Community consultation and collaborative research in northern Cape York Peninsula – a retrospective

Abstract

This paper describes research, undertaken in the 1980s, which resulted in the development of a community-based approach to archaeological research in northern Cape York. It begins with an archaeological doctoral project that was underpinned by the desire to undertake adequate and appropriate consultation with traditional owners. However, northern Cape York is extremely culturally complex, stemming largely from the Indigenous and non-Indigenous history of this region over the last 150 years or so. A joint anthropological-archaeological project was undertaken, initially to identify appropriate traditional owners but which was subsequently expanded to include the recording of cultural information.