Tindale, Norman Barnett (1900 - 1993)

Summary

Norman Tindale was best known as an anthropologist but was also a pioneering Australian archaeologist, expert on the Pleistocene geology of Australia, and a distinguished entomologist. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of Aboriginal tribal groups and consistently refuted the notion that Aboriginal people, being nomadic, had no enduring relationship with the land. Tindale was among the first to challenge the orthodoxy that Aboriginal presence in Australia was relatively recent. His 1929 excavation with Herbert Hale of a rock shelter at Devon Downs on the Murray River demonstrated prolonged Aboriginal presence and their changing strategies for subsistence in response to environmental change. American physical anthropologist Joseph Birdsell was a long-time collaborator. Tindale bequeathed to the South Australian Museum his voluminous field diaries, genealogical records, drawings and maps, photographic materials, sound recordings and artefacts. His first interest, entomology, was pursued alongside his other professional activities. He published on the on taxonomy, biology and evolution of the more primitive Lepidoptera and Orthoptera, and earned an international reputation for his work on Hepialidae moths. The South Australian Museum also holds his insect collections.

Details

Chronology

1919 - 1928

Career position - Assistant Entomologist, South Australian Museum

1926

Career position - Founding Member, Anthropological Society of South Australia

1928 - 1962

Career position - Curator of Anthropology, South Australian Museum

1933

Education - Bachelor of Science (BSc), University of Adelaide

1942 - 1946

Career position - Served with the Royal Australian Air Force deciphering Japanese military codes

1949

Career position - President, Royal Society of South Australia

1952 - 1966

Career position - Honorary Librarian, Royal Society of South Australia

1956

Award - Sir Joseph Verco Medal, Royal Society of South Australia

1958 - ?

Career position - Member, Committee on National Parks and Reserves, Australian Academy of Science

1958

Career position - Visiting Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles

1965

Life event - Retired

1965 - 1993

Career position - Honorary Research Associate, South Australian Museum

1966 - 1967

Career position - Visiting Professor of Anthropology, University of Colorado, U.S.A.

1967 - 1968

Career position - Visiting Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, U.S.A.

1968

Award - Australian Natural History Medallion, Field Naturalists Club of Victoria

1970 - 1971

Career position - Visiting Professor of Anthropology, University of Colorado, U.S.A.

1980

Award - John Lewis Gold Medal, Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, South Australian Branch

1980

Award - DSc honoris causa, Australian National University

1994

Award - Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) (posthumous) for service to anthropology, particularly through the study of traditional Aboriginal society

Related entries

Archival resources

National Library of Australia Oral History Collection

• Norman Barnett Tindale - Records, 1930 - 1960, DeB 65; National Library of Australia Oral History Collection. Details

South Australian Museum Archives

• Norman B. Tindale Archives, 1921 - 1991, AA338; South Australian Museum Archives. Details

Published resources

Books

• Musgrave, A., Bibliography of Australian entomology, 1775-1930: with biographical notes on authors and collectors (Sydney: Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, 1932), 380 pp. Details
• Tindale, Norman, B., Aboriginal tribes of Australia : their terrain, environmental controls, distribution, limits and proper names (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1974), 404 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Clarke, Anne; Kay, Sally K.; Frederick, Ursula K.; and Johnston, Iain G., 'Style and substance: McCarthy versus Mountford and the emergence of an archaeology of rock art 1948 - 1960' in Histories of Australian rock art research, Taçon, Paul C.; May, Sally K.; Frederick, Ursula K.; and McDonald, Jo, eds (Canberra: ANU Press, 2022), pp. 11-25. Details
• Jones, Philip, 'The "Idea behind the Artefact": Norman Tindale's Early Years as a Salvage Ethnographer', Peterson, Nicolas, Allen, Lindy and Hamby, Louise, eds (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2008), pp. 315-46. Details
• Jones, Philip, 'Tindale, Norman Barnett (1900-1993), anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist, and linguist' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 19: 1991 - 1995 A-Z, Melanie Nolan, ed. (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2021), pp. 824-827, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/tindale-norman-barnett-29608. Details
• Tindale, N. B., 'Anthropology' in Ideas and Endeavours - The Natural Sciences in South Australia, C. R. Twidale; M. J. Tyler and M. Davies, eds (Adelaide: Royal Society of South Australia, 1986). Details
• Tindale, Norman B., 'Milerum (1869?-1941), shearer and Aboriginal ethnologist' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 10: 1891 - 1939 Lat-Ner, Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle, eds (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1986), pp. 498-499. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A100485b.htm. Details

Conference Papers

• Jones, Philip, 'Archivists in Museums: Norman B. Tindale: His Life as an Archive', in Preparing for Tomorrow: Proceedings, Australian Society of Archivists Conference (Adelaide, SA: Australian Society of Archivists, 1998), pp. 198-206.. Details

Journal Articles

• Burke, Paul, 'Cartographic ethnogenesis: Tindale's invention of the Jadira tribe in the Pilbara region of Western Australia', Journal of the Anthropological Society of South Australia, 39 (2015), 102-26. Details
• Erckenbrecht, Corrina, Fuary, Maureen, Greer, Shelley, Henry, Rosita, McGregor, Russel and Wood, Michael, 'Artefacts and collectors in the tropics of north Queensland', Australian Journal of Anthropology, 21 (2010), 350-66. Details
• Hale, H. M.; and Tindale, N. B., 'Notes on some human remains in the Lower Murray Valley, South Australia', Records of the South Australian Museum, 4 (2) (1933), 145-218. Details
• Hale, H. M.; and Tindale, N. B., 'Aborigines of Princess Charlotte Bay, North Queensland, part 1(-2)', Records of the South Australian Museum, 5 (1/2) (1933/4), 64-172. Details
• Jones, Philip, 'Obituary for Norman Barnett ("Tinny") Tindale born Perth, October 12, 1900, died Palo Alto, California, November 19, 1993, aged 93', Aboriginal History, 18 (1/2) (1994), 5-8. Details
• McCaul, Kim; and Roberts, Amy [editors], 'Norman Tindale's research legacy and the cultural heritage of indigenous Australians', Journal of the Anthropological Society of South Australia, special edition, 39 (2015), 1-175. Details
• McGregor, Russell, 'Making the rainforest Aboriginal: Tindale and Birdsell's foray into deep time', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum - culture, 10 (2016), 9-21. Details
• Monaghan, Paul, 'Tindale's Antakirinja and the search for the "real Western Desert natives"', Journal of the Anthropological Society of South Australia, 39 (2015), 73-101. Details
• Mulvaney, D. J., 'Two remarkably parallel careers', Australian Archaeology, 10 (1980), 96-101. Details
• O'Kane, Michael; and Hodgson, Katrina, 'Language group maps and contemporary identities: Tindale's legacy in the central Murray Riverine district', Journal of the Anthropological Society of South Australia, 39 (2015), 127-46. Details
• Rigsby, Bruce; Allen, Lindy; and Hafner, Diane, 'The legacy of Norman B. Tindale at Princess Charlotte Bay: Lamalama engagement with museum collections', Journal of the Anthropological Society of South Australia, 39 (2015), 26-72. Details
• Smith, M.A., '"The Opening Chapter of the Romance of Excavation in Australia": Reflections on Norman Tindale's Archaeology', Historical Records of Australian Science, 13 (2) (2000), 151-160. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR0001320151. Details
• Sutton, Peter, 'Norman Tindale and native title: his late appearance in the Jango case', Journal of the Anthropological Society of South Australia, 39 (2015), 26-72. Details
• Tindale, N. B., 'The celestial lore of some Australian tribes', Archaeoastronomy, 12/13 (1983), 358-79. Details
• Tindale, Norman B., 'Results of the Harvard-Adelaide Universities Anthropological Expedition, 1938 - 1939: distribution of Australian Aboriginal tribes - a field survey', Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, 64 (1) (1940), 140-231, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/41572778. Details
• Tindale, Norman B., 'A South Australian Looks at the Beginnings of Archaeological Research in Australia', Aboriginal History, 6 (June/December) (1982), 92-110. Details
• Tindale, Norman B.; and Birdsell, Joseph B., 'Tasmanoid tribes in north Queensland : results of the Harvard-Adelaide Universities Anthropological Expedition, 1938 - 1939', Records of the South Australian Museum, 7 (1) (1941), 1-9. Details
• Zilio, F., 'Wing Commander Tindale RAAF284483', Journal of the Anthropological Society of South Australia, 39 (2015), 147-75. Details
• Zilio, Francesca, 'Wing-commander Tindale RAAF 284483', Journal of the Anthropological Society of South Australia, 39 (2015), 147-75. Details

Resources

• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/111112617. Details
• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q2119932. Details
• Norman B Tindale, South Australian Museum, 2000, http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au/tindale/index.html. Details
• Nash, David, Norman B Tindale 1900-1993, ANU, 1999, http://www.anu.edu.au/linguistics/nash/aust/nbt/. Details
• 'Tindale, Norman B (1900-1993)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-535418. Details
• Zilio, Francesca and edited by Dr Philip Jones, Guide to the Norman B. Tindale Archives, South Australian Museum, 2000, http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au/tindale/HDMS/Tindale.htm. Details

Theses

• Walter, Karen D., '"The proper breadth of interest": Norman B. Tindale, the development of a fieldworker in Aboriginal Australia 1900 - 1936', MA thesis, Australian National University, 1988, 244 pp. Details
• Walter, Karen D., 'The proper breadth of interest: Norman B. Tindale: the development of a fieldworker in Aboriginal Australia 1900-1936', MA thesis, Australian National University, 1988, 244 pp. Details

See also

• Flood, Josephine M., The moth hunters: Aboriginal prehistory of the Australian Alps (Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1980), 388 pp, https://www.ligatu.re/book/the-moth-hunters/. Details
• Griffiths, Billy, Deep time dreaming: uncovering ancient Australia (Carlton, Vic.: Black Inc., 2018), 376 pp. Details
• Jones, P. G., 'South Australian anthropological history: the Board for Anthropological Research and its early expeditions', Records of the South Australian Museum, 20 (1987), 71-92. Details
• Jones, Philip G., 'Norman B. Tindale - 12 October 1900 - 19 November 1993 - an obituary', Records of the South Australian Museum, 28 (2) (1995), 159-76. Details
• McIntyre, A. K., 'Walter Victor Macfarlane 1913-82', Historical Records of Australian Science, 6 (2) (1985), 247-265. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR9850620247. Details
• Spriggs, Matthew, 'Everything you've been told about the history of Australian archaeology is wrong', Bulletin of the history of archaeology, 30 (1:3) (2020), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.5334/bha-626. Details