The History of Archaeology in the Asia-Pacific Region: Learning from our Past

The last IPPA Congress included the first session ever at these meetings focussed on the history of archaeology in the Asia-Pacific region, including Australia. Since 2014 interest in the history of archaeology has grown Worldwide, with many books, edited collections and individual papers published. The sub-discipline might be said to have ‘come of age’. But the Asia-Pacific still lags behind in consideration of the history of our archaeological practice. When it is written about, there is still a great dearth of stories of the entanglement of archaeology and colonial government in much of the region, of indigenous scholarship in addition and sometimes in opposition to dominant Western approaches, of the role of women researchers, of the role of religious views of all faiths, and of how the practices of the past still resonate within and influence the discipline in subtle and not so subtle ways. We invite papers that address questions of the development of Asia-Pacific archaeology as a specialised field and within its historical context. We welcome both broad perspectives on the development of archaeological theory and method in our region and presentations that focus on individual archaeologists, institutions, sites or collections, from the earliest archaeological efforts (often labelled ‘antiquarianism’) to the present professional discipline.
 
Please direct enquiries and offers of papers in the first instance to: admin.CBAP@anu.edu.au