Michelle Jane Richards

This Indigenous-led research project aims to meet Taungurung Water and Land Council’s (TWaLC) aspirations to map cultural values on country by connecting with and conducting their own research with objects and archival materials at museums and other institutional collections (including genealogical research). This will be achieved by reconnecting the collections to Taungurung country through different stages of research. The first part of this project was a visit to reconnect TLaWC to Isabel McBryde’s archaeological collection at the Australian National University. TLaWC started compiling information to re-visit the archaeological sites McBryde identified on Taungurung country. This information is assisting TLaWC to develop future research questions and to map the cultural values connected to McBryde’s archaeological work and collection on Taungurung country during this next stage of the project. This next stage of this project involves reconnecting research to Taungurung Country by, revisiting the archaeological sites identified by McBryde and using traditional knowledge, archaeological science, and experimental archaeology to test the hypotheses McBryde proposed. Invited researchers will work with TLaWC to develop and answer new research questions related to the collections identified from Taungurung Country. The cultural values attached to these collections will be assessed as well as strengthened during this research.