Journal articles on the topic 'Aboriginal objects'

In recent years Aboriginalia, defined here as souvenir objects depicting Aboriginal peoples, symbolism and motifs from the 1940s—1970s and sold largely to tourists in the first instance, has become highly sought after by both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal collectors and has captured the imagination of Aboriginal artists and cultural commentators. The paper seeks to understand how and why Aboriginality came to brand Australia and almost every tourist place and centre at a time when Aboriginal people and culture were subject to policies (particularly the White Australia Polic(ies)) that effectively removed them from their homelands and sought in various ways to assimilate them (physiologically and culturally) into mainstream white Australian culture. In addition the paper suggests that this Aboriginalia had an unintended social life as an object of tourism and nation. It is argued that the mass-produced presence of many reminders of Aboriginal culture came to be ‘repositories of recognition’ not only of the presence of Aborigines but also of their dispossession and repression. As such they emerge today recoded as politically and culturally charged objects with (potentially) an even more radical role to play in the unfolding of race relations in Australia.

ABSTRACTThis article discusses changing obligations toward objects from an archaeological site held by the Queensland Museum, through a long-term, 40-year case study. Between 1971 and 1972 a selection of 92 stone blocks weighing up to 5 tons containing Aboriginal engravings were cut out of the site and distributed to multiple locations across Queensland by the State Government under the provisions of the then Aboriginal Relics Preservation Act 1967. The site was subsequently flooded following dam construction and the removed blocks became part of the Queensland Museum’s collection. This article chronicles the history of the site and its “salvage,” the consequences of fragmentation of the site for community and institutions, the creation of 92 museum objects, the transformation from immobile to mobile cultural heritage, and community-led requests for their repatriation back to country.

AbstractWith reference to an ethnographic study of Aboriginal Australians in formal schooling, this paper focuses on the dynamism of the policy process. It argues that social policy is different in its performance from its formal articulation. It proposes that other discourses complicate policy discourse in its implementation, and that the Aboriginal objects of policy respond creatively to their representation in policy in ways that contribute to that complication. Aboriginal political leaders adopt the subject imagined in policy, elaborate its normativity and pressure their constituency to perform it. The routine performance of this subject works to compromise individuals’ capabilities to negotiate their lived interculturality and multiplicity, and confirms Aborigines in their marginalisation. Thus, policy becomes a central, authoritative catalyst in the real-world constitution of the subject initially imagined. The paper proposes that if social policy engages with this complexity, it can be effective in its aims of contributing to Aboriginal education and development, and management of the emerging condition of diversity. In both cases, it must account for the discursive and performative agency of the objects of policy, making it necessarily context-specific and revisable.

The creative power and the economic valorization of Indigenous Australian arts tend to surprise outsiders who come into contact with it. Since the 1970s Australia has seen the development of a system connecting artist cooperatives, support policies and commercial galleries. This article focuses on one particular aspect of this system: the gradual incorporation of Aboriginal objects and knowledge by the country's museums. Based on the available bibliography and my own fieldwork in 2010, I present some concrete examples and discuss the paradox of the omnipresence of Aboriginal art in Australian public space. After all this is a country that as late as the nineteenth century allowed any Aborigine close to a white residence to be shot, and which until the 1970s removed Indigenous children from their families for them to be raised by nuns or adopted by white people. Even today the same public enchanted by the indigenous paintings held in the art galleries of Sydney or Melbourne has little actual contact with people of Indigenous descent.

Qualitative research through focus groups and semi-structured interviews was conducted with members of 6 northern Ontario Aboriginal communities to obtain their views on how to define and protect Aboriginal values during forest management. Landscape visualization models were used for forest management scenario illustrations. Research results show that: (1) Aboriginal people take an all-encompassing view when discussing Aboriginal values; (2) some of the terminology used in forest management planning regarding Aboriginal values can be confusing to Aboriginal people; and (3) individual Aboriginal values are sometimes spatially defined as more than the physical objects that represent them. One of the conclusions of the research is that Ontario forest management planning needs a separate guide on defining and protecting Aboriginal values. Key words: Aboriginal values, forest management planning, land use, trappers’ cabin, spiritual site, burial site, landscape visualization

This article explores the rights of Aboriginal peoples in Canada concerning movable Aboriginal cultural property. Although the Canadian constitution protects Aboriginal rights, the content of this protection has only recently begun to be explored by the Supreme Court of Canada in a series of important cases. This article sets out the existing Aboriginal rights regime in Canada and assesses its likely application to claims for the return of Aboriginal cultural property. Canadian governments have shown little interest in attempting to resolve questions concerning ownership and possession of Aboriginal cultural property, and there have been few instances of litigation. Over the last decade a number of Canadian museums have entered into voluntary agreements to return cultural objects to Aboriginal peoples' representatives. Those agreements have often involved ongoing partnerships between Aboriginal peoples and museums concerning such matters as museum management and exhibition curatorship. A recent development has been the resolution of specific repatriation requests as part of modern land claims agreements. The compromise represented by these negotiated solutions also characterizes the legal standards being developed to reconcile existing Aboriginal rights and the legitimate policy concerns of the wider Canadian society.

Aboriginal people are increasingly making use of digitising technologies for their cultural and educational work. However, databases are not innocent objects. They bear within them Western assumptions about the nature of knowledge, and how it is produced, which may inhibit or undermine the intergenerational transmission of Aboriginal knowledge traditions. Words (or text strings), for example, have a particular constitutive function in Aboriginal epistemology, which implies a rethinking of traditional structures and uses of metadata. Knowledge and truth are understood more in terms of performance than content, which implies something about how digital resources are to be configured and represented. This paper looks at collaborative work done developing a database to support the ongoing work done by Yolngu (northeast Arnhem Land Aboriginal) people in keeping their knowledge traditions strong.

AbstractThe traditional cultures of Aboriginal Australians include a significant astronomical component, which is usually reported in terms of songs or stories associated with stars and constellations. Here we argue that the astronomical components extend further, and include a search for meaning in the sky, beyond simply mirroring the earth-bound understanding. In particular, we have found that traditional Aboriginal cultures include a deep understanding of the motion of objects in the sky, and that this knowledge was used for practical purposes such as constructing calendars. We also present evidence that traditional Aboriginal Australians made careful records and measurements of cyclical phenomena, and paid careful attention to unexpected phenomena such as eclipses and meteorite impacts.

This paper explores identity and the recursive impacts of cross-cultural colonial encounters on individuals, cultural materials, and cultural practices in 20th-century northern Australia. We focus on an assemblage of cached metal objects and associated cultural materials that embody both Aboriginal tradition and innovation. These cultural materials were wrapped in paperbark and placed within a ring of stones, a bundling practice also seen in human burials in this region. This ‘cache' is located in close proximity to rockshelters with rich, superimposed Aboriginal rock art compositions. However, the cache shelter has no visible art, despite available wall space. The site shows the utilisation of metal objects as new raw materials that use traditional techniques to manufacture a ground edge metal axe and to sharpen metal rods into spears. We contextualise these objects and their hypothesised owner(s) within narratives of invasion/contact and the ensuing pastoral history of this region. Assemblage theory affords us an appropriate theoretical lens through which to bring people, places, objects, and time into conversation.

AbstractIndigenous studies (also referred to as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies) has a double identity in the Australian education system, consisting of the education of Indigenous students and education of all students about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and histories. Through explanations of the history of the inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander musics in Australian music education, this article critiques ways in which these musics have been positioned in relation to a number of agendas. These include definitions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander musics as types of Australian music, as ethnomusicological objects, as examples of postcolonial discourse, and as empowerment for Indigenous students. The site of discussion is the work of the Australian Society for Music Education, as representative of trends in Australian school-based music education, and the Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music at the University of Adelaide, as an example of a tertiary music program for Indigenous students.

The great achievements of the oil production and refining industries are accompanied by a constant influx of oil polluting substances into the soil, reservoirs and other environmental objects. Due to their toxic effects, great damage is caused to agriculture, arable land is decommissioned, and the functioning of aquatic ecosystems and life on the planet as a whole are disrupted. Oil-producing microorganisms play a leading role in cleaning oilcontaminated ecosystems. Currently, the most promising methods of bioremediation of objects of the external environment with the help of biologics based on microorganisms capable of using organic pollutants as carbon sources are proposed. In this article, the separation of Aboriginal strains from oil-contaminated soil and their identification were carried out.

Imported material forms were central to the settlement of Australia as a penal colony, beginning with the “discovery” of the continent by James Cook, who took possession of New South Wales in 1770 by naming Possession Island. The first part of this article traces the intersection in early journals and legal records between material instability and naming, arguing that as Aboriginal peoples and convicts challenged the social meaning of objects, the ability to refer to those objects became essential. The second part explores failed naming in David Malouf's novel Remembering Babylon (1993), set on the early-nineteenth-century frontier, whose central character calls himself a “B-b-british object,” stuttered words that evoke the historical importance and the vulnerability of imported goods during colonization and settlement in Australia.

The article presents the results of monitoring the commercial fish populations of Edilsor Lake. Edilsor is one of the large lakes of the West Kazakhstan region of fishery importance, in connection with which the monitoring of the natural numbers of populations of aboriginal commercial fish species of the studied reservoir is relevant. Control catches were used to analyze the state of natural fish populations. As tools for catching biological objects, commercial fish, lake plug-in nets with mesh sizes of 30–70 mm were used. Control catches of aboriginal commercial fish were carried out during the period of field studies. The captured biological objects were subjected to the analysis of such biological indicators as species, age composition, ratio of females and males in the catch, weight, length of the whole body of fish, according to the results obtained, the average values were determined. As a result of control catches, the species composition of the ichthyofauna of Lake Edilsor included the following species of aboriginal commercial fish: carp — 7.1 %, bream — 16.7 %, blue bream — 7.1 %, crucian carp — 4.8 %, perch — 64.3 %. The largest population was characterized by the perch population, which amounted to 27 individuals, the bream was less common — 7 individuals, the carp and blue bream — 3 individuals, the smallest number was observed in the population of crucian carp, which amounted to 2 individuals. According to the weight ratio, fish species are located as follows: perch — 40 %, carp — 32.5 %, bream — 15.8 %, crucian carp — 8.5 %, blue bream — 3.2 %. The largest mass falls on representatives of perch — 6.94 kg, followed by carp — 5.63 kg, bream — 2.73 kg, crucian carp — 1.47 kg, blue bream — 0.56 kg.

In 2008, an Aboriginal Australian artist based in Melbourne, Australia, created a kangaroo-teeth necklace, revivifying an art/cultural practice for the first time in over a century. She was inspired to do so after viewing an 1880 photograph of an ancestor wearing such adornment. In this article, I bring the necklace and the photograph into the same analytical frame, arguing for the photograph as an archive itself. I consider the trajectories through which the 19th-century image has been replicated and circulated in various productions of knowledge about Aboriginal people, and how a 21st-century artist is mobilizing it not just as a repository of visual information, but also as an impetus to creative production. She produces objects of value and is making culture anew, in a context in which Aboriginality has long/often been presumed absent, extinct or elsewhere.

This paper reports on the recording of previously unpublished Aboriginal stone hut structures in southwestern Queensland. Located along the Georgina River, these 15 structures are typical of the region, being generally circular in plan view, with an average diameter of 5m and a 1m-wide opening consistently positioned to afford protection from prevailing winds. Evidence suggests these structures were roofed with vegetation and, while they pre-date the contact period, appear also to have been used into at least the late 1800s. Artefacts associated with them include stone flakes, cores and edge-ground axe fragments, freshwater mussel shells, rifle cartridge cases, fragments of glass, and metal objects. A comparison of these stone hut structures is made with similar features from elsewhere in Australia, demonstrating that there was a widespread but consistent use of stone for construction. This short report contributes to an increasing awareness of, and literature about, built structures in traditional Aboriginal societies.

Trading Lines is a photo essay that tracks nearly twenty years of research within international museums as well as collecting and sharing photographs and objects. This research began in 1996 at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, where I encountered an Aboriginal skull from N.S.W. Australia —that was part of the active international Aboriginal human remains trade activated from the early 18th century. This photo essay shares correspondence between myself and private and public collection managers and collectors. Some images are from actual installations where I have combined objects with artworks, as a whole, it is an attempt to draw lines between pure collection activities and legitimate anguish many people feel for not only their cultural heritage but also those of the human remains trade. Even though repatriation of human remains to Aboriginal communities in Australia has been an active endeavor over the last 10 or more years, many human remains, photos and other important documents are still being uncovered, repatriated and traded. The comparable texts and images explore the margins of both museum practice and community involvement and understanding of these actions and communications. I intend to present this photo essay as an archive that engages people within their own curiosity of access to a complex world of negotiations. Further documents, human remains and other materials are gradually and continually unearthed in museums and sold through private collections and markets. Reflecting on this, who owns their own culture and history, and how does a culture remember when they are not in receipt of their cultural materials. I hope to stimulate important considerations about the power of a public archive, noting the complex protocol tensions that can arise and how these lines or margins are negotiated, crossed, hidden or shared.

We can note three phases in the tradition of the readymade and appropriation since Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel of 1913. First, they include early enactments in which the readymade posed an onto- logical challenge to artworks through the equation of commodity and art object. Second, practices in which readymades were de- ployed semantically as lexical elements within a sculpture, paint- ing, installation or projection. In a third phase, which most directly encompasses the global, the appropriation of objects, images, and other forms of content challenges sovereignty over the cultural and economic value linked to things that emerge from particular cultural properties ranging from Aboriginal painting in Australia to the ap- propriation of Mao’s cult of personality in 1990s China. This essay considers the most recent phase of the readymade in terms of its century-long history.

During the 1830s, humanitarian concern for the plight of the British Empire’s Indigenous peoples reached its height, coinciding with colonists’ rapid encroachment upon Indigenous land in New South Wales. Increasing frontier violence culminated in the shocking Myall Creek Massacre of June 1838, prompting heated debates regarding the treatment of Australian Aboriginal people. Humanitarians and colonists deployed intensely emotive strategies seeking to direct compassion towards their very different objects via newspapers, the pulpit, prose, poetry and imagery. The landmark sermon delivered in late 1838 by Sydney Baptist minister John Saunders argued for Indigenous rights and the recognition of Aboriginal humanity, drawing a distinction between ‘pity’ and ‘justice’ that anticipated more recent debates regarding empathy. Saunders’s argument contrasts with sentimental antislavery strategies which rendered black people passive beneficiaries of white benevolence, demonstrating that despite scholarly critique which emphasises the limits of empathy, we must not assume empathy has static or homogeneous meanings and political effects in specific circumstances and times. While empathy may be complicit with injustice, conversely a lack of sympathy for other peoples’ suffering may license racism, misogyny and oppression.

AbstractIn the mid-1990s, staff at Museum Victoria planned the new Melbourne Museum. The Indigenous gallery was a major focus at a time when many museums around the world forged new ways of displaying Indigenous heritage. Named Bunjilaka (a Woiwurrung word meaning ‘place of Bunjil', referring to the ancestral eaglehawk), the permanent Indigenous exhibit was a bold expression of community consultation and reflexive museum practice. At its heart was a life-size model of Baldwin Spencer, co-author of the classic anthropological monograph The Native Tribes of Central Australia (1899). When Bunjilaka was replaced with a wholly Indigenous-designed exhibit of Aboriginal Victoria in 2011, the model was informally retained by museum staff. Initially sitting awkwardly on a trolley in a narrow room where objects were processed for accession, Spencer himself remained unrecorded in any database. With no official existence but considerable gravity, he ended up housed in the secret/sacred room, surrounded by restricted objects that Spencer the man had collected. This article traces Spencer's journey from a post-colonial pedagogical tool to a transgressive pseudo-sacred object in an emerging era of decolonial museology. I argue that Spencer's fate indicates a distinct period of post-colonial museology (c.1990–2010) that has ended, and illustrates how the shifting historical legacies of science operate in the present.

Curated by Stephen Gilchrist, Everywhen: The Eternal Present in Indigenous Art from Australia was held at Harvard Art Museums from February 5, 2016–September 18, 2016. The exhibition was a survey of contemporary Indigenous art from Australia, exploring the ways in which time is embedded within Indigenous artistic, social, historical, and philosophical life. The exhibition included more than seventy works drawn from public and private collections in Australia and the United States, and featured many works that have never been seen outside Australia. Everywhen is Gilchrist’s second major exhibition in the United States, following Crossing Cultures: The Owen and Wagner Collection of Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Art at the Hood Museum of Art in 2012. Conducted on April 22, 2016, this conversation considers the position of Indigenous art in the museum, and the active ways in which curators and institutions can work to “indigenize” their institutions. Gilchrist discusses the evolution of Everywhen, along with the curatorial strategies employed to change the status of object-viewer relations in the exhibition. The transcription has been edited for clarity.

The phenomena of adventitious and synanthropic flora can be considered both from biological positions - then they are studied as elements of phytocenosis and biocenosis as a whole, and from geographical ones – then the basic concept in the research becomes the landscape. Adventitious and synanthropic species are elements of biocenosis and landscape at the same time, but it is the landscape approach that makes it possible to highlight the above-mentioned scientific problem in the most complete way. Studies of adventitious and synanthropic phytocenoses are interdisciplinary. Due to the key role of a human bein in spreading the processes of adventitization, synanthropization and phytoinvasions, the scientific discipline that puts such studies in the center of attention is anthropic phytocenology. The methodological basis of anthropic phytocenological studies is the provisions of anthropogenic landscape science, modern ecology, noospherology, the concept of sustainable development, the doctrine of the interaction of nature and society, as well as the laws of dialectics, systemic and synergistic approaches, etc. Anthropic phytocenology is connected by genetic interdisciplinary connections with botany and ecology, in particular, phytocenology. Its object-subject sphere partially coincides with these sciences. In particular, specific (real) objects of research - plants – are connected with botany. Anthropic phytocenology combines with ecology the study of a conceptual object – connections and relations between elements of the ecosystem, namely – aboriginal and adventitious species. As for phytocenology, we consider anthropic phytocenology as one of its sections, which studies adventitious plant species and synanthropic phytocenoses. Information ties of anthropic phytocenology are manifested at its boundary with geography, transport technologies, and plant ecology. Thus, from the geography of plants, anthropic phytocenology takes data on the limitation of species to certain conditions of the geographical environment – geomorphological, climatic, etc. Thanks to the geography of transport, anthropic phytocenology receives information about the main directions of movement of plants, in particular by railway transport. From landscape science, anthropic phytocenology obtains data on the ratio of natural landscapes in which one or another species is aboriginal or adventitious. The study of transport technologies makes it possible to obtain information about some parameters of plant movement. Plant ecology provides insight into the mechanisms of competition between native and adventitious species in a given area. The commonality of the object of the research shows the interdisciplinary connections of anthropic phytocenology with anthropogenic landscape science, synecology. By the commonality of methods, anthropic phytocenology is connected with almost all earth sciences, in which research is impossible without observing objects and their fixation. Connections with geography are of particular importance, from which anthropic phytocenology borrows cartographic and – in part – mathematical methods. Anthropic phytocenology as a scientific discipline needs its own conceptual and terminological apparatus. Its components are, first of all, concepts and terms of landscape science in general and anthropogenic landscape science in particular, as well as plant ecology, especially phytocenology. The geographical component of the conceptual and terminological apparatus of anthropic phytocenology consists mainly of concepts and terms related to the category «landscape». Concepts expressing its structural components, such as «locality», «tract», «facies», are related to the latter. Of the concepts and terms used in plant ecology, those containing the words «aboriginal», «adventitious», «invasive», «synanthropic», etc., as well as «biotope», «biocenosis», «biogeocenosis», are related to anthropic phytocenology, «local growth», «ecological niche», «phytocenosis», etc. Keywords: adventitious flora, synanthropic flora, landscape, phytocenosis, interdisciplinary connections, conceptual and terminological apparatus.

This article investigates intellectual property and ethical issues involved in negotiating research processes and outcomes in collaborative projects with Aboriginal communities. A series of ideas are outlined to lay a foundation for thinking about ways to create a conceptual space for open and constructive discussions between research partners. Habermas’s notion of “communicative space” is applied to a partnership between southern-based anthropologists and members of the Inuvialuit community of the Canadian Western Arctic. This partnership is focused on documenting knowledge about a large and comprehensive collection of ancestral ethnographic objects housed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and on disseminating this knowledge in meaningful ways to the Inuvialuit, anthropological, and museum communities. This article presents a suite of methods generated by the research group that lay some useful parameters for designing research and fostering trust and investment among partners. It also discusses the dynamics of community-based research practices and, specifically, methods for conceiving, constructing, and sustaining research projects.

AbstractThe Yolŋu elder and academic Joseph Neparrŋa Gumbula curated the exhibition, Makarr-garma: Aboriginal Collections from a Yolŋu Perspective (Makarr-garma), staged at the University of Sydney’s Macleay Museum from 29 November 2009 to 15 May 2010. This article describes this exhibition’s development and curatorial rationale. A product of his 2007 Australian Research Council (ARC) Indigenous Research Fellowship at the University, Makarr-garma reflected Gumbula’s Yolŋu philosophies as applied to collections in the Gallery, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) sector. Employing artworks, cultural objects, historic photographs, natural history specimens and his own manikay (songs), he framed this show as a garma (open) ceremonial performance that spanned an archetypal Yolŋu day. The exhibition was immersive and “culturally resonant” (Gilchrist, Indigenising), and provides intellectual and practical insights for the GLAM sector’s representation and management of Indigenous collections.

Based on the analysis of ancient maps with the involvement of a wide range of written sources, the article attempts to conduct a spatial reconstruction of the location of native Turkic peoples’ habitats in the Upper Ob region. The author traced the changes of information about the yasak volosts of the Kuznetsk district for 1710–1760s . The study of maps shows that during the 18th century information about the places of residence of the Turkic peoples became more and more fragmentary, and by the 1770s almost disappeared. Despite the fragmentation information, the presence of distortion in the names and inaccuracies in localization of objects, we have managed to identify the habitats of more than 50 ethnic groups on the modern topographic basis, and reproduce the boundaries of the yasak volosts of mid-century

Although the historical record relating to nineteenth century frontier conflict between Aboriginal groups and Europeans in Queensland has been clearly documented, there have been limited associated archaeological studies. As part of the Archaeology of the Queensland Native Mounted Police (NMP) project, this paper canvasses the physical imprint of frontier conflict across Queensland between 1849 and the early 1900s, focusing specifically on the activities and camp sites of the NMP, the paramilitary government-sanctioned force tasked with policing Aboriginal people to protect settler livelihoods. At least 148 NMP camps of varying duration once existed, and historical and archaeological investigations of these demonstrate some consistent patterning amongst them, as well as idiosyncrasies depending on individual locations and circumstances. All camps were positioned with primary regard to the availability of water and forage. Owing to their intended temporary nature and the frugality of the government, the surviving structural footprints of camps are generally limited. Buildings were typically timber slab and bark constructions with few permanent foundations and surviving architectural features are therefore rare, limited to elements such as ant bed flooring, remnant house or yard posts, stone lines demarcating pathways, and stone fireplaces. Architectural forms of spatial confinement, such as lockups or palisades, were absent from the camps themselves. The most distinctive features of NMP camps, and what allows them to be distinguished from the myriad pastoral sites of similar ages, are their artefact assemblages, especially the combined presence of gilt uniform buttons with the Victoria Regina insignia, knapped bottle glass, and certain ammunition-related objects.

This article explores some of the ways in which law appropriates subversive identities. Drawing on work from geographical, feminist and critical race approaches to property, I put forward an understanding of property as a relation of belonging ‘held up’ by space. Building on this understanding, I argue that identity can operate as property in the same way that land and material objects can, and that law appropriates subversive identities by bringing them into its hegemonic space of recognition and regulation. Law’s appropriations have a range of effects on both the individual subjects directly involved in legal proceedings and the broader spaces in and through which those subjects forge their identities. Specifically this article explores the appropriation of gay and lesbian identities in the context of immigration law, and of aboriginal identities in the context of Australia’s Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act 2007 (Cth) (NTNERA).

In 1985 and 1990 a Queensland Museum research team visited the island of Ngiangu (Booby Island) to carry out investigations into the island’s Indigenous and non-Indigenous archaeology. Forming the western boundary of Kaurareg traditional country, this small rocky island is an integral part of Kaurareg identity, and is well-known in maritime archaeology circles as a haven for European mariners shipwrecked while transiting the Strait. The research team, led by the late Ron Coleman, undertook rock art recording (including European historical writing), limited archaeological excavations, geological research and collected material culture objects from numerous shoreline caves. This paper reports on the archaeological outcomes of this project and reassesses earlier interpretations of the rock art record in the context of inter-regional interaction. The results indicate that cultural markers associated with the island reflect a local Kaurareg identity, as well as broader regional interaction with neighbouring Torres Strait Islander and Cape York Aboriginal groups.

Retouched lithic tools result from the functional modification of their edges following knapping operations. The study of the later stages of the reduction sequence is fundamental to understanding the techno-functional features of any toolkit. In Australia, a gap exists in the study of the chaîne opératoire of lithic tools shaped or re-shaped through percussion retouching. In our previous works (Martellotta EF., 2021, Martellotta EF., 2022), we have presented evidence for the use of hardwood boomerangs for retouching purposes in Australian Aboriginal communities. Through a detailed experimental protocol, the present study demonstrates how boomerangs can function as retouchers. We found that the use-wear generated on the boomerang’s surface during retouch activity is comparable to retouch-induced impact traces observed on Palaeolithic bone retouchers, as well as to experimental bone retouchers generated in our replication experiments. Finally, we explore the role that microscopic lithic chips embedded in the retouchers’ surface play in the formation process of retouching marks. Our results address the need for a deeper investigation of percussion retouching techniques in Australian contexts, opening the possibility that uncommon objects—such as boomerangs—could be used for this task. This concept also highlights the broader topic of the highly diverse multipurpose application of many Indigenous tools throughout Australia. At the same time, the study reveals a deep functional connection between osseous and wooden objects—a topic rarely investigated in archaeological contexts.

Evaluation of renewable processes was carried out on the territory of Totma area in Vologda region. The objects of study were six sites of flourishing coniferous stockings in different forest condition. The laying of test plots was carried out taking into account the requirements of OST 56-69–83. Undergrowth accounting was carried out taking into account the height and state of life. The processing of field materials was carried out by methods generally accepted in forestry. According to the results, we can make a conclusion that provision for growth and development of spruce staddle in flourishing pine stockings in different forest conditions are unpleasant. The pine staddle is absent at all. There is enough amount of coniferous staddle under spruce canopy for formation spruce-deciduous or spruce planting after logging works. As recommendation for saving aboriginal forest and reducing expenses on the reforestation works in pine forest crop after logging works, we offer to hold alternating gradual fell with intensity of 30 % and implementation of measures in assistance for natural renewal as soil mineralization in processes of main executed logging works. We think that implementing fell is necessary to time to seed year.

Our work in the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, Haiti, and Jamaica has revealed significant patterning in apparently unretouched molluscan shell objects. In the present paper we conclude that repetitive patterns in shell breakage, especially of queen conch (Strombus gigas), reflect the specific manufacture of forms for use as expedient tools. Expedient tools exhibit only primary modification in which a portion of the source material is removed and shaped, but there is no specific evidence for the preparation of a work edge. Alternatively, expedient tools may display no modification of the raw material except that produced through use. We hypothesize that through controlled breakage large S. gigas and other mollusk shells were modified to create numerous smaller pieces for everyday domestic activities. The key factor here is human intent. Experiments clearly demonstrate that controlled breakage of adult shells produces predictable fragments. Among these are forms that occurred in prehistoric sites throughout the West Indies; many of these forms also exhibit signs of use wear. This type of regional comparison and analysis is important for all archaeologists who work in coastal settings. It is only through such general studies that the sample size is sufficient to facilitate a more complete reconstruction of the aboriginal tool kit.

AbstractThis article explores how three short stories set in 1980s Taiwan by the Taiwanese aboriginal writer Tian Yage (Tuobasi Tamapima) can be read as autoethnographic fiction as well as modern fiction, portraying contemporary Taiwanese aboriginal society caught between indigenous folkways and colonial modernity, and how the narrators of the stories tackle cultural translation. I begin with a discussion of Sun Ta-chuan's caution in 1991 as the Taiwan Aboriginal Movement was evolving into the Taiwan Aboriginal Cultural Revivalist Movement. After analysing anthropology's relationship with aborigines and imperialism, I apply Mary Louise Pratt's concept of autoethnography to the aboriginal activists' ethnographic studies and personal narratives. I argue that, prior to the Taiwan Aboriginal Cultural Revivalist Movement, Tian sought to construct an aboriginal cultural identity vis-à-vis the metropolis and to envision a cultural revival within the indigenous community, while he also explored the dilemmas and difficulties that arose from these. In the last section, I apply Homi K. Bhabha's theory of the untranslatable in cultural translation to further examine the language, the narrative voice and the form of both autoethnographic fiction and modern fiction in Tian's stories. I argue that writing Chinese-language modern fiction is a tacit recognition on Tian's part of the legacy of colonial modernity, but the purpose is to manoeuvre for a rethinking of the Taiwanese modern subject. As the narrative voice of his stories is one of an aboriginal speaking as a subject rather than an object, speaking with the backdrop of the aboriginal village as the locus of indigenous traditions vis-à-vis the dominant society, Tian is implicitly demanding aboriginal rights and a reconsideration of the Taiwanese modern subject as well as a shift in the paradigm of historiography on Taiwan.

The article is devoted to the history of the appearance of towers on the territory of Siberia as fortifications. The aim of the research is to generalize and systematize objects, conditionally correlated with them, at the archaeological sites (fortified settlements) of the North of the Upper Ob Region. For this territory a tendency was traced of the «bastion» type fortifications, starting from the second half of the I-st millennium AD, and before the beginning of the II-nd millennium AD. Such fortifications are present both on irregular structures and defensive geometric shaped structures. The existence of this tradition casts a doubt on the hypothesis that there was no such type of defensive structures among the native population before the Russian development of this ter- ritory began. However, in the Early New Time, in settlements with fortifications (fortress) built by native residents, such elements of fortification were practically not found, which makes it possible to state the discreteness of the spread of the aboriginal «bastion» tradition for this territory. In this region, wooden bastion-type towers appeared no earlier than the turn of the XVII-th and XVIII-th centuries. They are represented in Urtamsky (1684), Chaussky (1713) and Umrevinsky (first third of the XVIII-th century) ostrogs and are associated with the spread of the firearms (hand and artillery).

Aborigine is the indigenous people of Australia who have attempted to oppose the proposal for South Australia to host an international nuclear dump. Even though the rights of indigenous people have been recognized by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the treatment they receive are not in accordance with the standard of living. The object of this this paper is to examine the struggle of Aboriginal Australia as indigenous people who seek to ensure their basic rights to clean environment from nuclear waste by using normative juridical method. The results of the paper show that Aboriginal people have commenced their struggle by the formation of global movement in the form of local campaign (Kupa Piti Kungka Juta), Australian Nuclear Free Alliance (ANFA), in collaboration with Amnesty International and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). All efforts are made to pressure the Australian government not to consider South Australia as a nuclear waste disposal site. This is because nuclear waste can have an impact on public health and environmental damage, trigger nuclear war, and become a threat to the land of Aboriginal people.

The Argentine Islands – Kyiv Peninsula region is one of the birthplaces of Antarctic research. It lacks any aboriginal people, and so much of the toponymy was contributed by the first expeditions. As the official Ukrainian toponymy of Antarctica is still being worked out, it is important to foster further development of this branch of geography. Outside of this region, there are only a few geographical features given internationally recognized placenames honouring Ukraine and Ukrainians. Thus, the paper aims to prepare the official Ukrainian spelling for the already established toponyms and to propose new ones, including microtoponyms, for the yet-nameless objects of the Argentine Islands area (West Antarctica), considering the already amassed experience of other countries and the current requirements for writing the geographical names. To achieve this, there were used such methods, singly or in combination: transliteration, transcription, adaptive transcoding, and translation. The underlying research presented the history of the local placenames, whereupon they were collected and their standardized Ukrainian written representations spelled out. Based on the history of the Ukrainian contribution to the Antarctic studies, the region's toponymic traditions, and characteristic features of topography, flora and fauna of the Argentine Islands, it was proposed a list of names for the nameless geographical features and microtoponyms in the central Argentine Islands region. The list is far from exhaustive, but rather the first attempt to develop Ukrainian Antarctic toponymy. The results will allow unifying placenames use, help to present the expeditions' findings, and make information searches for the geographical features easier.

Studies were conducted in the Botanical Garden of Petrozavodsk State University, located in the taiga zone. The objects were 1 aboriginal (Рicea fennica (Regel) Кom.) аnd 5 introduced (P. pungens Engelm. f. glauca Regel and f. viridis Regel, P. obovata Ledeb., P. glauca (Mill.) Britt., P. omorica (Pane) Purk., P. mariana Britt.). It is established that in the process of adaptation of introduced species Picea to low winter tempera-tures most of the involved proteins. Their number increases significantly during the transition from the period of active shoot growth to a period of deep rest have all studied species of Picea. The accumulation of proteins causes a decrease in the level of total free amino acids of most types of exotic species, while the local form of the amino acid content is maintained at a high level. In the needles of most of the studied species of Picea to the period of deep rest, the fraction of glutamic acid and albanina and increases the proportion of arginine and ethanolamine in the total amount of amino acids. The increase in the content of total lipids and phospholipids in the needles during the transition to a period of deep rest less significant than proteins. In the needles of na-tive species in comparison with the needles of exotic species total lipids actively used in the phase of inten-sive growth of shoots. Despite some differences, the introduced species Picea adapted to endure low tempera-tures using the same biochemical mechanisms as a local view. This indicates successful adaptation of the studied introduced species Picea to new conditions of existence.

El Museo Canario stores a large collection of aboriginal skulls that have been essential to the study of the origin and chronology of the population of the Canary archipelago since the 19th century. Regrettably, research has been dominated by biased and racial interpretations of both bioarchaeological and cultural evidence. When scientific racism and craniometric studies were rejected, studies of the Canarian indigenous skulls variability was also abandoned without replies. However, digital technologies and virtual sciences allow us to improve research and re-evaluate old paradigms. In this work, we present a digitalisation project aiming to construct a virtual database of the indigenous Canarian skulls, using a simple method of digitalisation that is very suitable to deal with large collections- The procedure, involving a portable 3D structured light scanner has allowed us to digitally reproduce more than 400 skulls stored at Museo Canario. This work offers a wide variety of possibilities for archaeology and anthropology. The versatility of 3D digital models enables the generation of interactive documentation, educational material for digital conservation and dissemination purposes. Indeed, 3D models are easily shared and can be displayed over diverse web-based repositories and online platforms and so, creating virtual online museums. We have created a profile in Sketchfab (https://sketchfab.com/craniacanaria2.0) where we intend to upload gradually the complete virtual collection of skulls we have realised. Moreover, digital skulls can serve as research objects. We discuss the advantages of studying 3D objects in a computerised environment, which includes traditional anthropometric studies (linear measurements and angles) but also 3D geometric morphometric approaches. In fact, in future studies, we will apply 3D geometric morphometrics for reassessing skull variation of ancient Canarians going beyond old paradigms and taking into account the latest advances in archaeology, anthropology and genetics in Canarian research. Highlights:- El Museo Canario stores an exceptional human skull collection that has served as the basis for numerous studies seeking to reveal the origin and chronology of the indigenous population.- This study presents an easy methodology for obtaining digital imagery using a 3D surface scanner, which allows constructing a virtual skull collection comprising more than 400 individuals.- Virtual 3D models have numerous advantages and applications in anthropology and archaeology, not only improving research but also permitting the re-evaluation of old paradigms.

Abstract The dynamics of flora in urbanized areas is associated with the problem of biodiversity conservation, as one of the key problems of global ecology. The unification of the natural environment of cities leads to a loss of diversity inherent in natural flora, synanthropization of vegetation cover, depletion of the gene pool of aboriginal flora, cosmopolitanization and unification of flora, a decrease in the potential for evolution, artificial impoverishment of phylogenesis, phylocenogenesis and biotogenesis. The city of Krasnoyarsk is a large administrative centre of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, one of the largest industrial, scientific and cultural centres in Siberia. It stretches from west to east for 18–20 km along the left bank and up to 25 km along the right bank of the river. The Yenisei with a building depth of 3–4 km on both banks of the river, where the areas built up many decades ago are combined with new peripheral areas, the development of which began 10–15 years ago and is still ongoing. Currently, the area of the city is about 400 km2. The comfort of the urban environment is made up of a variety of components, among which wildlife objects - parks, squares, urban forests, river floodplains and the rivers themselves, swamp ecosystems - are the most important for urban residents, both from an ecological and socio-psychological point of view. The purpose of the article is to present one of the modern bioecological technologies for the improvement of the urban human environment. It is proposed to identify the species composition of 14 plant communities used for landscaping and the formation of a comfortable urban environment in Krasnoyarsk by creating natural parks on the embankment of the Yenisei River.

Full TextThe first law enacted in Canada to protect existing Aboriginal rights was section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.2 The first law in Canada to recognize the rights of non-human animals as anything other than property has yet to be enacted. The first Supreme Court of Canada (hereafter referred to as the Court) case to interpret section 35 was R. v. Sparrow.3 The 1990 case confirmed an Aboriginal right of the Musqueam peoples of British Columbia to fish for food, social and ceremonial purposes. Since this precedent-setting case, many similar claims have been brought before the courts by way of the fluctuating legal space created by s.35. Many of these cases have been about establishing rights to fish4, hunt5, and trap non-human animals (hereafter referred to as animals). The Court has developed, and continues to develop tests to determine the existence and scope of Aboriginal rights. These tests primarily embody cultural, political and, to a surprisingly lesser degree, legal forces. One of the principal problems with these tests is that they privilege, through the western philosophical lens, the interests of humans. Animals are, at best, the resources over which ownership is being contested. The Euro-centric legal conceptualization of animals as 'resources' over which ownership can be exerted is problematic for at least two reasons. First, the relegation of animals solely to a utilitarian role is antithetical to Indigenous-animal relationships and therefore demonstrates one of the fundamental ways the Canadian legal system is ill equipped to give adequate consideration to Indigenous law. Second, failure to consider animals' inherent value and agency in this context reproduces the human-animal and culture-nature binaries that are at the root of many of western Euro-centric society's inequities. This paper argues that Aboriginal peoples' relationships with animals are a necessary, integral and distinctive part of their cultures6 and, therefore, these relationships and the actors within them are entitled to the aegis of s.35. Through the legal protection of these relationships, animals will gain significant protection as a corollary benefit. If the Court were to protect the cultural relationships between animals and Aboriginal groups, a precondition would be acceptance of Indigenous legal systems. Thus, this paper gives a brief answer to the question, what are Indigenous legal systems and why are animals integral to them? The Anishinabe (also known Ojibwe or Chippewa) are Indigenous peoples who have historically lived in the Great Lakes region. The Bruce Peninsula on Lake Huron is home to the Cape Croker Indian Reserve, where the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation live. The people of this First Nation identify as Anishinabe. The Anishinabek case of Nanabush v. Deer is a law among these people and is used throughout the paper as an example of Indigenous-animal relationships. Making the significant assumption that s.35 has the capacity to recognize Indigenous law, the subsequent section of the paper asks why we should protect these relationships and how that protection should be achieved. Finally, the paper concludes that both the ability of s.35 to recognize Indigenous-animal relationships, and the judicial and political will to grant such recognition, are unlikely. Indigenous-animal relationships are integral to the distinctive culture of the Anishinabek, however the courts would be hesitant to allow such an uncertain and potentially far-reaching right. This is not surprising given that such a claim by both Indigenous and animal groups would challenge the foundations upon which the Canadian legal system is based. There are many sensitive issues inherent in this topic. It should be noted the author is not of Indigenous ancestry, but is making every effort to learn about and respect the Indigenous legal systems discussed. While this paper focuses on a number of Anishinabek laws; it is neither a complete analysis of these practices, nor one that can be transferred, without adaptation, to other peoples. Finally, Indigenous peoples and animal rights and Indigenous law scholars, such as Tom Regan and Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, respectively, may insist on an abolitionist approach to animal 'use' or reject the legitimacy of s.35 itself.7 These perspectives are worthy and necessary. This paper positions itself amongst these and other sources in order to reflect upon the timely and important issue of the legal status of Indigenous-animal relationships. I:WHAT ARE INDIGENOUS LEGAL SYSTEMS? The Law Commission of Canada defines a legal tradition as “a set of deeply rooted, historically conditioned attitudes about the nature of law, the role of law in the society and the polity, the proper organization and operation of a legal system, and the way law is or should be made, applied, studied, perfected and taught.”8 Indigenous legal traditions fit this description. They are living systems of beliefs and practices, and have been recognized as such by the courts.9 Indigenous practices developed into systems of law that have guided communities in their governance, and in their relationships amongst their own and other cultures and with the Earth.10 These laws have developed through stories, historical events that may be viewed as ‘cases,’ and other lived experiences. Indigenous laws are generally non-prescriptive, non-adversarial and non-punitive and aim to promote respect and consensus, as well as close connection with the land, the Creator, and the community. Indigenous laws are a means through which vital knowledge of social order within the community is transmitted, revived and retained. After European ‘settlement’ the influence of Indigenous laws waned. This was due in part to the state’s policies of assimilation, relocation and enfranchisement. 11 Despite these assaults, Indigenous legal systems have persevered; they continue to provide guidance to many communities, and are being revived and re-learned in others. For example, the Nisga’a’s legal code, Ayuuk, guides their communities and strongly informs legislation enacted under the Nisga’a Final Agreement, the first modern treaty in British Columbia.12 The land and jurisdiction claims of the Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan Nations ultimately resulted in the Court’s decision in Delgamuukw,13 a landmark case that established the existence of Aboriginal title. The (overturned) BC Supreme Court’s statement in Delgamuukw14 reveals two of the many challenges in demonstrating the validity of Indigenous laws: “what the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en witnesses[es] describe as law is really a most uncertain and highly flexible set of customs which are frequently not followed by the Indians [sic] themselves.” The first challenge is that many laws are not in full practice, and therefore not as visible as they could be and once were. What the courts fail to acknowledge, however, is that the ongoing colonial project has served to stifle, extinguish and alter these laws. The second challenge is that the kind of law held and practiced by Indigenous peoples is quite foreign to most non-Indigenous people. Many Indigenous laws have animals as central figures. In Anishinabek traditional law, often the animals are the lawmakers15: they develop the legal principles and have agency as law givers. For instance, the Anishinabek case Nanabush v. Deer, Wolf , as outlined by Burrows, is imbued with legal principles, lessons on conduct and community governance, as well as ‘offenses’ and penalties. It is not a case that was adjudicated by an appointed judge in a courtroom, but rather one that has developed over time as a result of peoples’ relationships with the Earth and its inhabitants. An abbreviated summary of the case hints at these legal lessons: Nanabush plays a trick on a deer and deliberately puts the deer in a vulnerable position. In that moment of vulnerability, Nanabush kills the deer and then roasts its body for dinner. While he is sleeping and waiting for the deer to be cooked, the Wolf people come by and take the deer. Nanabush wakes up hungry, and out of desperation transforms into a snake and eats the brains out of the deer head. Once full, he is stuck inside the head and transforms back into his original shape, but with the deer head still stuck on. He is then chased and nearly killed by hunters who mistake him for a real deer. This case is set within the legal context of the Anishinabek’s treaty with deer. In signing the treaty, the people were reminded to respect beings in life and death and that gifts come when beings respect each other in interrelationships.16 Nanabush violated the rights of the deer and his peoples’ treaty with the deer. He violated the laws by taking things through trickery, and by causing harm to those he owed respect. Because his actions were not in accordance with Anishinabek legal principles, he was punished: Nanabush lost the thing he was so desperately searching for, and he ended up nearly being killed. This case establishes two lessons. The first is that, like statutory and common law, with which Canadians are familiar, Indigenous law does not exist in isolation. Principles are devised based on multiple teachings, pre- vious rules and the application of these rules to facts. That there are myriad sources of Indigenous law suggests that the learning of Indigenous law would require substantial effort on the part of Canadian law-makers.17 The second is that animals hold an important place in Indigenous law, and those relationships with animals – and the whole ‘natural’ world – strongly inform the way they relate to the Earth. II: CAN CANADIAN LAW ACCEPT INDIGENOUS LEGAL SYSTEMS? If there were a right recognized under s.35 concerning the Indigenous-animal relationship, what would it look like? Courts develop legal tests to which the facts of each case are applied, theoretically creating a degree of predictability as to how a matter will be judged. Introduced in Sparrow, and more fully developed in Van der Peet, a ‘test’ for how to assess a valid Aboriginal right has been set out by the Court. Summarized, the test is: “in order to be an Aboriginal right an activity must be an element of a practice, custom or tradition integral to the distinctive culture of the Aboriginal group claiming the right.”18 There are ten, differently weighted factors that a court will consider in making this assessment. The right being ‘tested’ in this discussion is the one exemplified in Nanabush v. Deer: the ability of Indigenous peoples to recognize and practice their laws, which govern relationships, including death, with deer and other animals. The courts have agreed that a generous, large and liberal construction should be given to Indigenous rights in order to give full effect to the constitutional recognition of the distinctiveness of Aboriginal culture. Still, it is the courts that hold the power to define rights as they conceive them best aligning with Canadian society19; this is one way that the Canadian state reproduces its systems of power over Indigenous peoples.20 The application of the Aboriginal right exemplified in Nanbush v. Deer to the Sparrow and Van der Peet tests would likely conclude that the Anishinabek do have an integral and distinctive relationship with animals. However, due to the significant discretion of the Court on a number of very subjective and politically sensitive factors, it is uncertain that the Nanabush v. Deer case would ‘pass’ Van der Peet’s required ten factors.21 This is indicative of the structural restraints that s.35 imposes. 22 The questions it asks impair its ability to capture and respect the interrelationships inherent in Indigenous peoples’ interactions with animals. For example, the Court will characterize hunting or fishing as solely subsistence, perhaps with a cultural element. Shin Imai contends these activities mean much more: “To many…subsistence is a means of reaffirming Aboriginal identity by passing on traditional knowledge to future generations. Subsistence in this sense moves beyond mere economics, encompassing the cultural, social and spiritual aspects for the communities.”23 Scholar Kent McNeil concludes that: “regardless of the strengths of legal arguments in favour of Indigenous peoples, there are limits to how far the courts […] are willing to go to correct the injustices caused by colonialism and dispossession.”24 It is often not the legal principles that determine outcomes, but rather the extent to which Indigenous rights can be reconciled with the history of settlement without disturbing the current economic and political structure of the dominant culture. III:WHY PROTECT THE ANIMAL-INDIGENOUS RELATIONSHIP? Legally protecting animal-Indigenous relationships offers symbiotic, mutually respectful benefits for animals and for the scope of Aboriginal rights that can be practiced. For instance, a protected relationship would have indirect benefits for animals’ habitat and right to life: it would necessitate protecting the means necessary, such as governance of the land, for realization of the right. This could include greater conservation measures, more contiguous habitat, enforcement of endangered species laws, and, ideally, a greater awareness and appreciation by humans of animals and their needs. Critical studies scholars have developed the argument that minority groups should not be subject to culturally biased laws of the mainstream polity.24 Law professor Maneesha Deckha points out that animals, despite the central role they play in a lot of ‘cultural defences,’ have been excluded from our ethical consideration. Certainly, the role of animals has been absent in judicial consideration of Aboriginal rights.26 Including animals, Deckha argues, allows for a complete analysis of these cultural issues and avoids many of the anthropocentric attitudes inherent in Euro-centric legal traditions. In Jack and Charlie27 two Coast Salish men were charged with hunting deer out of season. They argued that they needed to kill a deer in order to have raw meat for an Aboriginal religious ceremony. The Court found that killing the deer was not part of the ceremony and that there was insufficient evidence to establish that raw meat was required. This is a case where a more nuanced consideration of the laws and relationships with animals would have resulted in a more just application of the (Canadian) law and prevented the reproduction of imperialist attitudes. A criticism that could be lodged against practicing these relationships is that they conflict with the liberty and life interests of animals.28 Theoretically, if Indigenous laws are given the legal and political room to fully operate, a balance between the liberty of animals and the cultural and legal rights of Indigenous peoples can be struck.29 Indeed, Indigenous peoples’ cultural and legal concern for Earth is at its most rudimentary a concern for the land, which is at the heart of the challenge to the Canadian colonial system. If a negotiated treaty was reached, or anti-cruelty and conservation laws were assured in the Indigenous peoples’ self government system, then Canadian anti-cruelty30 and conservation laws,31 the effectiveness of which are already questionable, could be displaced in recognition of Indigenous governance.32 Indigenous peoples in Canada were – and are, subject to imposed limitations – close to the environment in ways that can seem foreign to non-Indigenous people.33 For example, some origin stories and oral histories explain how boundaries between humans and animals are at times absent: Animal-human beings like raven, coyote and rabbit created them [humans] and other beings. People …acted with respect toward many animals in expectation of reciprocity; or expressed kinship or alliance with them in narratives, songs, poems, parables, performances, rituals, and material objects. 34 Furthering or reviving these relationships can advance the understanding of both Indigenous legal systems and animal rights theory. Some animal rights theorists struggle with how to explain the cultural construction of species difference: Indigenous relationships with animals are long standing, lived examples of a different cultural conception of how to relate to animals and also of an arguably healthy, minimally problematic way to approach the debate concerning the species divide.35 A key tenet of animal-Indigenous relationships is respect. Shepard Krech posits that Indigenous peoples are motivated to obtain the necessary resources and goals in ‘proper’ ways: many believe that animals return to the Earth to be killed, provided that hunters demonstrate proper respect.36 This demonstrates a spiritual connection, but there is also a concrete connection between Indigenous peoples and animals. In providing themselves with food and security, they ‘manage’ what Canadian law calls ‘resources.’37 Because of the physical nature of these activities, and their practical similarity with modern ‘resource management,’ offering this as ‘proof’ of physical connection with animals and their habitat may be more successful than ‘proving’ a spiritual relationship. Finally, there are health reasons that make the Indigenous-animal relationship is important. Many cultures have come to depend on the nutrients they derive from particular hunted or fished animals. For example, nutrition and physical activity transitions related to hunting cycles have had negative impacts on individual and community health.38 This shows the multidimensionality of hunting, the significance of health, and, by extension, the need for animal ‘resources’ to be protected. IV: HOW SHOULD WE PROTECT THESE ABORIGINAL RIGHTS? If the Anishinabek and the deer ‘win’ the constitutional legal test (‘against’ the state) and establish a right to protect their relationships with animals, what, other than common law remedies,39 would follow? Below are ideas for legal measures that could be taken from the human or the animal perspective, or both, where benefits accrue to both parties. If animals had greater agency and legal status, their needs as species and as individuals could have a meaningful place in Canadian common and statutory law. In Nanabush v. Deer, this would mean that the deer would be given representation and that legal tests would need to be developed to determine the animals’ rights and interests. Currently the courts support the view that animals can be treated under the law as any other inanimate item of property. Such a legal stance is inconsistent with a rational, common-sense view of animals,40 and certainly with Anishinabek legal principles discussed herein.41 There are ongoing theoretical debates that inform the practical questions of how animal equality would be achieved: none of these in isolation offers a complete solution, but combined they contribute to the long term goal. Barsh and James Sákéj Youngblood Henderson advocate an adoption of the reasoning in the Australian case Mabo v. Queensland,42 where whole Aboriginal legal systems were imported intact into the common law. Some principles that Canada should be following can also be drawn from international treaties that Canada has or should have signed on to.43 Another way to seek protection from the human perspective is through the freedom of religion and conscience section of the Charter. Professor John Borrows constructs a full argument for this, and cites its challenges, in Living Law on a Living Earth: Aboriginal Religion, Law and the Constitution.44 The strongest, but perhaps most legally improbable, way to protect the animal- Indigenous relationship is for Canada to recognize a third, Indigenous order of government (in addition to provincial and federal), where all three orders are equal and inform one another’s laws. This way, Indigenous laws would have the legal space to fully function and be revived. Endowing Indigenous peoples with the right to govern their relationships would require a great acquiescence of power by governments and a commitment to the establishment and maintenance of healthy self-government in Indigenous communities. Louise Mandell offers some reasons why Canada should treat Aboriginal people in new ways, at least one of which is salient to the third order of government argument: To mend the [E]arth, which must be done, governments must reassess the information which the dominant culture has dismissed. Some of that valuable information is located in the oral histories of Aboriginal Peoples. This knowledge will become incorporated into decisions affecting the [E]arth’s landscape when Aboriginal Peoples are equal partners in decisions affecting their territories.45 V: CONCLUSION A legal system that does not have to justify its existence or defend its worth is less vulnerable to challenges.46 While it can be concluded that s.35 has offered some legal space for Indigenous laws and practices, it is too deeply couched in Euro-centric legal traditions and the anthropocentric cultural assumptions that they carry. The most effective strategy for advancing Indigenous laws and culture, that would also endow many animals with greater agency, and relax the culture-nature, human-animal binaries, is the formal recognition of a third order of government. Lisa Chartrand explains that recognition of legal pluralism would be a mere affirmation of legal systems that exist, but which are stifled: “…this country is a multijuridical state, where the distinct laws and rules of three systems come together within the geographic boundaries of one political territory.” 47 Revitalizing Indigenous legal systems is and will be a challenging undertaking. Indigenous communities must reclaim, define and understand their own traditions: “The loss of culture and traditions caused by the historic treatment of Aboriginal communities makes this a formidable challenge for some communities. Equally significant is the challenge for the Canadian state to create political and legal space to accommodate revitalized Indigenous legal traditions and Aboriginal law-making.”48 The project of revitalizing Indigenous legal traditions requires the commitment of resources sufficient for the task, and transformative change to procedural and substantive law. The operation of these laws within, or in addition to, Canadian law would of course cause widespread, but worthwhile controversy. In Animal Bodies, Cultural Justice49 Deckha argues that an ethical relationship with the animal Other must be established in order realize cultural and animal rights. This paper explores and demonstrates the value in finding legal space where cultural pluralism and respect for animals can give rise to the practice of Indigenous laws and the revitalization of animal-Indigenous relationships. As Borrows writes: “Anishinabek law provides guidance about how to theorize, practice and order our association with the [E]arth, and could do so in a way that produces answers that are very different from those found in other sources.”50 (see PDF for references)

When British naval officer James Cook first landed on the continent now known as Australia in April 1770, he was met by warriors of the Gweagal nation whose land he was entering uninvited. The Gweagal were armed with bark shields and wooden spears. Cook fired a musket at them, hitting one. The shield from that first encounter, complete with musket hole, is today displayed in the British Museum. It is subject to a repatriation request from Gweagal man Rodney Kelly, who wishes the shield to be displayed in Australia where Aboriginal people will be able to care for and view it. In this article, I outline the contested legal status of the shield. Centring Kelly’s perspective, I argue that, regardless of whether he is able to prove the precise genealogy of either the shield as object or himself as owner, as an Aboriginal man he has a better claim to the shield than the British Museum. What is at stake in the dispute between Kelly and the British Museum is not just rights over the shield but also the broader issue of basic colonial reparations: in this instance returning an Aboriginal object to Aboriginal control. The issue of ownership/possession of the Gweagal shield cannot be separated from the historical reality of Britain’s mass theft of Aboriginal land, decimation of Aboriginal people and destruction of Aboriginal culture.

Cultural and ethnic belonging and ethnogenesis of inhabitants of the Black Sea foothills of Northern-Western Caucasus is an object of long-time discussions. Patterns of funeral constructions of Anapa-Novorossiisk neighbourhood in the Iron Age could provide diametric different conclusions. Study of data of the Early Iron Age funeral constructions helps to discover traditions of the population of the Abrau peninsula of the Bronze Age, who used stone for burial places. Remarkable change of ancient tradition connected with replacement and assimilation of aborigines appeared after the middle of the 4th century BC with the distribution of the Bospor Kingdom influence in the region. Archaeological material demonstrates appearance of the local “ellinistic” elite and the cultivation of the steppe space of the Anapa valley by the settlers from theKuban region. They brought burial rite in ground pits and in tombs. At the beginning of new millennium burial culture became standard for all Abrau peninsula. Only in the necropolises of the south-west of the region it intricately intertwined with the traditions of the aboriginal population of the foothills.

The publication considers the features of socio-cultural contacts, mainly in the north of Western Siberia. The participants of them were foreign travelers and the local Russian and native population. Travelling in traditional culture and in later times was considered a way out of the ordinary. Memoirs created by educated travelers indicate the existence of sustainable cultural stereotypes. Peoples of the outskirts and especially the indigenous population were perceived as a passive object outside of civilization. The negative impact of the “cultural peoples” leads them to the edge of death. The only way to salvation is assimilation and acceptance of European values. Many travelers such as M. Castrén, A. Ahlquist, O. Finsch, S. Sommier, U. Sirelius, K. Karjalainen, S. Patursson agreed with this position. Their memoirs distort not so much the facts as the picture of the life of aboriginal people. Subjective silence and not quite correct estimates indicate that the archaic or its components were preserved not only in the worldview of the aborigines, but also among a number of highly educated individuals.