Judith Cameron, B.A. (ANU), M. Phil. (Griffith), PhD (ANU)

ARC Australian Research Fellow and ARC International Fellow, School of Culture, History & Language

Email: judith.cameron@anu.edu.au

Biographical statement

Judith Cameron getting a close-up look at a Dongson textile.

My research focus is archaeological textiles, a generic term for a wide range of prehistoric fibre artefacts including cordage, basketry, matting and textiles.

My PhD (2002) investigated the origins of textile technology in Southeast Asia. By investigating cloth production tools, the research demonstrated that spinning and weaving originated independently (with agriculture) amongst Middle Neolithic groups in the Middle Yangzi before spreading to the Yangzi delta and coastal southeast China.  Based on the identification of an atypical, diagnostic spindle whorl (peculiar to the Tanshishan culture), the study subsequently traced the movement of groups with textile technology into Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand as well as into Taiwan, the Philippines and the Marianas during the late prehistoric period.

Our ARC funded Linkage project, the Dongsong Textile Project (2004-2007), with Professor Peter Bellwood (ANU), the National Museum of Australia and the Institute of Archaeology was reported in Science(2006) 312:360-1.  The joint Australian/Vietnamese team recovered the first extant Dongson clothing found to date in Vietnam inside a wooden boat-coffin at the waterlogged site of Dong Xa in the Red River Valley of northern Vietnam. The burial was wrapped in a complete woven ramie shroud.   The excavation is reported in both English and Vietnamese. See Cameron, J., P. Bellwood, Bui Van Liem, Nguyen Viet 2009 Kêt Quả Nghiên Cưu Vai Trong Văn Hoá Đông Sơn Tai Di Tich Đông Xá (Hưng Yên) Trong Hợp Tác Khao Hoc Viêt Nam-Uc Lần Thứ Nhât. Khao Co Hoc 2: 20-25. Bellwood, P., J. Cameron, Nguyen Viet and Bui Liem 2007 Ancient boats, boat timbers, and locked mortise and tennon joints from Bronze-Iron Age Northern Vietnam. International Journal of Maritime Archaeology 36:1:2-20.

Over the past decade, I have been the textile specialist on a number of other international archaeological projects.

• The Origins of Angkor Project directed by Professor Charles Higham  (University of Otago) and the  Fine Arts Department of Thailand;
• The Origins of Complex Societies in Sulawesi Project (OXIS) directed by Dr David Bulbeck (ANU) and Professor Bagyo Prasetyo (Indonesian National Research Centre for Archaeology)
• The Rapa Island Project directed by Professor Atholl Anderson (ANU) and Professor Douglas Kennett (University of Oregon)
• The Origins of Rice Project (SAJOR) directed by the late Professor Scotty McNeish (Andover Foundation), Professor Yan Wenming (Peking University) and the Jiangxi Institute of Archaeology
• The Thai/Italian Archaeological Lopburi Regional Archaeological Project directed by Dr Fiorella Rispoli and Dr Roberto Ciarla  (Italian Institute for Africa and the Orient) and Surapol Natapintu (Fine Arts Department of Thailand) 
• The Niah Cave Project directed by Professor Graeme Barker (University of Cambridge)
• The First Textiles Project directed by Professor Marie-Louise Bech Nosch, Kobenhavns Universitet, Denmark
• Deliwala Textile Project jointly directed by Nemal Perera (Deputy Director-General, Department of Archaeology, Sri Lanka).

I am the principal investigator on the ARC Discovery Project, the INDIAN TEXTILE PROJECT (2008-2012) concerned with the identification of archaeological evidence for Indian cloth production and craft specialization in Early Southeast Asia.  Recent findings are reported in Antiquity (see below).

Research interests

Southeast Asian Archaeology, Textile Technology, Women, Craft Specialization, Vietnamese Archaeology, Dongson

Key publications

• Cameron, J. 2011. Iron and Cloth across the Bay of Bengal: new data from Tha Kae, central Thailand. Antiquity Volume 85, Issue 328, (June):559-567.
• Cameron, J. 2011. Textile Crafts in the Gulf of Tongking: The Intersection between Archaeology and History. In N. Cooke, Tana Li and J. Anderson (eds.), The Tongking Gulf through History: Soundings in Time and Space. Pennsylvania: University Pennsylvania Press, pp. 25-38.
• Cameron, J. 2011. The Spinning Tools. In C.F.W. Higham and A. Kijngam (eds.), The Origins of the Civilizations of Angkor, Volume Five: the Excavation of Ban Non Wat Part III. The Bronze Age. Bangkok: Fine Arts Department, pp. 492-500.
• Cameron, J. 2011.  Notes on the 19th Congress of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, Hanoi, 29 November – 5 December 2009, Antiquity Volume 85, Issue 328, (June):490-491.
• Cameron, J. 2010. The Archaeological Textiles from Ban Don Ta Phet in broader perspective,  in B. Bellina, E. A. Bacus, T. O. Pryce and J. Wisseman Christie (eds.), 50 Years of Archaeology in Southeast Asia: Essays in Honour of Ian Glover. Bangkok: River Books, pp.141-152.
• Cameron, J., P. Bellwood, Bui Van Liêm, Nguyên Viêt. 2009. Kêt Qua Nghiên Cuu Vai Trong Van Hoa Dông Son Tai Di Tich Dông Xa (Hung Yên) Trong Hop Tac Khoa Hoc Viê t Nam-Uc Lân Thu Nhât. Khao Co Hoc 2: 20-25 (In Vietnamese).
• Bellwood, Cameron, Huffer, Marwick, Pawlik (eds.) 2008. Bulletin of the Prehistory Association Volume 28. Proceedings of the 18th Congress of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association. Manila, Philippines 20-26 March 2006. Canberra: Australian National University.
• Cameron, J. 2008. Prehistoric Interaction in the Asian Mediterranean.  In Gu Xiao Song and Tana Li (eds.), Two Corridors and One Rim. Proceedings of the International Workshop “ A Mini Mediterranean Sea”, Gulf of Tong King through History, March 14-15, 2008. Nanning:  Academy of Social Sciences, pp. 99-110.
• Cameron, J. 2008.  Trans-Oceanic transfer of bark-cloth technology from South China-Southeast Asia to Mesoamerica?  In G. Clark and S. O'Connor (eds.), Islands of Inquiry. Canberra: Pandanus Press, pp.203-210.
• Bellwood, P., J. Cameron, Nguyen Viet and Bui Liem, 2007. Ancient boats, boat timbers, and locked mortise and tennon joints from Bronze-Iron Age Northern Vietnam.  International Journal of Maritime Archaeology 36:1:2-20.
• Cameron, J. and M. Mijares 2006.  Report on an analysis of spindle whorls from Callao Cave, Penablanca, North-east Luzon, Philippines.  Hukay 9:5-13.
• Cameron, J. 2006. New research into Dongson cloth from waterlogged sites in Vietnam. In I. Glover and L. Bacus (eds.), Uncovering Southeast Asia’s Past- selected papers from the Tenth Biennial Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists, The British Museum, London, 14th –17th September 2004. Singapore: Singapore University Press, pp.196-203. 
• Cameron, J. and M. Mijares 2006.  Report on an analysis of spindle whorls from Callao Cave, Pen-ablanca, North-east Luzon, Philippines.  Hukay 9:5-13.
• Cameron, J. 2005. Spindle whorls. In C.F.W. Higham (ed.), The Origins of the Civilization of Angkor: the Excavation of Ban Lum Khao. Bangkok: Fine Arts Department, pp.211-216.
• Peter Bellwood, Judith Cameron, Susan Keates (eds.) 2005. Indo-Pacific Prehistory: The Taipei Papers (Volume 3). Proceedings of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, Taipei, Taiwan. Canberra: Australian National University.
• Cameron, J. 2001. Textile technology and Austronesian dispersals. In G.R. Clark, A.J. Anderson and T. Vunidilo (ed.), The Archaeology of Lapita Dispersal in Oceania, pp. 177-183. Canberra: Pandanus, Australian National University.
• Cameron, J. 2000. Asbestos cloth and elites in Southeast Asia. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 19: 47-51.

Career highlights

ARC Research Fellowship, Australian National University 2008-2012; ARC International Fellowship (Linkage) with Professor Graeme Barker (University of Cambridge 2007); ARC Post-doctoral Fellowship, 2004-2007.