Posters

Kelly Ann Blake, La Trobe University

Nganin Nganitj (Bat-Led Pathways) explores how bats guide us through Lakorra Murrkal Dja (Dark Sky Country) on Wadawurrung Country, using biocultural values, Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), and Western archaeological perspectives. As nocturnal messengers, and protectors of Dark Sky County, Balyang (Grey-headed Flying Fox / Pteropus poliocephalus) is a nocturnal creator being and Ancestor in Wadawurrung culture who is law/lore keeper and protector of our Dark Sky Country. Nganin Nganitj (Bat in bat form) explores the cultural and ecological role of Balyang who oversights law/lore, connects memory places, offers seasonal indicators, and shares sky-based cultural practices.

This poster illustrates Wadawurrung ecological knowledge, having regard to archaeological evidence, highlighting the role of Dark Sky places as living cultural landscapes. By protecting cultural sites/memory places, intangible heritage associations, such as songlines, teachings, and Dark Sky Country connected ecologies from light pollution, development, and climate impacts. This project reawakens the significance of Lakorra Murrkal Dja and how Nganin Nganitj can remind and teach us of Wadawurrung ways of knowing, being, and caring for Country under a blanket of stars.

Rohani Dutch, EMM Consulting

Co-Authors:
Amber Morgan, EMM Consulting
Megan Sheppard Brennard, EMM Consulting
Trudy Doelman, The University of Sydney
Alan Williams, EMM Consulting

The Cumberland Plain in western Sydney has been the subject of over 80 years of academic and cultural heritage management investigation. These studies have suggested that the bioregion was primarily used only in the late Holocene, and saw a focus on the extraction and exploitation of high quality silcrete from Riverstone and Plumpton Ridge in the northwest. This raw material played a critical role in the development of increasingly complex stone tool technologies, likely to have been driven by heightened hunting pressures linked to population growth and the emergence of more defined sociopolitical boundaries. To date, the expansion of urban development in the southwest and subsequent archaeological investigations has found limited archaeological materials, and the extent of the distance this silcrete was transported or traded across the region remains uncertain. In advance of residential development, EMM and Darug Traditional Owners undertook a compliance-based archaeological program on the banks of Ropes Creek at Luddenham in the southern portion of the bioregion. An excavation totalling 133m2 recovered some 5,358 artefacts in a shallow disturbed duplex soil profile. Eight OSL ages suggest at least two major phases of short-term repeated site use over the last 1,500 years, potentially extending into early twentieth century. The assemblage was dominated by silcrete raw materials sourced from northwest Sydney and reflected evidence of substantive heat treatment, early core testing and refining, as well as exhausted tools. These all suggest that the site formed an important node as part of a distribution network of silcrete into southwest Sydney. It is hoped that identifying this node will provide greater insight into the timing and movement of silcrete into southwest Sydney and further contribute to understanding the region’s comparatively limited archaeological visibility compared with other parts of the Cumberland Plain.

John Fairweather, The University of Western Australia

Co-Authors:
Ying-Li Wu, The University of Western Australia
Jo McDonald, The University of Western Australia

Rock varnish is a dark, thin coating that forms on exposed rock surfaces in arid and semi-arid regions. It typically consists of alternating micron-scale layers enriched in manganese (Mn), iron (Fe), and phyllosilicates, and can record environmental changes over time. High Mn:Fe ratios in varnish layers are often linked to wetter climatic periods. If varnish layers are formed on surfaces of known age, their composition can serve as a semi-calibrated proxy for past climate and can potentially be used to date surfaces such as rock art panels.

In the Pilbara region of Western Australia, Murujuga (Burrup Peninsula) contains thousands of rock art sites, many of which have superimposed rock varnish. This creates an opportunity to establish a regional varnish-based dating framework. However, the method first requires calibration using surfaces of known age. The Hickman impact crater, estimated to have formed 10,000 and 100,000 years ago, provides such a surface. The ejecta and crater rim materials were buried before the impact, so any varnish must have formed afterwards. This makes Hickman crater an ideal site to study varnish formation within a timeframe relevant to human occupation in the region.

An interdisciplinary team conducted fieldwork at Hickman crater in April 2025. They collected varnish, rock, and soil samples from the rim and ejecta for various dating methods, including Ar-Ar, (U-Th)/He Fe-oxide, cosmogenic nuclide, and Optically Stimulated Luminescence dating. Varnish micro-stratigraphy will be studied through ultra-thin sectioning and analysed using optical and electron microscopy, alongside chemical and mineralogical techniques.

The study aims to tie varnish formation to a dated impact event, helping to reconstruct Holocene-Pleistocene climate patterns in arid Western Australia. This will provide a new tool for understanding environmental change and surface stability in a region with sparse chronological data.

Calum Farrar, Griffith University

Co-Authors:
Andrea Jalandoni, Griffith University
Robert Haubt, Griffith University
Gervase Tuxworth, Griffith University
Zhongyi Zhang, Griffith University

One of the earliest and most enigmatic forms of rock art are finger flutings and previous methods of studying them relied on biometric finger ratios from modern populations to make assumptions about the people who left the flutings, which is theoretically and methodologically problematic. This work is a proof-of-concept for a paradigm shift away from error-prone human measurements and controversial theories to computational digital archaeology methods for an innovative experimental design using a tactile, virtual, and machine learning approach. We propose a digital archaeology experiment using a tactile and virtual approach based on multiple samples from 96 participants, mostly from the Australian Archaeology Association Conference 2023. We trained a machine learning model on the known data to determine the sex of the person who made the fluting. While the virtual dataset did not provide sufficiently distinct features for reliable sex classification, the tactile experiment results showed potential for the identification of the sex of fluting artists, but more samples are needed to make any generalization. The significant contribution of this study is the development of a foundational set of methods and materials. We provide a novel digital archaeology approach for data creation, data collection, and analysis that makes the experiment replicable, scalable, and quantifiable.

Judith Field, The University of New South Wales

Co-Authors:
Richard Fullagar, The University of Western Australia
Jo McDonald, The University of Western Australia

Over the years we have been faced with the dilemma of sampling artefactual material, such as grinding stones or grinding patches in remote areas. Our previous in-field methods have provided limited results, mainly because of the very small sample sizes and therefore effectiveness of recovery. In contrast, laboratory-based sampling with an ultrasonic bath has yielded samples with high recovery rates. To address this problem, and as part of the Desert to Sea program, we invested in an ultrasonic probe, effectively inverting the laboratory method. The in-field sampling has increased our flexibility, increased our sampling size and has allowed us to sample in situ, thus expanding our sampling set and recovery potential. Furthermore, we can demonstrate to our collaborative partners the methods we use to collect samples that were previously seen as that ‘black box’ of laboratory methods.

This poster illustrates Wadawurrung ecological knowledge, having regard to archaeological evidence, highlighting the role of Dark Sky places as living cultural landscapes. By protecting cultural sites/memory places, intangible heritage associations, such as songlines, teachings, and Dark Sky Country connected ecologies from light pollution, development, and climate impacts. This project reawakens the significance of Lakorra Murrkal Dja and how Nganin Nganitj can remind and teach us of Wadawurrung ways of knowing, being, and caring for Country under a blanket of stars. 

Elizabeth Fowler, University of New England

Western teleology of historical progress is centred upon linearity, implying that civilisations and peoples move through progressive phases of advancement to an end goal of technological, social, cultural and economic complexity. This idea excludes non-Western conceptualisations of time and progress, like that of Aboriginal Australian spirituality. In ancient Aboriginal culture, time was conceived as being agential, cyclical, and non-linear, as opposed to being ‘linear, colonized and constrained’ (Poelina et al., 2022, p. 401). For Aboriginal Australians, the multiplicity of cultures, Nations and communities that have co-existed with Country for thousands of years creates a continuous relationship between them, place and time, transmitting cultural knowledge systems across temporality (Poelina et al., 2022). The past remains an interactive agent with the present, informing cultures, traditions and knowledge.

This poster will explore the archaeological evidence that attests to the continuously evolving and extremely complex nature of ancient Aboriginal Australian societies. The Kimberley region will be used as the case study, focusing on the development of unique rock art phases, stone tools, and the area’s unique relationality to plants and Country to demonstrate these complex relationships. Evidence from rock art will form the primary basis of the evidence analysed as it purveys the complex social, economic and cultural relationships as well as holds the knowledge systems of Traditional Owners. Rock art that contains plant-centric motifs is demonstrative of the complex relationship between people, land and plants. The role of plants in the economic, social and symbolic lives of the earliest Aboriginal Australians should be understood beyond the confines of subsistence or foraging. The Kimberley demonstrates that Aboriginal cultures are, indeed, the longest living cultures in existence; but this existence was temporally and spatially unique to different groups, rather than a continent-wide homogenous state of being.

Sean Liddelow, Aboriginal Land Services

Co-Author:
Shannon Gee, Aboriginal Land Services

This poster explores the cultural landscape of Red Hill, a site of significance to the Noongar community situated near Perth, Western Australia. The site is located along Susannah Brook, which flows into the Swan River northeast of Perth, and is a highly significant component of the Whadjuk Noongar cultural landscape containing places sacred to men and women, forming part of a known travel route connecting the coastal plain, hills, and inland areas as well as being a historically described camping place reported by George Fletcher Moore in the 1830s.

Cultural mapping undertaken in 2022 and 2023 by Noongar community representatives and Aboriginal Land Services heritage consultants recorded numerous archaeological features and objects including a grinding stone, quartz flakes, dolerite cores, a painting, a scarred tree, lizard traps, and a rockshelter. Key ethnographic features include the Owl Stone, the nearby Owl Chick stones, and burial places. It is highly likely that further exploration will reveal more cultural material, especially in light of recent bushfire activity that has increased surface visibility.

Despite this, Red Hill is under threat from nearby quarrying activities and is not widely known. This poster highlights the results of this community-directed cultural mapping project, which enriches our understanding of this place and the wider cultural landscape of the Perth hills, and demonstrates the importance of protection of an area often overlooked in terms of cultural significance.

Roy Muroyi, Terra Rosa Consulting

This research examines contact period rock art motifs with an eye to understanding Martu epistemic connections with rock art and colonial experiences. Contact-period rock art refers to rock art created by Indigenous Australians during or after first encounter with Europeans, which commonly occurred in the late eighteenth century and later. Contact rock art has evolved as an important topic of study in global rock art studies, providing new perspectives on cross-cultural contacts. Contact rock art has received little attention in the context of the Canning Stock Route; studies have generally focused on more traditional subject matter (cultural-historical perspectives) and formal (westernised/scientific) analysis. This is due in part to the perception of ‘friendly’ relations between Europeans and Aboriginal communities. Clandestine violence (poisonings, forced removals, sexual exploitation, and sickness) and structural violence (the compartmentalisation of Aboriginal people through systems of race, government, and labour) were in fact a daily routine on the Canning Stock Route. Power systems, inequality, dispossession, and racism all contributed to these developments. Some of the rock art exhibited along the Canning Stock Route has been classified as resistance rock art. While many such studies have been conducted both in Australia and overseas, there has recently been an increasing focus on Indigenous ontological and epistemological approaches to rock art. This article analyses the practical consequences of a decolonial approach and, more importantly, uses narrative inquiry to interpret contact period rock art along the Canning Stock Route as an example of innovative heritage management methods. It should be underlined that Aboriginal groups’ interpretations of contact period rock art are critical and there is an urgent need to re-evaluate Western historical sources, which frequently glorify the colonial frontier and exaggerate European bravery, ignoring the fact that early colonial businesses relied on Aboriginal knowledge and labour to succeed.

Jade Pervan, The University of Western Australia

Co-Authors:
Jessica Olofsson, BHP
Robin Twaddle, BHP
Krystal Cotterill, BHP

The Dhawura Ngilan (DWN) is a vision for how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage is recognised, managed, cared for, and engaged with by the next generations of Australians. Developed through extensive consultation with First Nations stakeholders, peak representative bodies, advisory councils, and committees, the DWN has been endorsed by the Heritage Chairs of Australia and New Zealand. Much like the Burra Charter, it represents a collective agreement of best practice and while it is not legislated, aims to inform policy and guide industry.

The release of the DWN represents an exciting opportunity for industries to review practices and align to best practice standards. This is particularly true of industries whose core business activities have ongoing and lasting impacts on cultural heritage values: industries like mining and other resource extraction enterprises. For these businesses that may have profound footprints on the landscape and thousands of touchpoints with community, the embedding of DWN principles through frameworks, guidelines, and policies presents both a substantial challenge and an opportunity to take greater accountability and responsibility. While some components of the DWN are often placed at the forefront of mining, such as the physical management of cultural heritage and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), other aspects are too frequently shied away from, for example Truth Telling.

In this poster we aim to view the DWN through a resource industry lens, highlighting the bright spots as well as the challenges faced by those who are seeking to embed these key principles in complex business contexts that contain a variety of challenging priorities. We also aim to open the discussion in and across industries to promote collaboration and the sharing of ideas to improve industry standards and expectations.

Martin Porr, The University of Western Australia

Archaeology has a long history of entanglement with colonialist thought and practices. The field developed during the height of European global political, economic, and intellectual dominance in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It has been characterized as an expression of Western, positivist thinking and a linear understanding of time and history. However, in recent decades, archaeology has transformed itself into a much more diverse discipline under the influence of Indigenous rights and self-determination movements. The field has also been embraced by many Indigenous communities, and its results are often used concerning questions of Indigenous sovereignty. This recognition acknowledges archaeology’s potential to make visible traces of past human actions beyond written records and human memory. The ability of modern radiometric techniques to date past actions across hundreds of thousands of years has often provided enhancements to Indigenous authority. While these developments allow archaeology a more positive position in the relationships with Indigenous communities, they generally underestimate the complexities of radiometric dating techniques in archaeological reasoning and the generally undertheorized treatment of time in the field. In this paper, I explore the vexed issue of the relationship between modern archaeological notions of time and the integration of the latter into debates about Indigenous sovereignty. The insights presented have important consequences for future debates about humanity’s deep past and Indigenous sovereignty. Indigenous communities need to be cautious about embracing archaeological notions of time, and archaeological practitioners must be mindful of the complex assumptions on which their treatment of time rests. However, because of archaeology’s multidisciplinary strengths and its positioning across the humanities/science divide, the discipline has great potential to support Aboriginal sovereignty and the aspirations of Aboriginal people in an informed and responsible fashion.

Sofia Samper Carro, Australian National University

Co-Authors:
Susana Vega Bolivar, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
Rafael Mora Torcal, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
Jorge Martinez-Moreno, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona

During the last 20 years, research on the ability of Neanderthals to exploit slow- and fast- moving small vertebrates has increased exponentially. From a traditional narrative, where Neanderthal were characterized as unable to acquire this type of prey, we can now suggest how Neanderthals’ hunting ability was more advanced than previously thought. Evidence of lagomorphs (i.e. rabbits and hares) exploitation is emerging in several sites, where detailed taphonomic analysis of small prey assemblages indicates the accumulator agent responsible for these accumulations. In addition to lagomorphs, capturing birds and tortoises/turtles has been long demonstrated. Nevertheless, how these preys were processed is still open for debate in many cases. Our research in the Iberian Southeastern Pre-pyrenees comprises, among other topics, a focus on Neanderthal’ processing strategies of these ubiquitous but sometimes elusive prey.

La Roca dels Bous is one of these sites in the Pre-pyrennes, where systematic and fine-grained archaeostratigraphic recording of artefacts and features allow us to understand Neanderthals’ subsistence strategies from 50,000 years ago until their disappearance (around 40,000 years ago). It comprises a unique site, where overlapping hearths in discrete archaeological units indicate short term but repeated visits to the rockshelter.

In the 25 years of systematic excavations at Roca dels Bous, we found evidence of lagomorphs, birds and turtle exploitation. However, it was not until 2024 that we found direct evidence of the methods that Neanderthals used to cook turtles. Located directly on a clearly defined hearth, the recovery of a complete turtle shell during last year’s excavations allows us to provide insights into Neanderthals’ cooking practices, activity areas and intra-site spatial distributions years before their disappearance, contributing the debates about their resilience and lifeways.

Stevie Skitmore, Australian National University

Yumaduwaya (stingray), Mangwarra (hammerhead shark) and Yugwurrirrindangwa (sawfish) begin their journey on the east coast of Arnhem Land and travel to Groote Eylandt. They stop at Bickerton Island and change from humans into sea creatures. They decide to travel to the centre of Groote Eylandt via the north, but Yugwurrirrindangwa decides to take a short cut to the centre of the island. He starts off alone, and is followed by a crowd of small stingrays.

Yugwurrirrindangwa cuts his way through the island, using his teeth and nose, throwing earth aside and letting the water in. He makes Yinuma (the Angurugu River), and arrives at the centre of the island, where he creates Central Hill (Yandarrnga).

The Yinuma songline is strong: connecting families and land, sung and painted, travelled and storied. Its path is a link from Arnhem Land to the east side of Groote Eylandt, crossing land and water. It tells, amongst other things, of the right way to be.

This community archaeology collaboration between Anindilyakwa and Canberra-based researchers looks to add to current understandings of Yinuma. We think that archaeological ways of thinking can offer something meaningful to existing knowledge about creation, kinship, boundedness and strength on Groote Eylandt. This project is as much about the present and the future as it is about the past.

In 2025, we offer a visual, textural and auditory interpretation of Yinuma, and how our own journey towards the centre of the island has unfolded so far. Knowledge is held in our senses, and so we invite you to explore Yinuma with yours.

Caroline Spry, La Trobe University

Co-Authors:
Elspeth Hayes, MicroTrace Archaeology / The University of Melbourne
Luc Bordes, Universite Toulouse Jean Jaures
Richard Fullagar, Flinders University
Bobby Mullins, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation
Ron Jones, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation
Allan Wandin, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation
Aunty Di Kerr, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation
Zara Lasky-Davison, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation
Wendy Morrison, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation
Lauren Modra, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation
Lauren Gribble, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation
Anna Alcorn, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation
Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation

Boomerangs are part of a suite of Australian throwing sticks which are specialised wooden implements of purposeful design, with aerodynamic properties, that are used as projectiles. While throwing sticks are known to have been used throughout Australia, they are less commonly found in excavated contexts. In this paper, we report on a single wangim (boomerang) recovered from a reported burial mound at Yarra Junction, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country, Victoria. Analysis of morphometrics (shape, size), wear traces and residues, combined with traditional cultural knowledge, indicate that the wangim was primarily made using a variety of metal tools in the nineteenth or twentieth century. The presence of impact traces, right-handed grip marks, blood, and charcoal indicate that the wangim was used as a hunting weapon, for disarticulating (breaking up) game, and for managing campfires. The shape, symmetry and cross-section of the wangim appear to be distinct from other Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung wangim housed at Museums Victoria and elsewhere. The manufacture (and maintenance) steps required to craft this wangim, along with evidence for its continuous use for multiple activities (throwing, hacking, fire management) and its association with a reported burial, suggest that it held some form of prestige to its owner, who may have formed a strong personal attachment to it.

Kayla Turner, James Cook University

Co-Authors:
Walmbaar Aboriginal Corporation RNTCB
Nguurruumungu Indigenous Corporation
Annie Ross, The University of Queensland
Ariana Lambrides, James Cook University
Rebekah Kurpiel, La Trobe University
Sean Ulm, ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures
Ian McNiven, Monash University

This study, in collaboration with Waalmbar Aboriginal Corporation RNTCB and Nguurruumungu Indigenous Corporation, explores stone artefact biographies, currently identified and yet to be discovered, associated with sea Country of the Great Barrier Reef region. The poster outlines the unique physical and epistemological identities associated with three Ground Stone Ancestors (GSA) recovered from an intertidal context at Mangrove Beach in 2012. Here, the artefacts revealed themselves to archaeologists during a field research season on Jiigurru, colloquially known as Lizard Island.

After 2012, some of this previously recovered cultural material was transferred, with consent, under the stewardship of the Lizard Island Archaeological Project at JCU. Themes of this study relate to the burgeoning field of submerged cultural landscapes and the cultural specificities of ground edge artefact analysis. Using a mixed methodology, we have sought to embed agency and embodied personhood as core principles in our assessment of the Ancestors while also experimenting with non-invasive Portable Xray Fluorescence (pXRF). The study couples an Indigenised practice with trace element analysis as a direct contrast to the current typological discourse in Australian archaeology, while affirming the position of mixed methodology in capacity building for ethical community engagement.

Stewart Wallace, Terra Rosa Consulting

Co-Author:
Oliver Hernandez, Terra Rosa Consulting

The Marlinyu Ghoorlie Native Title Claim in Western Australia’s Goldfields and Central Wheatbelt covers nearly 90,000 km2, an area larger than the island of Ireland. Representing the Kapurn Traditional Owners, it is also a highly active part of Australia’s resources sector, home to both Kalgoorlie’s Super Pit and between a third and half of all of Australia’s future acts at any one time. Unlike similarly positioned regions such as the Pilbara, very little archaeological research has been conducted in the region. Radiocarbon dates are known to have been collected from a single location—a rockshelter on the southwest side of Lake Barlee. The four samples are spread across 3,780 – 412 years BP, demonstrating occupation of the area from the later middle Holocene. This scientific neglect hamstrings the ability to properly gauge the scientific significance of places of Aboriginal cultural heritage and generates more questions than answers in terms of chronology and occupation patterns in the claim area.

The Marlinyu Ghoorlie Knowledge Project seeks to advocate for a more robust scientific understanding of Marlinyu Ghoorlie Claim Area through the principles of collaborative co-design and Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). Marlinyu Ghoorlie Traditional Owners and Terra Rosa archaeologists are working together to navigate the narrow legislative guidelines to develop an understanding of deep time in the claim area. This will aid the Marlinyu Ghoorlie Native Title Claimants protecting their heritage and managing Country more effectively.

In collaboration with the Marlinyu Ghoorlie Traditional Owners, several sites have been identified within the Claim area that are suitable for targeted research. Alongside this, extensive desktop research is being undertaken to identify any historical research conducted in the area. The authors also call for any information known to the audience to be brought forward that could contribute to the Project.

Luc Wehlisch, Terra Rosa Consulting

Co-Authors:
Lucy Clark, Terra Rosa Consulting
Kora Seats, Terra Rosa Consulting

Over the past year, Marlinyu Ghoorlie Aboriginal Corporation (MGAC), who represents the Kapurn Traditional Owners, has amassed a collection of artefacts through heritage surveys conducted on Kapurn Traditional Country. These artefacts were isolated finds that were recorded and brought back to the MGAC office, for protection from the proposed work in the area. Terra Rosa and MGAC recognize that this collection could be a useful asset for Marlinyu Ghoorlie representatives to use for reference and training. With the help and approval from MGAC, Marlinyu Ghoorlie representative Aikysha Papertalk and Terra Rosa consultants Kora Seats, Luc Wehlisch and Lucy Clark will be curating the collection of artefacts together.

The aim of this poster is to showcase the creation and organisation of the lithic collection housed at the MGAC office. The poster will feature the start-to-finish process of identifying different but common artefact types, discerning their rock types, organizing and labelling them, and presenting them in a useful approach. Terra Rosa will be working in conjunction with Marlinyu Ghoorlie representatives to find the most effective way to organize and present the artefacts.

The intent of this collection is to merge the traditional and practical knowledge of the Traditional Owners with knowledge provided by heritage consultants to create a comprehensive training tool with practical applications for heritage surveys.

It should be noted that the collection does not aim at being scientifically representative. The goal is to create a hands-on training opportunity to visualize and demonstrate artefacts that are commonly encountered during surveys.

The collection will stay at the MGAC office where Marlinyu Ghoorlie representatives will be able to see and reference the artefacts whenever needed and in the long term, it will be an ongoing resource to access. Having this collection as a training resource would allow for more purposeful heritage management for members and consultants by providing a region-specific knowledge base.

Taylor Gray, Curtin University

Co-Authors:
David McMeekin, Curtin University
Andrew Woods, Curtin University
David Belton, Curtin University

This presentation covers the preliminary results of user trials regarding immersive technology use in underwater cultural heritage museum exhibits. This study is part of a larger project focusing on the photogrammetry of the wrecks of HMAS Sydney (II) and HSK Kormoran and its use in museum exhibits. As a part of that project, the use of virtual and immersive technology in museums is being evaluated, with particular focus on emotional connection, visitor experience, and visitor preferences.

The preliminary results come from a user study utilising three different experiences at two locations with two delivery methods: traditional information panels, a 3D movie, and a virtual 3D experience on a cylindrical 180-degree screen at the Curtin University HIVE, with the same experience on a VR headset at the Museum of Geraldton. Participants were asked to answer survey questions pertaining to their thoughts after each experience regarding how they felt about the use of technology and how its use impacted their connection and interest in the content. Participants then took part in a guided focus group where they could further explain how they felt about each experience. The results are then coded and analysed to look for patterns and common themes.

The preliminary results were largely positive in the participants reactions to the use of technology. Although some found aspects of the technology distracting, many found that the use of technology was helpful for immersion and connection. Participants found that each experience had different strengths and weaknesses, and in this instance the three experiences worked well together with each exhibit providing key elements of the story, in a way that the experiences may not have worked as well separately.

Further research is ongoing, including interviews with professionals, both working within museums as well as from outside stakeholder groups. The end goal of this project is to provide museums with a toolkit to aid in creating a better visitor experience that allows participants to connect with the material in an exciting way that is not distracting and help museums find common ground with visitor expectations and museum preferences.