Bruno David

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Mal and Dylan Siely examine finger grooves at Waribruk with GunaiKurnai Elder Uncle Russell Mullett. Photo by Jess Shapiro, courtesy of GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation

Precious finger traces from First Nations ancestors revealed in a glittering mountain cave in Australia

Russell Mullett, Indigenous Knowledge; Bruno David, Monash University, and Madeleine Kelly, Flinders University

Thousands of years ago, adults and children left their marks on soft rock surfaces deep in this cave in GunaiKurnai Country.
GunaiKurnai Elder Uncle Russell Mullett at entrance to Cloggs Cave, East Gippsland. Jess Shapiro, courtesy GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation

Oldest living culture: our new research shows an Indigenous ritual passed down for 500 generations

Russell Mullett, Indigenous Knowledge; Ashleigh Rogers, Monash University; Bruno David, Monash University; Carney D. Matheson, Griffith University; Fiona Petchey, University of Waikato, and Nathan Wright, University of New England

Matching new archological findings with ethnographic records, we can show ritual fireplaces have been in continuous use for at least 12,000 years.
The main chamber of Cloggs Cave. Monash University archaeologist Joe Crouch is standing in the 1970s excavation pit, digging a new area in the wall of the old excavation. Bruno David

Magic, culture and stalactites: how Aboriginal perspectives are transforming archaeological histories

Bruno David, Monash University; Chris Urwin, Monash University; Jean-Jacques Delannoy, Université Savoie Mont Blanc; Lynette Russell, Monash University, and Russell Mullett, Indigenous Knowledge

Two starkly different research projects at East Gippsland’s Cloggs Cave, 50 years apart, show the importance of Indigenous perspectives in archaeology.
A Motu trading ship with its characteristic crab claw shaped sails. Taken in the period 1903-1904. Trustees of The British Museum

Archaeology is unravelling new stories about Indigenous seagoing trade on Australia’s doorstep

Chris Urwin, Monash University; Alois Kuaso, Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery; Bruno David, Monash University; Henry Auri Arifeae, Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery, and Robert Skelly, Monash University

It has often been assumed that Australia was essentially isolated until 1788. But research into the seagoing trade on the south coast of Papua New Guinea suggests otherwise.

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