The University of Western Australia

W/Prof Jo McDonald

Rio Tinto Chair of Rock Art Studies/Director
Centre for Rock Art Research and Management

Contact details

Address

Centre for Rock Art Research and Management
The University of Western Australia (M405)
35 Stirling Highway
CRAWLEY WA 6009
Australia

Phone

6488 4306

Email

jo.mcdonald@uwa.edu.au

Qualifications

BA Syd., PhD ANU

Biography

Prior to taking up her role as Director of CRARM at UWA, Jo McDonald was Director of Jo McDonald CHM Pty Ltd, a leading cultural heritage practice based in Sydney. She has more than 27 years experience in manageing Indigeneous archaeology and has been researching rock art over this time.
Jo was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship in late 2010, which she commenced on 1st July 2011. This is based on a four year research project studying the use of rock art in two of the great deserts of the world: the Western Desert in Australia and the Great Basin in the USA.
Jo became Director of the Centre for Rock Art Research + Management at the University of Western Australia in February 2012.

Key research

Rock art and infomration exchange in the Syndey Basin;

Engendered rock art studies;

Arid zone rock art;

The contemporaneity of rock art wiht other occupation evidence;

Dating rock art;

Rock art and dreaming tracks (Jukurrpa)

Publications

McDonald, J.J. 2012 Pictures of women: the social context of Australian rock art production. (In) McDonald, J.J. and P.M. Veth (eds) A Companion to Rock Art. Pp. 214-236. Blackwell Companions to Anthropology Series. Oxford, Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
McDonald, J.J. 2012 in press Rock Art (In) J. Balme and A. Patterson (eds.) Archaeology in Practice: a student’s Guide to Archaeological Analyses. 2nd edition. Blackwell Publishing.
McDonald, J.J., 2008 Dreamtime Superhighway: An analysis of Sydney Basin rock art and prehistoric information exchange. Terra Australis 27 ANU EPress, Canberra. http://epress.anu.edu.au/ta27 _citation.html
McDonald, J.J. 2008 Rock art and cross-cultural interaction in Sydney: how did both sides perceive the other? (In) Veth, P.M., P. Sutton and M. Neale (eds) Strangers on the Shore, pp.94-112, National Museum Press, Canberra.
McDonald, J.J. 2006 ‘Rock-Art’ (In) J. Balme and A. Patterson (eds.) Archaeology in Practice: a student’s Guide to Archaeological Analyses. Blackwell Publishing.
McDonald, J.J. 2005 ‘Archaeological evidence in the De Rose Native Title Claim’ (In Harrison, R. J. McDonald and P. Veth (eds) Archaeology and Native Title AAS 2005(1): 30-44.
McDonald, J.J. 2005 Archaic faces to headdresses: The changing role of the rock art across the arid zone. (In) Veth, P., P. Hiscock & M. Smith (eds) Desert peoples: archaeological perspectives, pp. 116-141. Blackwell Studies in Global Archaeology, Boston.
McDonald, J.J. 2005 Australia: “Rock Art Capital Of The World”. (In) T. Murray (ed.) Archaeology in Australia. Australian Scholarly Publications, Melbourne.
McDonald, J.J. 2000 AMS dating charcoal drawings from the Sydney region: results and issues. (In) Ward, G.K and C. Tuniz (eds). Advances in Dating Australian Rock Markings: papers from the First Australian Rock Picture Dating Workshop AURA Occasional Publication No. 10, pp. 90-94. ARARA, Melbourne.
McDonald, J.J. 2000 Media and social context: influences on information exchange networks in prehistoric Sydney. Australian Archaeology 51: 54-63.
McDonald, J.J. 2000 Archaeology, rock art, ethnicity and Native Title (In) I. Lilley (ed) Native Title and Transformation of Archaeology in the Postcolonial World. Oceania Monograph 50:54-77.
McDonald, J.J. 1999 Bedrock notions and isochrestic choice: evidence for localised stylistic patterning in the engravings of the Sydney region. Archaeology in Oceania 34(3): 145-160.
McDonald, J.J. 1998 Beyond hook, line and dillybag: Gender, economics and information exchange in prehistoric Sydney. (In) Casey, M., D. Donlon, J. Hope and S. Welfare (eds) Redefining Archaeology: Feminist Perspectives. ANH Publications, ANU, Canberra, pp. 96-104.
McDonald, J.J. 1998 Shelter art in the Sydney Basin - a space-time continuum: exploring different influences on stylistic change. (In) C. Chippendale & P. Taçon (eds) Rock Art: New Directions in Archaeology. Cambridge University Press.
McDonald, J.J. 1996 The conservation of landscapes - a strategic approach to cultural heritage management (In) S. Ulm, I. Lilley & A. Ross (eds) Australian Archaeology '95: Proceedings of the 1995 AAA Annual Conference. Tempus Volume 6: 113-121, UQ, Brisbane.
McDonald, J.J. 1995 Looking for a woman's touch: indications of gender in shelter sites in the Sydney Basin. (In) Balme, J & Beck, W. (eds) Gendered Archaeology: the second Australian Women in Archaeology Conference. ANH Publications, RSPAS, ANU, Canberra.
McDonald, J.J. 1993 The depiction of species in macropod track engravings at an Aboriginal art site in western New South Wales. Records of the Australian Museum, Supplement 17: 105-116.
McDonald, J.J. 1992 The Archaeology of the Angophora Reserve rockshelter: helping the police with their enquires. Environmental Heritage Monograph Series No. 1, NSW NPWS.
McDonald, J.J. 1992 Rock Art in the Sydney Region: synchronic and functional variation in a dual-media, regional art body. (In) J.J. McDonald & I Haskovec (eds.) State of the Art: Regional Studies in Australia and Melanesia. Proceedings of Symposia C and D of the 1988 AURA Congress: 20-36. AURA Publication No. 6, Melbourne.
McDonald, J.J. 1992 The Great Mackerel Rockshelter excavation: Women in the archaeological record? Australian Archaeology 35:32-50.
McDonald, J.J. 1991 Archaeology and Art in the Sydney Region: Context and theory in the analysis of a dual medium style. (In) P. Bahn & A. Rosenfeld (eds.) Rock Art and Prehistory, pp. 78-85. Oxbow Books; Oxford.
McDonald, J.J., Donlon D., Field, J.H. Fullagar, R.L.K. Brenner Coltrain, J., Mitchell, P. and Rawson M. 2007 The first archaeological evidence for death by spearing in Australia. Antiquity 81: 1-9.
McDonald, J.J. and A.C. Ross 1990 Helping the Police with their enquires: archaeology and politics at Angophora Reserve rockshelter. Archaeology in Oceania 25(2): 114-21.

McDonald, J.J., Rich, E. and Barton, H. 1994 The Rouse Hill Infrastructure Project (Stage 1) on the Cumberland Plain, western Sydney. (In) M.E. Sullivan, S. Brockwell and A. Webb (eds) Archaeology in the North: Proceedings of the 1993 Australian Archaeology Association Conference, pp. 259-293. North Australian Research Unit, ANU, Darwin.
JO MCDONALD CULTURAL HERITAGE MANAGEMENT. 2008. Salvage Excavation of Human Skeletal Remains at Ocean and Octavia Streets, Narrabeen: Site #45-6-2747. AACAI Monograph Series Volume 2. http://www.aacai.com.au//
Jo McDonald Cultural Heritage Management Pty Ltd 2005 Salvage Excavation of Six Sites along Caddies, Second Ponds, Smalls and Cattai Creeks in the Rouse Hill Development Area, NSW. Australian Archaeological Consultancy Monograph Series, Volume 1. http://www.aacai.com.au//

McDonald, J.J. and P.M. Veth (eds) A Companion to Rock Art. Blackwell Companions to Anthropology Series. Oxford, Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
McDonald, J.J. and P.M. Veth 2012 The social dynamics of aggregation and dispersal in the Western Desert. (In) McDonald, J.J. and P.M. Veth (eds) A Companion to Rock Art. Pp. 90-102. Blackwell Companions to Anthropology Series. Oxford, Malden: Blackwell Publishing.McDonald, J.J. and P.M. Veth 2012 Research Issues and New Directions: one decade into the New Millennium. (In) McDonald, J.J. and P.M. Veth (eds) A Companion to Rock Art. Pp. 1-13. Blackwell Companions to Anthropology Series. Oxford, Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
McDonald, J.J. and P.M. Veth 2012 The social dynamics of aggregation and dispersal in the Western Desert. (In) McDonald, J.J. and P.M. Veth (eds) A Companion to Rock Art. Pp. 90-102. Blackwell Companions to Anthropology Series. Oxford, Malden: Blackwell Publishing.McDonald, J.J. & P.M. Veth 2011 Information Exchange amongst Hunter-Gatherers of the Western Desert of Australia. (In) Robert Whallon, William A. Lovis and Robert K. Hitchcock. (eds) Information and Its Role in Hunter-Gatherer Bands. Ideas, Debates, and Perspectives 5, Pp. 221-233. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press.
McDonald, J.J. and P.M. Veth 2010 Pleistocene rock art: a colonizing repertoire for Australia’s earliest inhabitants,. Proceedings of the IFRAO Congress: L’art pléistocène dans le monde / Pleistocene art of the world / Arte pleistoceno en el mundo; Actes du Congrès Ifrao, Tarascon-sur-Ariège, septembre 2010.
McDonald, J.J. and P.M. Veth 2010 L’ICONOGRAPHIE DU DÉSERT OCCIDENTAL D’AUSTRALIE (Western Desert Iconography). Diogenes 231 juillet-septembre: 9-27.
McDonald, J.J. and P.M. Veth 2009 Dampier Archipelago petroglyphs: archaeology, scientific values and National Heritage Listing. Archaeology in Oceania 44:49–69.
McDonald, J.J. & P.M. Veth 2008 Rock-art of the Western Desert and Pilbara: Pigment dates provide new perspectives on the role of art in the Australian arid zone. Australian Aboriginal Studies 2008/1: 4-21.
McDonald, J.J. & P.M. Veth 2006 Rock art and social identity: a comparison of graphic systems operating in arid and fertile environments in the Holocene. (In) I. Lilley (ed.) Archaeology of Oceania: Australia and the Pacific Islands, pp.96-115. Blackwell Studies in Global Archaeology. Oxford: Blackwell.
Veth, P.M., J.J. McDonald & White, E. 2008 Dating of Bush Turkey Rockshelter 3 in the Calvert Ranges establishes Early Holocene Occupation of the Little Sandy Desert, Western Australia. Australian Archaeology 66: 33-44.
Veth, P. & McDonald, J.J. 2004 Can archaeology be used to address the principles of Exclusive Possession in Native Title? (In) R. Harrison & C. Williamson (eds.) After Captain Cook: The Archaeology of the Recent Indigenous past in Australia: 121-132. Altimira Press, CA USA.


Balme, J., I. Davidson, J. McDonald, N. Stern and P. Veth 2009 Symbolic behaviour and the peopling of the southern arc route to Australia. Quaternary International 202: 59-68.
Veth, P., McDonald, J. and B. White 2008 Dating of Bush Turkey Rockshelter 3 in the Calvert Ranges established Early Holocene Occupation of the Little Sandy Desert, Western Australia. Australian Archaeology 66:33–44.
Veth, P., Stern, N., McDonald, J., Balme, J. and I. Davidson 2011. The role of information exchange in the colonisation of Sahul. In Whallon, R., Lovis, W. A. and R. K. Hitchcock, eds. Information and Its Role in Hunter-Gatherer Bands: Ideas, Debates and Perspectives 5. Pp. 203-220, Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press.

Roles, responsibilities and expertise

Director, Centre for Rock Art Research and Management
Rio Tinto Chair of Rock Art Studies

Future research

Rock Art of the Pilbara
Kimberlely and desert art connections
Pilbaraand desert art connections

Funding received

AIATSIS Grant for dating arid zone rock art 2005 Canning Stock Route ARC Linkage Project (Rock Art and Jukurrpa) 2007-2011.
Jo was Principal Investigator and JMcD CHM was a Partner organisation.
ARC Future Fellowship: Arid zone rock art of the Western Desert adn Great Basin 2011-2015

Industrial relevance

Jo is a Full Member of AACAI (the Australian Association of COnsutling Archaeologists Inc.
in 2010, Jo was made an AACAI Life Member in recognition of her services to the Association.
She is a past President of both AACAI and AAA (the Australian Archaeological Association.

Languages

English
written and colloquial French

Memberships

Full Member, Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists Inc. (AACAI)
Life Member, AACAI 2010
Board Member, Institute of Professional Practice in Heritage and the Arts
Member, Australian Archaeological Association (AAA)
Member, Society for American Archaeology
Member, Australian Rock Art Association
Member, Australian Institute of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Studies
Member, American Anthropological Association

Honours and awards

2010 Eureka Award for Best Interpretation
AAA Conference Batemans Bay; for Paper (with Peter Veth): Aggregation Locales in the Australian Western Desert

Teaching

ARCY 2004 - Rock Art in Archaeology Undergraduate course 2012

Research profile

Research profile and publications