ABSTRACT

Cultural heritage management produces hundreds of archaeological assessments each year. However, the level of input from Aboriginal people into the significance assessment of places uncovered during this commercial archaeological work is minimal at best. Assessment outcomes continue to privilege scientific archaeological concepts of significance. To address this, the Bunurong Land Council Aboriginal Corporation has led the development of a tailored approach to significance assessment that is framed by the concept of Country. The criteria that have been developed integrate scientific archaeological approaches with Aboriginal cultural values and community perspectives in a balanced assessment methodology, which creates space for Aboriginal control of the assessment process and allows Aboriginal community perspectives to inform management/protection outcomes. Framing significance assessment within Traditional Owner perspectives of Country provides the opportunity for generating archaeological data that can address research questions and cultural significance at landscape or regional scales that are meaningful to the Traditional Owners, decolonising understandings of the past, and directly contributing to the protection of heritage places through improved and sustainable management outcomes.

摘要

文化遗产管理每年产生数百个考古评估。然而，原住民对这项商业考古工作中发现的地点的重要性评估的投入水平充其量是最低的。评估结果继续优先考虑具有重要意义的科学考古概念。为了解决这个问题，Bunurong Land Council Aboriginal Corporation 领导开发了一种以国家概念为框架的量身定制的重要性评估方法。已制定的标准以平衡的评估方法将科学考古方法与土著文化价值观和社区观点相结合，这为原住民控制评估过程创造了空间，并允许原住民社区的观点为管理/保护结果提供信息。从国家传统所有者的角度进行框架重要性评估提供了生成考古数据的机会，这些数据可以解决景观或区域尺度上对传统所有者有意义的研究问题和文化意义，消除对过去的殖民理解，并直接有助于保护通过改进和可持续的管理成果实现遗产地。