The archive of the Earth: reading Rocky Cape

Every place is an archive; every landscape preserves a complex record of past natural
and cultural interactions. This article unpacks the archive of a single place, the caves
of Rocky Cape (pinmatik) in northwest Tasmania, which has been the subject of
archaeological enquiry for over a century. It reflects on the creative and destructive
forces in archaeological practice, and the ways in which sites are changed and
charged by the process of excavation. Like all archives, archaeological sites are
contested spaces. They are bound to the theories, methodologies and assumptions of
those who select and interpret them. This article examines how Rocky Cape has been
read, misread and reread by Western scholars: first, as the crucial piece of evidence in
global debates about the origin and antiquity of the Tasmanians; second, as a window
on the world at the end of the last Ice Age; and, third, as a stopping-point in a vast and
interconnected cultural landscape. By exploring the challenges and opportunities of
reading the archive of the earth, it seeks to enable a longer, more inclusive view of the
histories of settler societies.