Russell Mullett

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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.
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How 1970s conservation laws turned this ‘paradise on Earth’ into a tinderbox

Michael-Shawn Fletcher, The University of Melbourne; Anthony John Romano, The University of Melbourne; Michela Mariani, University of Nottingham; Russell Mullett, Indigenous Knowledge, and Simon Connor, Australian National University

New research finds the Victorian town of Buchan never experienced catastrophic bushfires, until misguided laws banned the use of burning as a way to control the land.
A Gunaikurnai Jeraeil re-enactment c.1883 with men, women, and children. Left to right: (standing) Big Joe, Billy the Bull, Wild Harry, Billy McDougall, Snowy River Charlie, unidentified man, Bobby Brown, Billy McLeod (Toolabar), Larry Johnson. Woman, second from right: Emma McDougall. State Library of Victoria

After 140 years, researchers have rediscovered an important Aboriginal ceremonial ground in East Gippsland

Jason M. Gibson, Deakin University and Russell Mullett, Indigenous Knowledge

It was the site of historic gatherings, such as a four-day initiation ceremony for young men. Then colonial authorities quashed such practices. The place was lost for more than a century, until now.
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.
An image of the landscape around Bairnsdale in the late-18th century. D. R Long (Daniel Rutter), between 1856 and 1883. State Library of Victoria

Recovered Aboriginal songs offer clues to 19th century mystery of the shipwrecked ‘white woman’

Stephen Morey, La Trobe University and Jason M. Gibson, Deakin University

Aboriginal songs found in the notebooks of a Victorian anthropologist shed light on the mystery of a ‘captive white woman’ that has been debated for generations.

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