Sally Kate May facts for kids

Sally Kate May, often called Sally K. May, was born in 1979. She is an Australian archaeologist and anthropologist. An archaeologist studies human history by digging up old things. An anthropologist studies human societies and cultures. Dr. May is a professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia. She is an expert in Indigenous Australian rock art and old collections found in Australian museums.

Education and Early Research

Dr. May studied at Flinders University and earned her first degree in 2001. Her research looked at a collection of items from an expedition in 1948.

She then earned her PhD in 2006 from the Australian National University. Her PhD research was about how art-making is still very important in Aboriginal communities in Arnhem Land. She worked closely with artists from the Injalak Arts centre in Gunbalanya.

Career and Discoveries

After finishing her PhD, Dr. May became a lecturer at Flinders University. She worked on big research projects about Australian rock art, especially art from the time when Indigenous Australians first met Europeans. This is often called "Contact rock art."

She also studied rock art in other parts of the world, like China and Europe. Dr. May has written books about the history of art, and about Macassan traders who visited northern Australia long ago. She also studied how people collected Aboriginal Australian items for museums.

Dr. May has helped manage the world heritage listed Kakadu National Park. She advised on how to protect the park and its important cultural sites.

Her collection of filmed stories and other materials from her research in places like Gunbalanya and Kakadu is kept safe at the AIATSIS. This helps future generations learn from her work.

Important Books and Articles

Dr. Sally K. May has written many books and articles about her research. Here are some of them:

Books

• Rademaker, Laura, Sally Kate May, Gabriel Maralngurra and Joakim Goldhahn 2024. Aboriginal rock art and the telling of history. 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.

Journal Articles

• May, S.K., Maralngurra, J., Johnston, I., Goldhahn, J., Lee, J., O’Loughlin, G., May, K., Nabobbob, C., Garde, M., and P.S.C. Taçon. 2019 ‘‘This is my Father’s Painting: a first-hand account of the creation of the most iconic rock art in Kakadu National Park’. Rock Art Research, v.36/2.
• Frieman, C., and May, S.K. 2019 ‘Navigating Contact: Tradition and Innovation in Australian Contact Rock Art’, International Journal of Historical Archaeology, DOI: 10.1007/s10761-019-00511-0.
• May, S.K., Johnston, I.G., Taçon, P.S.C., Domingo Sanz, I. & J. Goldhahn. 2018 ‘Early Australian Anthropomorphs: the global significance of Jabiluka’s Dynamic Figure rock art’. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, v. 28/1, pp. 67–83.
• May, S.K., Marshall, M., Domingo Sanz, I. & C. Smith. 2017 ‘Reflections on the Pedagogy of Archaeological Field Schools within Indigenous Community Archaeology Programmes in Australia’. Public Archaeology, 16/3-4:, pp. 172–190.
• May, S.K., Wesley, D., Goldhahn, J., Litster, M. and B. Manera. 2017 ’Symbols of Power: the firearm paintings of Madjedbebe (Malakunanja II)’. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, v.21/3, pp. 690–707.
• May, S.K., Taçon, P.S.C., Paterson, A. and M. Travers. 2013 ‘The world from Malarrak: depictions of Southeast Asian and European subjects in rock art from the Wellington Range, Australia’, Australian Aboriginal Studies, v.2013/1, pp. 45–56.
• May, S.K., Taçon, P.S.C., Wesley, D. and M. Pearson. 2013 ‘Painted Ships on a Painted Arnhem Land Landscape’. The Great Circle: Journal of the Australian Association for Maritime History, v.35/2, pp. 83–102.
• May, S. K., Taçon, P.S.C., Guse, D., and M. Travers. 2010 ‘Painting History: Indigenous Observations and Depictions of the ‘Other’ in Northwestern Arnhem Land, Australia’, Australian Archaeology, v. 71, pp. 57–65.
• May, S. K, McKinnon, J., and J. Raupp. 2009 ‘Boats on Bark: an analysis of Groote Eylandt bark paintings featuring Macassan praus from the 1948 Arnhem Land Expedition, Northern Territory, Australia’, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, v.38/2, pp. 369–385.