Flinders Archaeology Masters student Jacinta Koolmatrie has been awarded the Darrell West Prize for her thesis at the recent Australian Archaeology Association and New Zealand Archaeology Association conference in Auckland.

Jacinta shared the award this year with NSW project officer Sharon Hodgetts. They were presented with their honours by Flinders University lecturer Dr Chris Wilson, who has been made the inaugural Indigenous Officer of the Australian Archaeological Association.

The Darrell West Prize is named in honour of Tasmanian Aboriginal man Darrell West, who had a long history of working in archaeology and cultural heritage management.

Jacinta won the prize for her paper “Yarta Muda and Malka”, which was presented in the conference session Dialogues About Country.

This paper was based on her masters research that focuses on the importance of including Indigenous people’s knowledge, perspectives and ethics in archaeological research.

She discussed this through looking at yura malka (rock art) in the Flinders Ranges, and her Flinders University Archaeology supervisors are Associate Professor Amy Roberts and Dr Mick Morrison

This great achievement continues Jacinta’s academic success that has seen her involved in an Aurora Internship travelling to the UK and US.

In 2016, she also won the Flinders University Ken Wanganeen Medal for the university’s most outstanding Indigenous student. The late Ken Wanganeen was the first Aboriginal Honours graduate and a foundation student at Flinders University.