On stone tools and the ‘prehistoric’: The value of Tasmanian Aboriginality at the Smithsonian

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the meaning of Indigenous objects in cultural institutions. The 2019 research at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History out of which it emerged started with the one Tasmanian Aboriginal item in the online database, a single stone tool, and ended with the more than 230 Tasmanian stone implements in the collection. In approaching the ‘museum as method’ (Thomas, Nicholas. 2010. “The Museum as Method.” Museum Anthropology 33 (1): 6–10), my deep engagement with the various stages of meaning and value creation that occurred before, during, and after these objects entered the collection clarifies this central discrepancy. These processes gain clarity in relation to Shryock and Smail’s insights into containers (Shryock, Andrew, and Daniel Lord Smail. 2018a. “On Containers: A Forum. Introduction.” History and Anthropology 29 (1): 1–6; Shryock, Andrew, and Daniel Lord Smail. 2018b. “On Containers. A Forum. Concluding Remarks.” History and Anthropology 29 (1): 49–51) and Morphy’s on museums and infinity (Morphy, Howard. 2020. Museums, Infinity and the Culture of Protocols. London: Routledge). Despite associations with prevalent discourses of extinction and primitivity these objects, by virtue of being contained, have stories left to tell.