The Archaeology of the Native Mounted Police

Background

Commencing in 2016, members of the Archaeology of the Native Mounted Police (NMP) project have been exploring the controversial topic of violence on the Queensland colonial frontier. While previous studies of the NMP have focused on policing activities as revealed by the historical record, this project has been combining archaeological, oral and historical evidence to understand more fully the activities, lives and legacies of the Force as they operated across QLD during the second half of the nineteenth century. The project has been wide ranging, working with Indigenous people and communities across the entire state, including descendants of massacre survivors, white officers and Indigenous troopers of the NMP. A key focus on the research was to make information more broadly available to the general public, so people can consider the evidence about life on the frontier directly themselves. To this end, as well as the usual array of academic papers, the team put out regular plain English blog posts on their findings, as well as built a publicly accessible database containing more than 13,000 documents and 13,000 artefacts relating to more than 150 NMP camps, 440 NMP officers, 800 NMP troopers and 1300 conflict events. The research was funded through the Australian Research Council (DP160100307), as a joint project by researchers from University of Notre Dame Australia, Flinders University, University of Southern Queensland, University of New England and James Cook University.

Institutions

Lead institution: University of Notre Dame Australia (UNDA)

Partner institution: Flinders Univeristy, University of Southern Queensland, University of New England and James Cook University

Links and publications

A full list of publications from the project is available at:

More links