Artefacts and collectors in the tropics of North Queensland Corinna Erckenbrecht, 1 Maureen Fuary, 2 Shelley Greer, 2 Rosita Henry, 2 Russell McGregor 2 and Michael Wood 2 1 Independent Scholar; 2 School of Arts and Social Sciences, James Cook University This paper outlines some of the ways early artefact collecting contributed to the definition of the Australian region now known and marketed as the ‘World Heritage Wet Tropics’. While others have collected in this region, we focus on the collecting activities of Hermann Klaatsch and the work of Norman Tindale to explore some factors that contributed to their claims that certain artefacts represent a region and its history. We argue that these understandings of region and the past, along with the now widely dispersed artefacts, maintain a lively, albeit transformed, presence in current debates about Aboriginal regional culture, linking assertions of rights to lost and stolen cultural property with notions of large-scale environmental management within the ‘Wet Tropics’. INTRODUCTION A rainforest shield from North Queensland recently sold in Sydney for a record AU$84,000 (Sotheby’s 2008). Other items sold were a shield (AU$36,000), an engraved wooden bowl (AU$33,600), an undecorated bowl, a bark basket, two twine baskets and a portrait of an Aboriginal leader. They formed part of a collection made by pastoralist Robert Stewart and taken to Scotland during the late nineteenth century. Today, they have inherent value as ‘rainforest Aboriginal artefacts’ based on their provenance, biography, rarity, condition and other, intangible dimensions of meaning that render them collectable. Collections that enter Aboriginal art auctions are typically defined by such quali- ties. In the recent Sotheby’s catalogue, North Queensland historian, Anne Alling- ham, brought the artefacts to life and built up their provenance by describing their collection and subsequent display in Scotland in the late nineteenth century (Alling- ham 2008). Such ‘deep description’ of the genealogy of objects enhances their sym- bolic and market values, whether in the hands of museums or private collectors. Sellers who consigned objects to this auction included two Aboriginal people from the wet tropics. In one case, a well-provenanced rainforest shield that had returned to its origin point after approximately a 100 years was placed back into the market by its current Aboriginal owner, who had been given the shield by a local white storekeeper. It sold for AU$12,000. The provenance of the shield was further authenticated by reference to native title. The auction catalogue states: The Australian Journal of Anthropology (2010) 21, 350–366 doi:10.1111/j.1757-6547.2010.00101.x 350 ª 2010 Australian Anthropological Society