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Debbie Argue
What
is your current position?
After 11 years in cultural heritage management with a state government department, I have just commenced a PhD at the Australian National University, focusing on human evolution.
Where
did you study archaeology?
Two (!) BAs at ANU, one before I really discovered archaeology.
MA at ANU.
How
did you become interested in archaeology?
Although I didn’t realise it at the time, as a child, the book ‘The Rocks of Honey’ by Patricia Wrightson awoke my interest in ancient Aboriginal life and stone tools. At the same time, my grandmother would ‘allow’ me to look at the pictures in her books about Aboriginal life-ways if I remained silent long enough for the grown-ups to chat. I did not have the opportunity to follow this interest until I was much older, with children of my own. At this time, everyone said that archaeology would be boring, you only dig, dig, dig but one trip to Lake Mungo and I signed up for a second BA degree- this time focusing exclusively on archaeology.
What
archaeological projects are you working on at the moment?
I am about to launch into a PhD in which I aim to find out what the few fossil hominid remains we have from 1.7 million years ago to about 600,000 years ago can tell us about the course of human evolution at this time.
Tell
us about one of your most interesting archaeological discoveries.
My most exciting discoveries were made by other people – that’s what happens when you work in cultural heritage management! However, I had the opportunity of managing and undertaking followup fieldwork to these places. The most interesting site is one that seems to contradict current thinking about Aboriginal occupation of the Alps in Australia. It comprises a site complex of 2 stone circles with several artefact scatters and 4 stone procurement areas – all at 1900m asl. The current model for this region is that only moth procurement sites comprising small artefact scatters would exist in this region.
Tell
us about a funny/disastrous/amazing experience that you have had
while doing archaeology.
This would be helicopter-aided archaeology. Eagerly awaiting take-off in my first helicopter ride into the Alps, I quickly informed the pilot at take-off that the doors were not attached. ‘Oh no’, he said, ‘we don’t use the doors for this kind of work’! Then they decided to show me a stone arrangement on the top of a mountain by tilting the helicopter so that I would’ve had a bullseye splat landing if the seatbelt had given way. On my most recent helicopter trip, the doors were attached – but unfortunately one flew open in flight!
What’s
your favourite part of being an archaeologist?
The ability to discover, collect and interpret evidence about past lifestyles; being outdoors; working with like-minded people.
Follow
up reading:
D. Argue. 2003. The Muddle in the Middle. Temporal and Regional Variation in the evolution of Homo during the Middle Pleistocene and beyond. A Morphometrical approach. Thesis abstract. Quaternary Australia 21 Vol 1 July 2003.
D. Argue, G. Hope and P. Saunders. 2001. Digging Stick site, Namadgi National Park, ACT. Australian Archaeology 53: 41-42.
D. Argue. 1995. Aboriginal Occupation of the Southern Highlands: Was it Really Seasonal? Australian Archaeology 41:30-36.
D. Argue. 1995. Discovery of a Possible Digging Stick in the South East Region of Australia. Australian Archaeology 41:38-40.
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