Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Associate Professor, University of Adelaide
Associate Professor Sally K. May is an ARC Future Fellow at the University of Adelaide. She is an archaeologist and anthropologist whose research focuses on relationships between people, landscapes, material culture and imagery, with inspiration drawn primarily from fieldwork in northern Australia. Her books include Collecting Cultures: Myth, Politics, and Collaboration in the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition (2009) and The Bible in Buffalo Country: Oenpelli Mission 1925-1931 (2020).
Experience
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2022–presentAssociate Professor, University of Adelaide
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2017–2021Senior Research Fellow, Griffith University
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2008–2017Senior Lecturer, The Australian National University
Education
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2006The Australian National University, PhD
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2000Flinders University of South Australia, Honours
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1999Flinders University of South Australia, Bachelor or Arts (Archaeology and History)
Publications
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2022Meaningful choices and relational networks: analysing western Arnhem Land’s Painted Hand rock art style using chaîne opératoire, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
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2022Nayombolmi (c.1895–1967), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography
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2021‘Our dad’s painting is hiding, in secret place’: Reverberations of a 1972 rock painting episode in Djok Country, western Arnhem Land, Australia, Rock Art Research
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2021A spatial analysis of motif clusters at Nanguluwurr rock art site, Kakadu National Park, N.T. Australia, Journal of Field Archaeology
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2021Kaparlgoo Blue: On the adoption of laundry blue pigment into the visual culture of western Arnhem Land, Australia, International Journal of Historical Archaeology
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2021R. Lamilami, 1957-2021: Negotiating two worlds for cultural heritage, Australian Archaeology
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2021History disappearing: the rapid loss of Australia’s contact period rock art with a case study from the Djarrng site of Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Journal of Field Archaeology
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2021The Missing Macassans: Indigenous sovereignty, rock art and the archaeology of absence, Australian Archaeology
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2020New Insights into the Rock Art of Anbangbang Gallery, Kakadu National Park, Journal of Field Archaeology
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2020Children and rock art: A case study from western Arnhem Land, Australia, Norwegian Archaeological Review
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2020The Bible in Buffalo Country: Oenpelli Mission 1925 – 1931, ANU Press
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2020The Buffaroo: a ‘first-sight’ depiction of introduced buffalo in the rock art of western Arnhem Land, Rock Art Research
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2020Maliwawa Figures – a previously undescribed Arnhem Land rock art style, Australian Archaeology
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2020Rethinking the age and unity of large naturalistic animal forms in early Western Arnhem Land Rock Art, Australia, Australian Archaeology
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2020How 3D models (photogrammetry) of rock art can improve recording veracity: a case study from Kakadu National Park, Australia, Australian Archaeology
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2020What painting? Encountering and interpreting the archaeological record in western Arnhem Land, northern Australia,, Archaeology in Oceania
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2020Survival, Social Cohesion and Rock Art: The Painted Hands of Western Arnhem Land, Australia, Cambridge Archaeological Journal
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2019This is my Father’s Painting: a first-hand account of the creation of the most iconic rock art in Kakadu National Park, Rock Art Research
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2019Navigating Contact: Tradition and Innovation in Australian Contact Rock Art, International Journal of Historical Archaeology
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2018The Archaeology of Maliwawa: 25,000 years of occupation in the Wellington Range, Arnhem Land, Australian Archaeology
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2018Reflections on the Pedagogy of Archaeological Field Schools within Indigenous Community Archaeology Programmes in Australia, Public Archaeology
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2018The Archaeology of Portable Art: Southeast Asian, Pacific and Australian Perspectives, Routledge
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2018Beyond the colonial encounter: global approaches to contact rock art studies, Australian Archaeology
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2018Memorialization and the Stencilled Rock Art of Mirarr Country, Northern Australia, Cambridge Archaeological Journal
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2018Early Australian Anthropomorphs: the global significance of Jabiluka’s Dynamic Figure rock art, Cambridge Archaeological Journal
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2013Macassan History and Heritage: journeys, encounters and influences, ANU Press
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2009Collecting Cultures: Myth, Politics, and Collaboration in the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition, Altamira
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2008Archaeologies of Art: time, place and identity, Left Coast Press
Grants and Contracts
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2022Painting Country: the life and legacy of western Arnhem Land rock painters
- Role:
- ARC Future Fellow
- Funding Source:
- Australian Research Council
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2021Art at a Crossroads: Aboriginal responses to contact in northern Australia
- Role:
- Chief Investigator
- Funding Source:
- Australian Research Council
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2016History Places: Wellington Range rock art in a global context
- Role:
- Chief Investigator
- Funding Source:
- Australian Research Council
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2008Picturing Change: 21st Century perspectives on recent Australian rock art
- Role:
- Chief Investigator
- Funding Source:
- Australian Research Council
Professional Memberships
- Australian Archaeological Association
- Australian Rock Art Research Association
- ICOMOS
- World Archaeological Congress
- Adelaide
- Article Feed
- sally.may@adelaide.edu.au
- ORCID
- Joined
