Sally Kate May facts for kids

Dr. Sally Kate May, born in 1979, is an Australian archaeologist and anthropologist. This means she studies human history and culture through digging up old things and learning about different societies. She is a professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia. Dr. May is an expert in ancient Indigenous Australian rock art and old museum collections from Australia.

Learning and Studying

Sally May went to Flinders University and earned her first degree in 2001. Her main project there was about how old collections of cultural items were gathered.

Later, she earned her PhD in 2006 from the Australian National University. For her PhD, she studied how making art is still important in Aboriginal communities in Arnhem Land. She worked with artists from the Injalak Arts centre in Gunbalanya to understand this.

Her Work and Discoveries

After finishing her PhD, Dr. May taught archaeology at Flinders University. She then became a lead researcher on big projects funded by the Australian Research Council. One project, from 2008 to 2011, looked at recent Australian rock art, especially art from when Europeans first arrived. Another project, from 2016 to 2018, focused on rock art in the Wellington Range.

In 2009, she started teaching at the Australian National University. She also joined PERAHU in 2017 as a senior researcher. Currently, she leads a project called "Pathways: people, landscape, and rock art," which runs from 2018 to 2024.

Dr. May is well-known for her work on rock art, especially the "Contact rock art" in Australia. This art shows what happened when Indigenous Australians met people from other parts of the world. She has also helped with research on rock art in China and Europe.

She has written books about the archaeology of art and the history of Macassan traders in northern Australia. Macassan traders were people from Indonesia who visited Australia a long time ago. She also studies the history of people who collected Aboriginal Australian items.

Dr. May has also helped manage the world heritage listed Kakadu National Park. She was part of a committee that advises on research there.

Her collection of filmed stories and other materials from her research around Gunbalanya, Injalak Hill, and Kakadu is kept at the AIATSIS.

Books She Has Written or Edited

• Rademaker, Laura, Sally Kate May, Gabriel Maralngurra and Joakim Goldhahn 2024. Aboriginal rock art and the telling of history. Karrikadjurren: Art, Community, and Identity in Western Arnhem Land. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Sally K. May. 2023. Karrikadjurren: Art, Community, and Identity in Western Arnhem Land. London and New York: Routledge.
• Sally K. May, Laura Rademaker, Julie Narndal Gumurdul and Donna Nadjamerrek 2020. The Bible in Buffalo Country: Oenpelli mission 1925-1931. Canberra: ANU Press.
• Injalak Arts members, Melissa Marshall, Sally K. May and Felicity Wright. 2018 Injalak Hill Rock Art. Gunbalanya: Injalak Arts.
• Michelle Langley, Mirani Litster, Duncan Wright and Sally K. May (eds). 2018 The Archaeology of Portable Art: Southeast Asian, Pacific and Australian Perspectives. London: Routledge.
• Marshall Clark and Sally K. May (eds). 2013 Macassan History and Heritage: journeys, encounters and influences. Canberra: ANU EPress.
• Ines Domingo Sanz, Danae Fiore, and Sally K. May (eds). 2008 Archaeologies of Art: time, place and identity. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.
• Sally K. May. 2009 Collecting Cultures: Myth, Politics, and Collaboration in the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition. California: Altamira.