников и рыболовов) вода/река имела культурообразующее значение: она кормила, помогала перемещаться с места на место, служила ориентиром на местности. Важность водных ресурсов рассматривается в статье через призму этнической истории юкагирского народа. Показано, что современная уникальная культура северных номадов Верхней Колымы сложилась благодаря двум основным факторам: сохранности гомогенной «кормящей» территории и незначительной трансформации традиционного годового хозяйственного цикла. Природно-климатические условия и полукочевой уклад жизни выработали у этой группы юкагиров устойчивые стереотипы мышления и поведения и определенную систему ценностей и предпочтений. Их пространственные представления формировались под влиянием ландшафта, в частности водной системы территории кочевания. Традиционно в период промысла родовые группы лесных юкагиров длительное время находились в изоляции – такое положение сохранялось вплоть до начала XX в. Подобные условия предполагали разного рода опасности и риски, реальные и воображаемые. При отсутствии дорог в теплое время года и в силу большой заболоченности территории древний ландшафтный код «вода/река» определял номадический характер культуры юкагиров. Водная система в представлениях охотников и рыболовов Верхней Колымы запечатлена в духовной и материальной культуре как амбивалентная стихия. В геокультурном пространстве потомков аборигенных северных номадов концепт «водная стихия» традиционно построен на культурных смыслах, образах и символах. Сегодня присваивающий характер хозяйства лесных юкагиров и сохранение значимости ландшафтного кода «вода/река» позволяют говорить, что в обозримом будущем в культуре этого народа по-прежнему будут присутствовать элементы древних языческих религиозно-мифологических представлений. The article considers one of the main landscape codes of cultural geography – water/river, which in part determined the specifics of economy and spiritual values of the wandering hunting tribes of Eastern Siberia. The areas of nomadic hunting and fishing tribes of Eastern Siberia have significantly decreased over the past two thousand years, and currently the territory of the Nelemninsky National Council and the tribal community “Teki Odulok” in the Verkhnekolymsky region (ulus) of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) is the only place of compact residence of descendants of the ancient population. Among the northern nomads –Yukagirs-hunters and fishermen, the water/river landscape code was of a cultural-forming significance; water/river provided food, transport and served as a reference point in space. The significance of water resources is considered in diachronic and synchronous ranges against the background of the ethnic history of the Yukagir people with the involvement of archival and literary data. It is shown that the modern functioning of the unique culture of northern nomad dog breeders in the Upper Kolyma is due to the preservation of a homogeneous feeding territory and a minor transformation of the traditional annual economic cycle. The territorial community, the organization of living space in such climatic conditions and the semi-nomadic way of life have developed stable stereotypes of thinking and behavior, a system of values and preferences for this group of Yukagirs. The understanding of space of the nomad dog breeders reveals the mechanisms of formation and influence of the water/river discourse on various aspects of their activities. Traditionally from antiquity and to the beginning of the 20th century during the period of fishing and nomading on boats and rafts in the warm season, the tribal groups of forest Yukagirs were isolated for a long time. This situation implied various potential dangers and risks, real and mythologized. The ancient landscape code water / river in the absence of dirt roads in the warm season and a large bog area determined the nomadic nature of the culture. The figurative and geographical model of the water universe at the locus of the water hunters and fishermen of the Upper Kolyma is captured in the discourse of spiritual and material culture as an ambivalent element. In the geo-cultural area of the descendants of the aboriginal northern nomads, the concept of the water element is traditionally built on cultural meanings, images and symbols. The appropriating nature of the economy and the longstanding significance of one of the main landscape codes of water/river stimulate the continued exsistence of ancient pagan religious and mythological representations among the forest Yukagirs in the foreseeable future

Исследования искусственной среды уже давно изучаются в отдельных областях социальных наук, и предпринимается несколько попыток создания единой теории взаимодействия человека с окружающей средой. Текущий дискурс об искусственной среде оставался фрагментированным между археологами и социальными антропологами. Исследование комплексного подхода теоретических основ теории искусственной среды может оказаться полезным для археологов и социальных антропологов в понимании взаимодействия человека с окружающей средой. Подходы, применяемые как археологами, так и социальными антропологами, обладают уникальными преимуществами, которые, адаптированные вместе, могут обеспечить более сильную концептуализацию и развитие большего за счет исследований взаимоотношений человека с искусственной средой в прошлых и современных обществах. Библиографическме ссылки Blockley, M. 2003. In P. G. Stone, P. G. Planel. (eds). The Constructed Past: Experimental Archaeology, Education and the Public. Routledge,. 16–18. Goody, J. 1971.In Goody, J. (ed.). The Developmental Cycle in Domestic Groups. Cambridge University Press, 347–381.Hodder I. 1979. In American Antiquity. 44 (3), 446–454. Kent, S.1984. Analyzing Activity Areas: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of the Use of Space. University of New Mexico Press. Lawrence, D. L., Low, S. M. 1990. In Annual Review of Anthropology. 1990. 19, 435–505. Lercari, N. 2017. In Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage. 6, 10–17. Micoli L., Guidi G., Angheleddu D., Russo M. 2013. A multidisciplinary approach to 3D survey and reconstruction of historical buildings. Digital Heritage International Congress Proceedings. 241–248. Morgan, L. H. 1965. Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines. University of Chicago Press. Planel, P. G., Stone, P. G. 2003. In P. G. Stone, P. G. Planel. (eds). The Constructed Past: Experimental Archaeology, Education and the Public. Routledge,. 1–5. Rapoport, A. 1977. Human Aspects of Urban Form. Pergamon. Rapoport, A. 1990. The Meaning of the Built Environment: A Nonverbal Communication Approach. University of Arizona Press. Schiffer, M.B. 1978. In Gould, R. (ed.). Methodological issues in ethnoarchaeology. Explorations in Ethnoarchaeology.. University of New Mexico Press, 1978. Р. 347–381. Sitdikov, A., Badeev, D. 2017. In European Research Studies Journal. S (20), 208−214. Baranov, V. S. 2013. In Baranov, V. S., Valeev R. M., Salikhov R. R., Poluboiarinova M. D., Sharifullin R. F. (eds.). Velikii Bolgar (Great Bolgar). Moscow; Kazan: “Feoriia” Publ., 232–242 (in Russian). Valeev, R. M. 2013. In Baranov, V. S., Valeev R. M., Salikhov R. R., Poluboiarinova M. D., Sharifullin R. F. (eds.). Velikii Bolgar (Great Bolgar). Moscow; Kazan: “Feoriia” Publ., 92–97 (in Russian). Izmailov, I. L. 2013. In Baranov, V. S., Valeev R. M., Salikhov R. R., Poluboiarinova M. D., Sharifullin R. F. (eds.). Velikii Bolgar (Great Bolgar). Moscow; Kazan: “Feoriia” Publ., 55−63 (in Russian). Koval V. Yu. 2016. In Povolzhskaya arkheologiya (Volga River Region Archaeology) 18 (4), 99−124 (in Russian). Mukhametshin, D. G. 2016. In Bocharov, S. G., Sitdikov, A. G. (eds.). Dialog gorodskoi i stepnoi kul'tur na Evraziiskom prostranstve. Istoricheskaia geografi ia Zolotoi Ordy (Dialogue of the Urban and Steppe Cultures in the Eurasian Space. Historical Geography of the Golden Horde). Kazan; Yalta; Kishinev: “Stratum plus” Publ., 121−123 (in Russian). Nigamaev, A. Z. 2017. In Arkheologiia Evraziiskikh stepei (Archaeology of Eurasian Steppes) 3. 239−242 (in Russian). Sharifullin R. F. 2014. In Povolzhskaya arkheologiya (Volga River Region Archaeology) 9 (3), 56−75 (in Russian).

AbstractInsects form an important source of food for many people around the world, but little is known of the deep-time history of insect harvesting from the archaeological record. In Australia, early settler writings from the 1830s to mid-1800s reported congregations of Aboriginal groups from multiple clans and language groups taking advantage of the annual migration of Bogong moths (Agrotis infusa) in and near the Australian Alps, the continent’s highest mountain range. The moths were targeted as a food item for their large numbers and high fat contents. Within 30 years of initial colonial contact, however, the Bogong moth festivals had ceased until their recent revival. No reliable archaeological evidence of Bogong moth exploitation or processing has ever been discovered, signalling a major gap in the archaeological history of Aboriginal groups. Here we report on microscopic remains of ground and cooked Bogong moths on a recently excavated grindstone from Cloggs Cave, in the southern foothills of the Australian Alps. These findings represent the first conclusive archaeological evidence of insect foods in Australia, and, as far as we know, of their remains on stone artefacts in the world. They provide insights into the antiquity of important Aboriginal dietary practices that have until now remained archaeologically invisible.

On the back cover of The Art Forger’s Handbook, Eric Hebborn proclaims No drawing can lie of itself, it is only the opinion of the expert which can deceive. (Hebborn) Well certainly, but like many forgers Hebborn was dedicated to ensuring the experts have ample material with which to work. The debate about authenticity rolls into the debate about originality rolls into the debate about excellence, slipping between the verifiable and the subjective, shadowed by the expert assessing, categorising, and delivering verdicts. Yet the proclamation ‘This is authentic’ is not straightforward. It is impossible to prove that the statement ‘This is a painting by Sir Arthur Streeton’ is true. It is always possible (though not probable) that the work in question is an excellent copy, manufactured with materials identical to those employed by Streeton, with brushstrokes reflecting Streeton’s manipulation of paint, applied in the kind of sequence Streeton used and with a provenance crafted to simulate perfectly an acceptable provenance for a work by Streeton. Much easier to prove that a work is not by a particular artist; one very obvious anomaly will suffice (Sloggett 298). But an anomaly requires a context, the body of material against which to assess the new find. John Drew’s manipulation of the art market was successful not because of the quality of the pictures he paid John Myatt to produce (after all they were painted with household emulsion paint often extended with K-Y Jelly). His success lay in his ability to alter the identities of these works by penetrating the archives of the Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum and manufacturing an archival history that virtually copied the history of works by his target artists, Nicholson, Giocometti, Chagall, Epstein, Dubeffet, and de Stals. While the paintings mimicked works by these artists, without a provenance (an identity and identity trail) they were nothing more than approximate copies, many which were initially rejected by the dealers and auction houses (Landesman 38). Identity requires history and context: for something to be deemed ‘real’, both need to be verifiable. The plight of stateless refugees lies in their inability to verify their history (who am I?) and their context (I exist here because…). Drew’s ability to deliver a history is only one way in which works can slip identities (or in the case of Drew’s works – can be pushed). Drew’s intention and his ability to profit by the deception denoted fraud. But authentication is more often sought to support not fraud but optimism. ‘Can you please look at this painting which hung in my grandfather’s lounge room for over 50 years? It was given to him by the artist. I remember it as a small boy, and my father also remembers it when he was a child. But I can’t sell it because someone said it didn’t look right. Can you tell if it is by the artist?’ Such a problem needs to be approached on two fronts. Firstly, how strong is the evidence that this work is by the artist and secondly, what is the hypothesis of best fit for this work? The classic authentication process examines a picture and, against a framework of knowns (usually based on securely provenanced works) looks for points of identification between the proffered work and provenanced works. From these points of identification a theory of best fit is developed. For example, a painting with the inscription ‘Arthur Streeton/1896’ is analysed for its pigment content in order to test the proposition that this is a work by Arthur Streeton from 1896. Pigment analysis indicates that titanium white (a pigment not available commercially until 1920) is found in the clouds. So the proposition must be modified: either this is a work by Streeton that has been heavily reworked after 1920, or this is not a work by Streeton, or this is a work by Streeton but the date is wrong. The authentication process will define and redefine each proposition until there is one that best fits the evidence at hand. Fluorescing the date to establish whether it is a recent addition would be part of this process. Examining other whites in the painting to check if the clouds had been added later would be another. Checking the veracity of the provenance would also be critical. We may decide that this is not an 1896 work by Streeton based on the evidence of the pigment. But what if an art historian discovers a small pigment manufacturer in Box Hill whose records show they produced titanium dioxide as a pigment in 1890? The new evidence may affect the conclusion. But more likely we would want to verify such evidence before we altered our conclusion. Between the extremes of Drew’s manufactured identities and the optimism of a third generation is the strengthened work, combining identity shift and hope. Dali pulled a reverse strengthening when he signed 20,000 blank sheets of paper for lithographs that had not yet been executed (Hebborn 79), but more usually it is the inscription not the image that is missing. Of course a signature is good, but signature works may not have, and do not need signatures. A signature may be a picture of a certain place (Heidelberg) at a certain time of day (moonrise); optimism will soon join the dots, producing a David Davies Moonrise. Often an inscription helps; a nondescript clean-shaven Victorian gentleman can become a bearded founding father, an anonymous nag the first winner of the Melbourne Cup. And if the buyer is not convinced, then a signature may win the day. Unlike Drew’s fabricated histories these changes in identity are confined to transformations of the object itself and then, by association, to its context. Art fraud is an endearing topic, partly because it challenges the subjective nature of expertise. When van Meegeren manufactured his most successful ‘Vermeer’ The Supper at Emmaus (1937) he explored the theories of experts, and then set about producing a work that copied not an existing Vermeer, but the critic’s theory of what an as-yet-undiscovered Vermeer would look like. Hannema, van Schendel and finally Bredius subscribed to the theory that Vermeer’s trip to Italy resulted in Caravaggio’s influence on the artist (Dutton 25). Van Meegeren obligingly produced such a work. So does it matter? Is an identical work as good a work? Is a sublime copyist of great artists a great artist? (Not that van Meegeren was either.) Authentication is a process of assessing claims about identity. It involves reputation, ownership, relationships and truth. When an artist executes a copy it is homage to the skill of the master. When Miss Malvina Manton produced a scene of dead poultry in 1874, she was copying the most popular painting in the fledgling collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Schendel’s The Poultry Vendor (Inglis 63), and joined a league of copyists including Henry Gritten and Nicholas Chevalier who sought permission to copy the Gallery’s paintings. When John O’Loughlin copied works by Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and passed them off as original the impact on the artist was less benign (Gotting). Sid Nolan refused to identify problematic paintings attributed to his oeuvre claiming that to acknowledge such paintings would cast doubt on his entire oeuvre. Bob Dickerson assiduously tracks down and ‘outs’ problematic paintings from his oeuvre, claiming that not to do so would leave the thin edge of the wedge firmly embedded for future opportunists. Both are concerned with their identity. Creation is a fraught business, simply because the act of creation is the act of giving an identity. Whether we create a child, a musical score, a painting or a t-shirt brand, the newly created entity is located within a lineage and context that means more than the single individual creation. This is why identity theft is such a major crime. If someone steals an identity they also steal the collateral developed around that identity, the ability to deal in credit, to drive a car, to travel overseas, to purchase a house. Identity is a valuable commodity; for an artist it is their tool of trade. There is no doubt that the public celebrates the fake. Perhaps it is a celebration of the power of the object over the critic or the theoretician. But it is an extraordinarily costly celebration. Despite the earlier assertion that it is possible to make the perfect copy, very few even approximate the vibrancy and intelligence of an original. Most, if accepted, would seriously dilute the strength of the artist’s oeuvre. Forging Aboriginal art is even more disgraceful. In a society where cultural transmission has traditionally been based on complex relationships of dance, song, painting and objects to customary rights, laws and obligations, art fraud impacts on the very fabric of society. There will always be works that slip identities, and many are not pulled back. False works do damage; they dull our perceptions, dilute our ability to understand an artist’s contribution to society, and are usually no more than blunt instruments used for financial gain. References Australian Institute of Criminology. “Art Crime: Protecting Art, Protecting Artists and Protecting Consumers.” 2-3 Decembeer 1999. 1 May 2005 http://www.aic.gov.au/conferences/artcrime/>. Catterall, L. The Great Dali Art Fraud and Other Deceptions. Fort Lee, New Jersey: Barricade, 1992. Dutton, Denis, ed. The Forger’s Art Forgery and the Philosophy of Art. California: U of California P, 1983 Gotting, Peter. “Shame of Aboriginal Art Fakes.” 16 July 2000. 31 May 2005 http://www.museum-security.org/00/112.html#3>. Hebborn, Eric. The Art Forger’s Handbook. London: Cassell, 1997. Inglis, Alison. “What Did the Picture’s Surface Convey? Copies and Copying in the National Gallery of Victoria during the Colonial Period.” The Articulate Surface: Dialogues on Paintings between Conservators, Curators and Art Historians. Ed. Sue-Anne Wallace, with Jacqueline Macnaughtan and Jodi Parvey. Canberra: The Humanities Research Centre, the Australian National University and the National Gallery of Australia, 1996. 55-69. Landesman, Peter. “A 20th-Century Master Scam.” The New York Times Magazine (18 July 1999): 31-63. Sloggett, Robyn. “The Truth of the Matter: Issues and Procedures in the Authentication of Artwork.” Arts, Antiquity and Law 5.3 (September 2000): 295-303. Tallman, Susan. “Report from London Faking It.” Art in America (November 1990): 75-81. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Sloggett, Robyn. "Slipping and Sliding: Blind Optimism, Greed and the Effect of Fakes on Our Cultural Understanding." M/C Journal 8.3 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0507/09-sloggett.php>. APA Style Sloggett, R. (Jul. 2005) "Slipping and Sliding: Blind Optimism, Greed and the Effect of Fakes on Our Cultural Understanding," M/C Journal, 8(3). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0507/09-sloggett.php>.