1938-1939 Harvard and Adelaide Universities Anthropological Expedition
In 1938–1939, Harvard University and Adelaide University funded an expedition to Australia that sought to understand how colonisation had affected Indigenous peoples and their physiology, and to inform government policy as it shifted from segregation to assimilation. Led by anthropologists Norman B. Tindale and Joseph Birdsell, the expedition gathered more than 6,000 individual records from Indigenous people on missions and settlements—records that have since inspired community-based research projects and land claims.
The expedition visited thirty-two towns, settlements, field stations and missions in South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland. Queensland destinations included Brisbane, Rockhampton, Innisfail, Monamona, Lake Barrine, Cairns, Yarrabah, Townsville, Palm Island, Magnetic Island, Woorabinda. Materials and data collected included tribal names and distribution, string games, flora samples, songs and stories, totems, vocabularies and texts in a number of languages including Muluritji, Ba:baram, and Idindji.
Sources:
- Harvard and Adelaide Universities Anthropological Expedition, Australia, 1938-1939. Journal and notes by Norman B. Tindale
- Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology: Video: Anthropology, Colonialism, and the Exploration of Indigenous Australia
