Presented in person and online. Zoom details below.

Authors
Chris Urwin, John J Bradley, Robert Skelly, Emilie Dotte, Simon Munt, li-Anthawirriyarra Sea Ranger Unit, Yanyuwa Families 

In Australia, there is growing recognition that Aboriginal people in northern Australia were in contact with ‘Makassan’ voyagers (from Island Southeast Asia) before British colonists arrived. These histories tend to focus on Arnhem Land and comparatively little is known of cross-cultural encounters in the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria, the farthest shore regularly visited by the Makassans. Yanyuwa people today hold song poetry, language, and place names which speak of the ‘Makassan times’. They tell us that the Makassan voyagers visited each year seeking trepang, trade and even kinship until AD 1906/1907 when the trade was curtailed. Yanyuwa Country includes the Sir Edward Pellew Islands, where there are at least 17 places associated with the Makassans. This paper explores the remarkable history of one of these places: Jalabuwaja, which derives from ‘crocodile net’ in Makassarese. In 2024, we conducted excavations at two stone-lined hearths once used to process trepang at Jalabuwaja. One of the fireplaces was used before cal. AD 1800 and possibly 150 years earlier. Combined with Yanyuwa oral traditions, the dates show that Yanyuwa people interacted with Makassan visitors for at least five generations. Our paper explores the stories Jalabuwaja tells today about cross-cultural interaction, including how places are named and known, and how the trepang fishery passed from the Makassans to Aboriginal and European fishers in the early twentieth century.

Speaker bio:
Dr Chris Urwin is an ARC DECRA Research Fellow (2025–2027) at Monash Indigenous Studies Centre (Monash University), conducting archaeological and museum-based research with Indigenous communities in Australia and the Pacific. He has also held positions at the Smithsonian Institution (Washington DC) and Museums Victoria. His research focusses on how people build places through time, and how personal and community histories are constructed when artefacts are collected and exchanged.

Join in-person or via zoom: https://anu.zoom.us/j/84955848358?pwd=BlAgPRsbVdbBo9vrMB8mLEfcgz3FAo.1
Meeting ID: 849 5584 8358
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Presented as part of the School of Archaeology and Anthropology's 2025 Centre for Archaeological Research (CAR) Seminar series