Litster, Mirani, Wallis, Lynley A., and Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, (2024) When the Foreign Becomes Familiar: The Glass Bead Assemblage from Madjedbebe, Northern Australia. Cambridge Archaeological Journal. (In Press)

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Abstract

By investigating the materiality of colonial encounters, specifically the consumption of introduced commodities by Indigenous peoples, archaeologists can explore questions concerning value, agency, consumer choice and localization. This has the significant capacity to broaden understandings of intercultural encounters and challenge colonial narratives. Glass beads represent one of the earliest foreign material culture introductions to the Indigenous peoples of Australia. The rock-shelter site of Madjedbebe, best known for yielding the oldest evidence to date for human occupation in Australia, also contains one of the largest assemblages from an Indigenous site context in Australia—51 glass beads and associated fragments. We present here an analysis of these objects—through attribute and microwear analysis—in concert with the archival record, to reveal the ways in which Bininj (Aboriginal people) incorporated glass beads into their own lifeways.

Item ID:	82333
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1474-0540
Keywords:	Glass beads; Madjedbebe
Copyright Information:	© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Funders:	Australian Research Council (ARC)
Projects and Grants:	ARC DP110102864
Date Deposited:	25 Jun 2024 01:40
FoR Codes:	45 INDIGENOUS STUDIES > 4501 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, language and history > 450101 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander archaeology @ 100%
SEO Codes:	13 CULTURE AND SOCIETY > 1307 Understanding past societies > 130703 Understanding Australia’s past @ 50% 21 INDIGENOUS > 2104 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage and culture > 210401 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artefacts @ 50%
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