41 Towerhill Rd, Frankston South VIC 3199, Australia
Mulvaney attended Frankston High School.
university of Melbourne, Parkville VIC 3053, Australia
After demobilization and under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme, Mulvaney enrolled in Arts at the University of Melbourne. After graduating with First Class Honours in 1948, he was appointed a tutor in Ancient History and at the same time proceeded with research for a Master of Arts thesis dealing with English agrarian history from the Iron Age to medieval times. He was awarded a Master of Arts in 1951, by which his time his interest in Australia's prehistory had intensified.
The Old Schools, Trinity Ln, Cambridge CB2 1TN, United Kingdom
Mulvaney then successfully applied to the Australian National University for a scholarship to Cambridge University, to study Archaeology, and entered Cambridge's Clare College. During his student years there, he undertook field expeditions in Britain, Ireland, Libya and Denmark and toured archaeological sites in Germany. In 1970 Mulvaney was awarded a Ph.D. by Cambridge University.
41 Towerhill Rd, Frankston South VIC 3199, Australia
Mulvaney attended Frankston High School.
university of Melbourne, Parkville VIC 3053, Australia
After demobilization and under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme, Mulvaney enrolled in Arts at the University of Melbourne. After graduating with First Class Honours in 1948, he was appointed a tutor in Ancient History and at the same time proceeded with research for a Master of Arts thesis dealing with English agrarian history from the Iron Age to medieval times. He was awarded a Master of Arts in 1951, by which his time his interest in Australia's prehistory had intensified.
The Old Schools, Trinity Ln, Cambridge CB2 1TN, United Kingdom
Mulvaney then successfully applied to the Australian National University for a scholarship to Cambridge University, to study Archaeology, and entered Cambridge's Clare College. During his student years there, he undertook field expeditions in Britain, Ireland, Libya and Denmark and toured archaeological sites in Germany. In 1970 Mulvaney was awarded a Ph.D. by Cambridge University.
(Takes both chronological and regional approaches to descr...)
Takes both chronological and regional approaches to describe 40,000 years of Australian Aboriginal cultures, languages, and practices.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1560988045/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i1
1975
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0522841694/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i6
1985
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0702221538/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i5
1989
(Mulvaney is an Australian historian and archaeologist, an...)
Mulvaney is an Australian historian and archaeologist, and former chair of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. He provides an account of Paddy Cahill (1863-1923), an energetic frontiersman who employed Aboriginal labor and pioneered tropical horticulture, agriculture, and butter production in Australia's Northern Territory.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0855754567/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i3
2004
(This insightful and illuminating memoir traces Mulvaney’s...)
This insightful and illuminating memoir traces Mulvaney’s life from his childhood in rural Victoria to his revelatory excavations in central and northern Queensland and his securing of Australia’s first World Heritage listings.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005E8AL02/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i2
2011
Ethnicity:
John Mulvaney's father came from Ireland, and his mother was Australian.
Derek John Mulvaney, known as John Mulvaney, was born on October 26, 1925, in Yarram, Victoria, Australia. He was the eldest of five children of an Irish-born schoolmaster, Richard Mulvaney, and an Australian mother, Frances (née Siegenberg). The family moved around rural Victoria during Mulvaney's formative years.
At Rainbow and Frankston High Schools, the young John further developed an interest in history. In 1943, when he turned 18, Mulvaney enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force and was sent to Canada under the British Empire Air Training Scheme, then to Britain, where he was set to become a navigator on bombing missions over Germany and, after victory was declared in Europe. While based in England, Mulvaney spent free time cycling around the countryside and was enthralled to encounter the ancient Rollright stones circle formation. "It got me interested in why there was no archaeology in Australia," he said later.
After demobilization and under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme, Mulvaney enrolled in Arts at the University of Melbourne. After graduating with First Class Honours in 1948, he was appointed a tutor in Ancient History and at the same time proceeded with research for a Master of Arts thesis dealing with English agrarian history from the Iron Age to medieval times. He was awarded a Master of Arts in 1951, by which his time his interest in Australia's prehistory had intensified.
Mulvaney then successfully applied to the Australian National University for a scholarship to Cambridge University, to study Archaeology, and entered Cambridge's Clare College. During his student years there, he undertook field expeditions in Britain, Ireland, Libya and Denmark and toured archaeological sites in Germany. In 1970 Mulvaney was awarded a Ph.D. by Cambridge University.
Shortly after his return to Australia, John began lecturing in ancient history at the University of Melbourne, with his former teacher and mentor John O’Brian. One of the courses he taught was the history of archaeology. Amongst his many other achievements, John fundamentally changed the way archaeological fieldwork was practiced in Australia, producing the first guide to field techniques in 1968.
By the mid-1950s John had begun his journey into Australian prehistory by excavating a limestone rock-shelter at Fromm’s Landing on the Murray River. His labors continued into the early 1960s and included his discovery of what are still the oldest recorded dingo remains in Australia and evidence for a massive flood of the Murray thousands of years ago. His report on Fromm’s Landing was published a year after he completed his last season of fieldwork. John’s second excavation was also a limestone rock-shelter, this time at Glen Aire on Cape Otway. It was Isabel McBryde’s first fieldwork experience. John’s third excavation, at Kenniff Cave between 1960 and 1963, pushed back the antiquity of Aboriginal occupation of Australia many thousands of years into the Pleistocene era. He went on to excavate at Ingalladi in the Northern Territory in 1963 and 1966, producing some of the first ages for rock art in Australia.
In 1965 John was recruited by the Australian National University and within a few short years published his foundational volume the Prehistory of Australia, which opened with memorable words: ‘The discoverers, explorers, and colonists of the three million square miles which are Australia, were its Aborigines.’. This book saw three editions - the most recent with Jo Kamminga as co-author in 1999. John’s outputs were prolific and polyglot. For example, as early as 1967 he had published Cricket Walkabout: The Australian Aborigines in England and by 1989 Encounters in Place: Outsiders and Aboriginal Australians 1606-1985.
In 1969, John traveled with Jim Bowler and Rhys Jones to Lake Mungo to investigate Jim’s discovery of Pleistocene-age artifacts and human remains that were later to be known as ‘Mungo lady’. As with much of John’s work, this expedition is now history. He returned with Jim in 1973 to direct the largest dig ever at Mungo, which revealed a hearth dated to about 31,000 years. In his twenty years of fieldwork, John changed the historical imagination of a nation. After the Lake Mungo discoveries, the notion of an immensely long and vivid Indigenous past was generally acknowledged and quickly became a fundamental part of the way Australian history is viewed.
In 1971 John was appointed as Foundation Chair in Prehistory within the Arts Faculty at the Australian National University and in the following year introduced Prehistory 1 as an undergraduate subject. At this time, Australian National University was the only Australian university to offer a full major in prehistoric archaeology. John was pivotal in introducing Australian prehistory into the tertiary teaching curriculum and trained a generation of Australian archaeologists. He also turned his attention to public issues. He was involved in organizing the first-ever meeting of the Australian Archaeological Association.
John served as a Commissioner of the Australian Heritage Commission, was involved in the formulation of the Burra Charter, and was the chief Australian delegate to the inaugural UNESCO meeting in Paris, held to determine the criteria for World Heritage Listing. He was instrumental in nominating the Willandra Lakes and Kakadu National Park to the World Heritage List. He served a total of 18 years on the executive of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies and served on the Committee of Inquiry on Museums in 1974-1975 (the very influential ‘Pigott’ Report) in which he championed the establishment of the National Museum of Australia.
After his retirement from the Australian National University in 1985, John continued to produce books, give public lectures and lobby for studies of Australian history and archaeology and the humanities in general. He served for many years as Secretary of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in an honorary position. He continued to write, co-author and edit books, including, in 1992 Commandant of Solitude (The journals of Captain Collet Barker), in 1997 My Dear Spencer: the letters of F.J. Gillen to Baldwin Spencer, the third revised and enlarged edition of Prehistory of Australia, in 2004 Paddy Cahill of Oenpelli, in 2007 The Axe Had Never Sounded: Place, People and Heritage of Recherche Bay, Tasmania and in 2011 Digging Up a Past. In 2013 the John Mulvaney Public Lecture series began at the Australian National University.
In 2004 The Australian Archaeological Association awarded John its highest honor - The Rhys Jones Medal. In the citation, it noted “the Australian Archaeological Association acknowledges his pioneering spirit, his distinguished and sustained achievements in Australian prehistory, his fostering of the discipline in Australia and mentoring of so many young archaeologists, including those who themselves have attained distinction, and more, his inspiration, dedication, integrity, and exceptional professionalism.
John’s numerous awards include a Doctorate from Cambridge University in 1970; the Companion in The Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George in 1982; the Order of Australia in 1991 and in 1999 the Graham Clark Medal from the British Academy.
Janene Eaton painted his portrait for the collection of papers published to mark Professor Mulvaney's early retirement in 1985.
(This insightful and illuminating memoir traces Mulvaney’s...)
2011(Takes both chronological and regional approaches to descr...)
1975(Mulvaney is an Australian historian and archaeologist, an...)
2004John was a leading light in bridging the gap between the public and academia. He actively campaigned on pubic issues, not the least the struggle to save the Franklin River and its Aboriginal heritage, and support for Dawn Casey during her tenure as Director of the National Museum of Australia. He made significant contributions to public debates concerning cultural heritage, archaeology, and national cultural collections.
For many years he was a Commissioner of the Australian Heritage Commission, involved in the formulation of the Burra Charter, and was Australia's chief delegate at the UNESCO meeting held to determine criteria for world heritage listing.
Mulvaney was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1969, the year of its foundation, serving on its Council from 1972 to 1974 and again, this time as Honorary Secretary, from 1989 to 1996.
A modest and genial man, beloved by his students, Mulvaney brought Aborigine representatives into the discussion of Australia’s past - but did not flinch from taking a stand on matters he felt were important.
One was the Kow Swamp controversy, in which present-day Aborigine residents wanted ancient artifacts that had been found at the site in south-eastern Australia re-buried there, and lost to scholarship. Mulvaney argued for a special “keeping place” where they could continue to be observed - but the reburial went ahead, in 1991. He called this “my career’s most distressing episode.”
As a boy, Mulvaney, one of five siblings, was inspired by adventure tales told around the kerosene lamp in his family’s red-brick house at Alberton, Victoria, South Australia.
The young Mulvaney loved reading Stories of Australian Exploration by Charles R. Long and remembered meeting the author - who died in 1944 - when Long visited his secondary school, Frankston High School, in Victoria.
Quotes from others about the person
"He was a person who treated Indigenous people as people and not just study subjects. He first of all enormously increased the self-confidence of all Indigenous people." - Colin Groves
In 1954, Mulvaney married schoolteacher Jean Campbell, and with whom he went on to have four sons and two daughters. In 2004, Jean Mulvaney died after heart surgery. She was 81.
In 2006 John married again, historian Liz Morrison. John and Liz continued to live in the Yarralumla home John and Jean had established.
