The last archaeologist? contested identities Laurajane Smith Aboriginal Research and Resource Centre, University of New South Wales Material culture and Material culture provides what Buchli (1995) calls Ttrutally physical' resources, linked to history and the past, which can be drawn on in an active process of re/creating cultural identities. Consequently, the use of material culture as the data of archaeological research has led to the questioning of archaeologists and their research practices by groups such as local historical societies, rural organisations and other com- munity groups, feminists and tourism interests. In particular, indigenous peoples have contested what was once an archaeological monopoly of access to their material heritage. This is also a challenge to archaeological interpretations of the past which have been, in Australia at least, used to govern aspects of Aboriginal cultural identity. Archaeological interpret- ations of the past are often, through archaeological claims to 'scientific' expertise, used to legitimise or de- legitimise Aboriginal claims about cultural identity. Ironically, archaeologists have themselves used privileged access to material culture to define their o w n disciplinary identity. Historically, in Australia and elsewhere, they have assumed a pastoral role as stewards of the material remains of the past, which more recently has been buttressed by claims to scien- tific rigour. This has been very important in distin- guishing archaeological research from grave robbing or quaint antiquarianism. Some of the results of this have been that the archaeological discipline con- structs its own sense of cultural identity around a privileged access to material culture. For example, control over significant sites or high status items of material culture are seen as part and parcel of high status within the discipline. In 1995 a very public conflict erupted between the Tasmanian Aboriginal Land Council (TALC) and archaeologists from Melbourne's La Trobe University over the possession of excavated artefacts. This article uses the conflict to investigate the way in which archaeologists have used material culture as a commodity which may be used to confer power, and h o w the possession and control of material culture, on the one hand, and 'authority' to 'interpret' it, on the other, has come to underpin the authority of archae- ological knowledge about the past and its governance of cultural identity. Further, the article explores the Australian Aboriginal Studies 1999/number 2 25