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.