Getting Started
Michael Westaway: I was funded by the National Museum of Australia, in 2002 I think, to travel to the USA on a museum fellowship to investigate how museums engage with the public. I spent time at the Smithsonian, San Diego Museum of Man and the Chicago Field Museum and came back full of enthusiasm for promoting archaeology.
I presented a proposal at the combined AAA, ASHA and AIMA conference in Townsville that year and found great support there.
John Tunn: My recollections of the NAW beginnings are of great enthusiasm and energy. These types of weeks were not uncommon in other countries at the time and the notion of an Australian Week was introduced to AAA by Michael Westaway at the Townsville conference. AAA supported the proposal and kindly provided some funding. I was closely involved in the Victorian chapter and helping organise things down here. Melbourne Museum, LaTrobe Uni, Heritage Victoria and Aboriginal Affairs Victoria were all very supportive and allowed staff to get involved, to host planning meetings and NAW events.
We started from scratch but pulled together some great branding (via Liz), a website and a reasonable range of events in most states.
Read Michael’s report on the first National Archaeology Week here.
Michael Westaway: I asked my good friend John Tunn (we were project archaeologists together at Aboriginal Affairs Victoria) if his talented partner Liz McGrath, who worked as a graphic designer, could pull a design together. We originally asked Reg Mombassa from Mental as Anything and Mambo clothes designer if he would do something and he said he was very busy, but we were welcome to use the attached image seen in this link. Its focus was too palaeontological so we politely declined.
https://collection.maas.museum/object/160358
John Tunn: An interesting bit of early NAW history was the objection to the inclusion of a human skull (clearly not modern morphology) on the poster and other items by some at the Jindabyne AAA AGM. After this the the pragmatic decision was taken to remove the skull and it was replaced with the hand axe in 2004.