Touching grindstones in archaeological and cultural heritage practice: materiality, affect and emotion in settler-colonial Australia

Abstract

In this article I explore affective and emotional responses to the material properties of Aboriginal grindstones by giving two examples, one from Narungga Country on Guuranda/Yorke Peninsula, South Australia and the other from Yandruwandha Yawarrawarrka Country in the Strzelecki Desert. I draw on theoretical ontologies in New Materialism, as well as affect and emotion studies, which place emphasis on constitutive, affective relationships between humans and objects in the world. I explore how the handling of ground stone objects is a distinctively affective and often emotional practice for Aboriginal peoples, Australian rural settler-descendants and archaeologists, one which can summon powerful responses but one which is often governed by legacies of sociopolitical and cross-cultural power relations. Further, I highlight how the identification and recording of grindstones is an extremely visceral, tactile and emotional endeavour that relies heavily on the interplay between the material properties of the implement and the sensory responses of the finder. Despite this significant facet of our work, scientific orthodoxies in archaeology and cultural heritage management often stifle analytical attention to the intimacy and sensitivity that operates at its practical interface. Developments in critical heritage studies point towards affective futures for cultural heritage and archaeological research, providing greater scope for practitioners to express the actualities of fieldwork in ways that are increasingly aligned with field experiences and participant realities.