More than Museums: Care for Natural and Cultural Heritage in Australia

Abstract

Fossils and First Nations artifacts are both physical remains that demonstrate the deep history of the Earth and its inhabitants. Modern museums have become the places where both of these kinds of natural and cultural heritage are often stored. Yet, many museums carry baggage of institutional distrust, rooted in damaging colonial practices that rely on extractive approaches to research and collection. These practices have encouraged the separation of paleontological and cultural collections and knowledge, and have often excluded First Nations voices from their exhibitions and research practices, Here, we explore the role of museums and their relationship with paleontological objects and sites in Australia and their relationship with First Nations peoples and heritage. We analyze the results of the ‘Found a Fossil’ survey, and describe three case studies; paleontological and cultural cross-over with dinosaur tracks in the West Kimberley region of Western Australia, the digital Museum of Stone Tools initiative, and the Rola[Stone] documentary film project, both based on Anaiwan Country in New South Wales, Australia. Acknowledging the innate duality of objects and places promotes elevated complexity in the way they are understood, studied, managed, legislated and curated. It is essential that First Nations stories, places, and objects be centered with fossils and geological materials to simultaneously tell the story of life on Earth, and in Australia, the story of the oldest living cultures in the world.

Keywords

• Paleontology
• Archaeology
• Museums
• Heritage Conservation
• Australia
• First Nations