When Campbell Macknight first went to university in Melbourne, his main interest was Latin but he found he also had to take some 'history'. This turned out to be prehistoric archaeology (as well as the history of Greece and Rome) and in due course that led him to excavations in both Europe and Australia. When he came to look for a PHD topic after returning to the Australian National University in 1966, he was attracted to the subject of fishermen from Indonesia who had visited the north coast of Australia to collect trepang or sea slugs. This topic combined history with the archaeology of their campsites in Arnhem Land - and provided a good deal of bushwalking and sailing around Arnhem Land in small boats. The final outcome was published as The Voyage to Marege: Macassan Trepangers in Northern Australia (Melbourne University Press, 1976).

Another attraction of the topic was its link with Indonesia and from 1969 he has been working on the early history of South Sulawesi. In this area too, he can combine an interest in archaeology and the study of written sources, particularly the Bugis chronicles which tell us about South Sulawesi before the Europeans arrived.

For many years, Campbell taught in the Department of History, Faculty of Arts at the Australian National University in Canberra. At the beginning of 1994 he took up the Chair of Humanities in Launceston, where he finds a range of colleagues concerned with Indonesia, Aboriginal Australia, history and, in prospect at least, some historical archaeology.

Major teaching: HHH101, HHB222/322 (sem 1)

Research interests: Southeast Asian history, especially early Indonesia; Non-European Australian history.

Publications (to be added)

Professor C.C. Macknight
Dept. of History
Humanities Area PO Box 1214
Launceston
Tasmania
AUSTRALIA 7250

Tel: 003 243 2
Fax: 003 243 652

Email: C.C.Macknight@utas.edu.au