Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

D avid F rankel

2015; Wiley; Volume: 50; Issue: S1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/arco.5058

2204-1907

James Allen,

Archaeology and ancient environmental studies

Born in South Africa in 1946, David Frankel's practical experience of archaeology began while he was an undergraduate at Sydney University. In the space of a single year, 1967, he excavated in New Zealand at Kauri Point with Jack Golson and Wallace Ambrose; at Burrill Lake rock shelter on the NSW south coast with Ronald Lampert; and at several tell sites in Israel. In the following year, he excavated again at Burrill Lake and with Judy Birmingham at Irrawang, a nineteenth century pottery/winery in the Hunter Valley. In 1969 and 1971, he dug in Greece with Alexander Cambitoglou, and also in 1971 at the Tasmanian historic site of Wybalenna. In 1972, David led the excavation of a Sydney historic site, Elizabeth Farm. During this time he studied in the Archaeology Department at Sydney, a department teaching Mediterranean and European archaeology from the Neolithic onwards. David was awarded a BA in 1970 and an MA in 1973, both with honours. This eclectic archaeological training was significant on several levels, not the least being David's enthusiasm for archaeology in any form. By the time he began his doctoral studies in Sweden, he had first-hand experience of quite different archaeologies and, more importantly, the different methodologies attached to them, skills that were to shape his contributions both in Cyprus and Australia. The Archaeology Department at Sydney at the time had long-term connections with Cyprus, mostly through the numerous excavations conducted there by Professor J.R.B. Stewart, a member of that department from its inception in 1949 until his death in 1962, and also through Professor Basil Hennessy, a staff member there during the 1950s (and professor from 1970 to 1990). Easy access to Cypriot Bronze Age pottery collections allowed David to familiarise himself with this material and it was a natural progression that he should go to Gothenburg to study for his doctorate under Professor Paul Åström, a leading Bronze Age Cyprus expert. By the time, his doctorate was completed he had published two papers on Cypriot archaeology and a monograph on Cypriot White Painted pottery. Completing his doctorate in 1975, David took up a junior research position in the British Museum, where he continued to work on Mediterranean archaeology. In 1978, his career took a new direction when he accepted a lectureship in the Division of Prehistory at La Trobe University. This unit was part of a much larger History Department and was headed by Nigel Oram, an oral historian whose research was centred in Papua, with David as lecturer and two tutors (now Level A positions). Responsibility for the development of archaeology courses fell firmly on to David's shoulders. Committed to this task, Cyprus and the Mediterranean could no longer be front and centre. David saw that the development of archaeology at La Trobe required both good classroom teaching and active fieldwork. Teaching loads and little funding confined research to weekend field trips for undergraduates and local excavations with senior students. In large part, these were designed to lead into local fieldwork and museum theses at the honours and postgraduate levels. Apart from a short diversion in the early 1980s at Nigel Oram's behest, to find and excavate hiri trade pottery sites with Ron Vanderwal in the Gulf of Papua, David built on the research of earlier archaeologists in Victoria, beginning with John Mulvaney's excavations around Cape Otway. After excavating one of the Sunbury earth rings in 1979, David again joined with Ron Vanderwal to excavate a shell midden in a cave on Moonlight Head, to the west of Cape Otway, in 1980. Then came a flurry of fieldwork activity: a cave site at Gisborne (1982), midden excavations on Philip Island with Denise Gaughwin (1983), investigation of the earth mounds along the Murray River with Annette Berryman (1983), and the excavation of Malangine, Piccininnie and Koongine caves in south-east South Australia (1985). In 1987, David returned to Koongine with Caroline Bird, the beginning of a productive research and publication partnership between these two La Trobe colleagues. At the same time (1985), David instigated extensive site surveying with students along the south Gippsland coast that continued for several years. Around this time, Caroline Bird excavated a site at Mt Talbot, as part of her research in Western Victoria. In 1987, Caroline and David undertook a site survey around Mt Talbot that began the reassessment of earlier work done in the Grampians–Gariwerd by Victorian Archaeological Survey archaeologists. With David's assistance, Caroline began re-analysing and dating this earlier excavated material and demonstrated a Pleistocene age for humans in the region. An interesting point of the Gariwerd research is that it was funded by an ARC linkage grant that involved these archaeologists, the Aboriginal communities of Western Victoria and Aboriginal Affairs Victoria. As far as I am aware, this was the first linkage grant awarded to archaeology, as David perceived the possibilities of such a cooperation before other archaeologists in Australia. A second outcome of the Gariwerd research is that it linked directly into the separate and combined investigations that Caroline and David had undertaken elsewhere in south-east Australia, including working with the local community to establish the Hamilton Museum (later the Hamilton Keeping Place); this led to their important critique of mid-Holocene intensification of Aboriginal occupation in the south-east region of Australia, being proposed at that time by Harry Lourandos and Queensland colleagues. By the late 1980s, the La Trobe Archaeology Department had been established and David's teaching and fieldwork training responsibilities could be more widely shared. David's attention turned once again to Cyprus. David's “Australian decade” did not, of course, end here. Each piece of his antipodean research was analysed and published, ending in the Bird and Frankel 2005 monograph, An Archaeology of Gariwerd, published as Tempus 8. In 1991, David published his “practical” textbook Remains To Be Seen, which drew freely on his Victorian research. And each year since 2012, David has organised a colloquium on Victorian archaeology. His written contributions comprise not only detailed site reports and data analyses, but also a number of papers on chronological and methodological issues. In particular, David has had important things to say about the ways in which data organisation in analysis can affect interpretation, or as he put it, “the transformations of material as it re-enters the systemic context of archaeological research”. However a (perhaps the) major contribution that David has made to La Trobe and Victorian archaeology stems from his academic generosity and collegiality. I have mentioned in passing some of his joint contributions with La Trobe colleagues; many more student publications would not have seen the light of day without David's input and guidance. In 1990, David returned to Cyprus, where he carried out a survey in the Alykos Valley, in the centre of the island, that led to the decade-long excavation of the Bronze Age village of Marki Alonia. This excavation marked the beginning of the remarkable partnership between David and his colleague Jenny Webb. Since 1993, they have jointly published eight monographs or books, edited three further volumes and published around 65 papers, only very rarely with additional authors. As well as election to the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the London Society of Antiquaries, David has been honoured by both the Greek and Cyprian communities of Melbourne, and in 2003 was awarded the Prime Minister's Centenary Award for services to Australian society and the humanities. Given that David Frankel has become a man of two archaeologies, it is entirely fitting that his contributions are being recognised by the publication of two volumes in his honour, one considering his contribution to Mediterranean studies and this one, recognising his contributions to Australian archaeology. We can be pleased that his contributions to both fields show no signs of slowing. This piece has benefitted greatly from information supplied by Caroline Bird.