Indigenous Archaeology in Two Hemispheres

Indigenous Archaeology in Two Hemispheres: Approaches to Inuit and First Nations Pasts in Canada, Australia and Greenland examines the history and current experiences of Inuit and Australian First Nations peoples in archaeology.

The book explores recent work by Australian, Canadian, and Greenlandic scholars and community partners in a context marked by globalization. This cross-national interdisciplinary approach enriches the research with Indigenous voices from the Eastern Arctic and Australia, aiding the exploration of the similarities and differences in Inuit and First Nations peoples’ historical experiences and the challenges they face currently. Chapters call into question the traditional frameworks that have shaped research on the past of Indigenous people in these regions, frameworks that promote imbalanced power relationships, and endorse a collaborative agenda that rejects the objectification of other worldviews and alterities. The book is organized around four main themes considered: historical approaches, current challenges to Inuit and First Nations archaeology, data sovereignty, and Indigenous perspectives.

The book will be of interest to students and researchers in archaeology, anthropology, history, art history, the history of science and cultural heritage management.

Lisa K. Rankin is Professor and University Research Chair of Northern Indigenous and Community Archaeology in the Department of Archaeology at Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada). She has worked closely with the Inuit and Inuit descendant communities of Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut for nearly 25 years. As a social archaeologist, her publications focus on Inuit identity and shifting power relations during early interactions between Inuit and Europeans. She was the director of the Tradition and Transition Research Partnership.

Oscar Moro Abadía is Professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada). He specializes in the study of Pleistocene art. He is the co-editor of Speaking Materials. Sources for the History of Archaeology (with Christoph Huth, Complutum, 2013). In 2020, he co-edited with Professor González-Morales a special issue on Pleistocene and Holocene arts for the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. In 2021, together with Martin Porr, he co-edited Ontologies of Rock Art: Images, Relational Approaches and Indigenous Knowledges for Routledge. His research on Paleolithic and the history of science has been published in Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Journal of Archaeological Research, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, World Art, History of Human Sciences, History of Science, Journal of Anthropological Research, Journal of Social Archaeology, and Studies in History and Philosophy of Science.

Emilie Dotte-Sarout is Senior Lecturer in archaeology at the University of Western Australia. Her most recent research project, Pacific Matildas (2020-2024), has focused on the hidden contributions of women in the history of Pacific archaeology, building on previous work she undertook as part of the project Collective Biography of Archaeology in the Pacific (Australian National University, 2015-2020). She was first editor of the double French and English volumes published in 2020 and 2021 Towards a History of Pacific Prehistory: Historiographical Approaches to Francophone Archaeology in Oceania, has published several articles and co-edited a number of journal special issues on the history of archaeology, as well as contributions to the 2022 international exhibition catalogue Uncovering Pacific Pasts: Histories of Archaeology in Oceania.