The shape of absence: Community Archaeology and the heritage of the Queensland Native Mounted Police, Australia

Abstract

This paper explores the notion of absence as a key, but elusive, element in the contemporary recognition, perception and reception of Australian frontier conflict. It derives from a four-year-long community archaeology project to document the lives and legacies of a devastating frontier paramilitary policing force – the Queensland Native Mounted Police (NMP). The sources of absence in the heritage of the NMP are complex, deriving from silences in historical records, the partial nature of archaeological data, and the vicissitudes of memory work. We offer an introductory taxonomy for the kinds of absence that characterize the NMP and use this to consider the potency of absence in theorizing, reconstructing, defending and interpreting the heritage of Australian frontier conflict.