Joakim Goldhahn

School of Humanities

Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Economics

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.

Available For Media Comment.

Professor Joakim Goldhahn (PhD 2000, Umeå University, Sweden) is an internationally renowned archaeologist and a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Humanities. His main areas of expertise include Indigenous archaeology, rock art research, and the European Bronze Age. With a distinguished career spanning continents, he offers a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspective on the study of Indigenous visual cultural heritage, colonial history, cultural memory, human-animal relationships, ritual practices, the history of archaeology, and the making of memory across time and cultures. Goldhahn is an Adjunct Professor at the Linnæus University Centre for Concurrences in Colonial and Post-Colonial Studies, the School of Cultural Sciences, Sweden (2025-2028), and an Adjunct Researcher at the National Museum of Kenya (2025-2026). He has authored more than 260 research outputs, including 19 books, such as Birds in the Bronze Age (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and Aboriginal Rock Art and the Telling of History (Cambridge University Press, 2024), which he co-authored with Laura Rademaker, Sally K. May, and Gabriel Maralngurra. In recognition of his contributions to the field of archaeology, he was awarded the Oscar Montelius Prize by The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History, and Antiquities in 2018.Since 2020, Goldhahn has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journal Open Archaeology.

My Research
Career
Publications
Grants and Funding
Teaching
Contact

I concurrently conduct research in northern Europe, primarily focusing on the Bronze Age (2350-500 BC), western Arnhem Land in northern Australia, and among the Samburu in northern Kenya. A common thread among these research areas is my long-standing interest in what we, in search of a better term, call rock art: visual images that convey different forms of cultural identities and worldview. A recent venue I have explored and would like to deepen through further research is the use of different forms of audio-visual media in the intergenerational transmission of cultural knowledge and practice.

Appointments

Date	Position	Institution name
2024 - ongoing	Senior Research Fellow	University of Adelaide
2020 - 2024	Rock Art Australia Ian Potter Kimberley Chair	The University of Western Australia
2009 - 2020	Professor of Archaeology	Linnaeus University
2006 - 2009	Senior Lecturer	Kalmar University College
2002 - 2006	Reader	University of Gothenburg
2001 - 2002	Lecturer	Lund University
1997 - 2000	PhD Scholarship	Umeå University

Journals

Year	Citation
2025	May, S., Lee, J., & Goldhahn, J. (2025). Contact Rock Art: A Biographical Perspective from Western Arnhem Land, Australia. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 1-25. DOI
2025	May, S. K., Troncoso, A., Harper, S., & Goldhahn, J. (2025). Christianity in the Rock Art of Australia and Chile. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 35(4), 1-14. DOI
2024	Goldhahn, J., May, S. K., & Lee, J. (2024). The audience and the message: Nayombolmi's bark paintings from western Arnhem Land, Australia. Aboriginal History Journal, 47, 3-36. DOI Scopus1 WoS1
2024	May, S. K., Brady, L. M., Taçon, P. S. C., Miller, E., Jalandoni, A., Taylor, L., . . . Goldhahn, J. (2024). Brilliant blue: The blue rock art of Awunbarna, Northern Territory, Australia. Australian Archaeology, 90(3), 263-279. DOI Scopus1 WoS1
2023	Goldhahn, J., Harper, S., Popelka-Filcoff, R., & Balanggarra Aboriginal Corporation. (2023). Scratching the surface: Subtractive rock markings from the Cockburn Ranges, eastern Kimberley, Western Australia. Australian Archaeology, 89(3), 227-243. DOI Scopus1 WoS1
2023	Tacon, P., Taylor, L., May, S., Goldhahn, J., Jalandoni, A., Ressel, A., & Mangiru, K. (2023). Majumbu ('Old Harry') and the Spencer-Cahill bark painting collection. Australian Archaeology, 89(1), 14-31. DOI Scopus2 WoS2
2022	Goldhahn, J., May, S., & Tacon, P. (2022). Picturing Nayombolmi: The most prolific known rock art artist in the world. Rock Art Research, 39(2), 155-167. WoS6
2022	Goldhahn, J. (2022). Editorial: Open Archaeology in Challenging Times. Open Archaeology, 8(1), 1286-1288. DOI
2022	Taçon, P. S. C., May, S. K., Goldhahn, J., Taylor, L., Brady, L. M., Ressel, A., . . . Maralngurra, G. (2022). Extraordinary Back-to-Back Human and Animal Figures in the Art of Western Arnhem Land, Australia: One of the World's Largest Assemblages. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 32(4), 707-720. DOI Scopus3 WoS1
2022	Miller, E., May, S. K., Goldhahn, J., Taçon, P. S. C., & Cooper, V. (2022). Kaparlgoo Blue: On the Adoption of Laundry Blue Pigment into the Visual Culture of Western Arnhem Land, Australia. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 26(2), 316-337. DOI Scopus6 WoS5
2021	May, S., Goldhahn, J., Rademaker, L., Badari, G., & Taçon, P. (2021). Quilp's Horse: Rock art and artist life-biography in western Arnhem Land, Australia. Rock Art Research, 38(2), 211-221. Scopus6 WoS6
2021	Goldhahn, J., Biyalwanga, L., May, S. K., Blawgur, J., Taçon, P. S. C., Sullivan, J., . . . Lee, J. (2021). "Our dad's painting is hiding, in secret place": reverberations of a rock painting episode in Kakadu National Park, Australia. Rock Art Research, 38(1), 59-69. Scopus3 WoS8
2021	Hayward, J. A., May, S. K., Goldhahn, J., Jalandoni, A., & Taçon, P. S. C. (2021). An Analysis of Motif Clusters at the Nanguluwurr Rock Art Site, Kakadu National Park, N. T. Australia. Journal of Field Archaeology, 46(6), 414-428. DOI Scopus3 WoS6
2021	May, S. K., Wesley, D., Goldhahn, J., Lamilami, R., & Taçon, P. S. C. (2021). The missing Macassans: Indigenous sovereignty, rock art and the archaeology of absence. Australian Archaeology, 87(2), 127-143. DOI Scopus10 WoS9
2021	May, S. K., Rademaker, L., Goldhahn, J., Taçon, P. S. C., & Narndal Gumurdul, J. (2021). Narlim’s Fingerprints: Aboriginal Histories and Rock Art. Journal of Australian Studies, 45(3), 292-316. DOI Scopus6 WoS6
2021	Goldhahn, J., May, S. K., & Taçon, P. S. C. (2021). Revisiting Francis Birtles’ painted car: exploring a cross-cultural encounter with Aboriginal artist Nayombolmi at Imarlkba Gold Mine, 1929–1930. History Australia, 18(3), 469-492. DOI Scopus2
2021	May, S. K., Taçon, P. S. C., Jalandoni, A., Goldhahn, J., Wesley, D., Tsang, R., & Mangiru, K. (2021). The re-emergence of nganaparru (water buffalo) into the culture, landscape and rock art of western Arnhem Land. Antiquity, 95(383), 1298-1314. DOI Scopus4 WoS5
2021	Goldhahn, J., Labarakwe, S. L., Skoglund, P., & Westergren, E. (2021). 'I have done hundreds of rock paintings': On the ongoing rock art tradition among Samburu, Northern Kenya. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 31(2), 229-246. DOI Scopus4 WoS5
2021	Goldhahn, J. (2021). Science in a Time When the World Is Growing Apart and Coming Together. Open Archaeology, 7(1), 1-2. DOI
2021	Goldhahn, J. (2021). To bring back some eagleness to eagles on bird worldings in the bronze age. Current Swedish Archaeology, 28(28), 47-73. DOI Scopus4
2021	Oma, K. A., & Goldhahn, J. (2021). Introduction: Human-animal relationships from a long-term perspective. Current Swedish Archaeology, 28(28), 11-22. DOI Scopus9
2021	May, S. K., Sanz, I. D., Goldhahn, J., Wright, D., & Maralngurra, G. (2021). Broadening our understanding beyond the 'Buffaroo'. ROCK ART RESEARCH, 38(2), 224-226.
2020	Goldhahn, J., & Fellow, A. R. (2020). Editorial. Open Archaeology, 6(1), 1. DOI
2020	Goldhahn, J., May, S. K., Maralngurra, J. G., & Lee, J. (2020). Children and Rock Art: A Case Study from Western Arnhem Land, Australia. Norwegian Archaeological Review, 53(1), 59-82. DOI Scopus15 WoS16
2020	May, S. K., Taylor, L., Frieman, C., Taçon, P. S. C., Wesley, D., Jones, T., . . . Mungulda, C. (2020). Survival, Social Cohesion and Rock Art: The Painted Hands of Western Arnhem Land, Australia. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 30(3), 491-510. DOI Scopus17 WoS20
2020	May, S. K., Huntley, J., Marshall, M., Miller, E., Hayward, J. A., Jalandoni, A., . . . Taçon, P. S. C. (2020). New Insights into the Rock Art of Anbangbang Gallery, Kakadu National Park. Journal of Field Archaeology, 45(2), 120-134. DOI Scopus24 WoS22
2020	Taçon, P. S. C., May, S. K., Lamilami, R., McKeague, F., Johnston, I. G., Jalandoni, A., . . . Goldhahn, J. (2020). Maliwawa figures—a previously undescribed Arnhem Land rock art style. Australian Archaeology, 86(3), 208-225. DOI Scopus26 WoS25
2020	May, S. K., Wright, D., Sanz, I. D., Goldhahn, J., & Maralngurra, G. (2020). The buffaroo: A ‘first-sight’ depiction of introduced buffalo in the rock art of western Arnhem Land, Australia. Rock Art Research, 37(2), 204-216. Scopus7 WoS8
2020	Brady, L. M., May, S. K., Goldhahn, J., Taçon, P. S. C., & Lamilami, P. (2020). What painting? Encountering and interpreting the archaeological record in western Arnhem Land, northern Australia. Archaeology in Oceania, 55(2), 106-117. DOI Scopus8 WoS8
2019	May, S. K., Maralngurra, J. G., Johnston, I. G., Goldhahn, J., Lee, J., O'Loughlin, G., . . . Tacon, P. S. C. (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, 36(2), 199-213. WoS28
2019	Goldhahn, J. (2019). Rock art worldings. Time and Mind, 12(3), 165-167. DOI Scopus1
2019	Goldhahn, J. (2019). On unfolding present and past (rock art) worldings. Time and Mind, 12(2), 63-77. DOI Scopus10 WoS7
2019	Goldhahn, J. (2019). Brian Hayden, The power of ritual in prehistory: Secret societies and origins of social complexity. Cambridge 2018. 398 pp. ISBN 978-1-108-42639-8. Fornvannen, 114(3), 196-198.
2019	Goldhahn, J. (2019). Art of the ancestors: spatial and temporal patterning in the ceiling rock art of Nawarla Gabarnmang, Arnhem Land, Australia. ANTIQUITY, 93(371), 1393-1395. DOI
2018	Goldhahn, J., & May, S. K. (2018). Beyond the colonial encounter: global approaches to contact rock art studies. Australian Archaeology, 84(3), 210-218. DOI Scopus9 WoS11
2018	May, S. K., Johnston, I. G., Taçon, P. S. C., Domingo Sanz, I., & Goldhahn, J. (2018). Early Australian Anthropomorphs: Jabiluka's Dynamic Figure Rock Paintings. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 28(1), 67-83. DOI Scopus23 WoS14
2017	May, S. K., Wesley, D., Goldhahn, J., Litster, M., & Manera, B. (2017). Symbols of Power: The Firearm Paintings of Madjedbebe (Malakunanja II). International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 21(3), 690-707. DOI Scopus23 WoS22
2016	Goldhahn, J., & Horn, C. (2016). A new Valsømagle spearhead from Tjust, Småland, southeast Sweden. Fornvannen, 111(1), 49-52.
2015	Goldhahn, J. (2015). Debatt: Showen rullar på så länge Bredarör på Kivik består. Fornvannen, 110(2), 126-130. Scopus2
2014	Goldhahn, J. (2014). Engraved biographies: Rock art and the life-histories of bronze age objects. Current Swedish Archaeology, 22, 97-136. Scopus18
2011	Broström, S. G., Goldhahn, J., Ihrestam, K., & Wikell, R. (2011). Skålgropsfat, skeppshäll och solvagn: nyfunna hällbilder vid Casimirsborg i Tjust vid norra Smålandskusten. Fornvannen, 106(1), 54-57. Scopus2
2011	Goldhahn, J. (2011). Sveriges äldsta och norra Europas näst äldsta hällbildsdokumentation - en notis om Johannes Haquini Rhezelius antikvariska resa till Öland och Småland 1634. Fornvannen, 106(1), 1-7. Scopus3
2011	Goldhahn, J. (2011). Materialitas: Working Stone, Carving Identity. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, 14(1-2), 251-253. DOI
2011	Brown, A. D., Bradley, R. J., Goldhahn, J., Nord, J., Skoglund, P., & Yendell, V. (2011). The environmental context of a prehistoric rock carving on the Bjäre Peninsula, Scania, southern Sweden. Journal of Archaeological Science, 38(3), 746-752. DOI Scopus7 WoS6
2009	Goldhahn, J. (2009). Bredarör on Kivik: A monumental cairn and the history of its interpretation. Antiquity, 83(320), 359-371. DOI Scopus28 WoS16
2006	Oestigaard, T., & Goldhahn, J. (2006). From the Dead to the Living: Death as Transactions and Re-negotiations. Norwegian Archaeological Review, 39(1), 27-48. DOI Scopus41
2002	Goldhahn, J. (2002). Roaring Rocks: An Audio-Visual Perspective on Hunter-Gatherer Engravings in Northern Sweden and Scandinavia. Norwegian Archaeological Review, 35(1), 29-61. DOI Scopus79
-	Goldhahn, J. (1970). «Så godt det lar sig gjøre» – kommenterade krigstidsbrev adresserade till Arthur Nordén från norska kollegor 1940–1945 . Viking, 82. DOI

Books

Year	Citation
2024	Rademaker, L., May, S., Maralngurra, G., & Goldhahn, J. (2024). Aboriginal Art and the Telling of History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. DOI
2022	Tacon, P. S. C., May, S., Frederick, U. K., & McDonald, J. (Eds.) (2022). Histories of Australian Rock Art Research. Canberra: ANU Press. DOI
2019	Goldhahn, J. (2019). Birds in the bronze age a north european perspective. London, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. DOI Scopus29

Book Chapters

Year	Citation
2025	Rademaker, L., May, S., Goldhahn, J., & Maralngurra, G. (2025). History on the rocks. In A. McGrath, & J. Huggins (Eds.), Deep History: Country and Sovereignty (1 ed., pp. 151-165). Sydney: UNSW Press.
2024	May, S., Goldhahn, J., & Lee, J. (2024). Oral Histories and Indigenous Rock Art: Capturing Lives, Moments, Memories and Emotions. In C. Smith, K. Pollard, A. Kanungo, S. May, S. Lopez Varela, & J. Watkins (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Global Indigenous Archaeologies (pp. 19 pages). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI
2023	Goldhahn, J. (2023). GHOSTHAWK WORLDINGS: RAPTOR HARUSPICY DURING THE NORTH EUROPEAN BRONZE AGE. In R. J. Wallis (Ed.), The Art and Archaeology of Human Engagements with Birds of Prey: From Prehistory to the Present (pp. 53-68). Bloombury. DOI
2021	Brady, L. M., Gunn, R. G., & Goldhahn, J. (2021). ROCK ART MODIFICATION AND ITS RITUALIZED AND RELATIONAL CONTEXTS. In I. J. McNiven, & B. David (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Indigenous Australia and New Guinea (pp. 969-992). Oxford University Press. DOI Scopus3
2019	Goldhahn, J. (2019). On the archaeology of elves. In Cognitive Archaeology Mind Ethnography and the Past in South Africa and Beyond (pp. 270-310). Routledge. DOI Scopus1
2018	Goldhahn, J. (2018). Roaring rocks: An audio-visual perspective on hunter- gatherer engravings in northern Sweden and Scandinavia. In Narratives and Journeys in Rock Art A Reader (pp. 371-407). Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. DOI
2018	Goldhahn, J. (2018). To let mute stones speak - on the becoming of archaeology. In Giving the Past A Future Essays in Archaeology and Rock Art Studies in Honour of Dr Phil H C Gerhard Milstreu (pp. 37-57). Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. DOI Scopus2
2017	Goldhahn, J. (2017). North European rock art a long-term perspective. In B. David, & I. J. McNiven (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art (pp. 51-72). Oxford University Press. DOI Scopus14
2015	Goldhahn, J. (2015). Contested worlds - a chronotopic essay about mortuary monuments and cultural change in northern Europe in the second millennium BC. In Ritual Landscapes and Borders within Rock Art Research Papers in Honour of Professor Kalle Sognnes (pp. 13-30). Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. DOI Scopus9
2012	Goldhahn, J., & Fuglestvedt, I. (2012). Engendering North European Rock Art: Bodies and Cosmologies in Stone and Bronze Age Imagery. In A Companion to Rock Art (pp. 237-260). Wiley. DOI Scopus17

Report for External Bodies

Year	Citation
2024	May, S., Goldhahn, J., & Tacon, P. S. C. (2024). Pathways: People, Landscape and Rock Art in Djok Country. Adelaide.
2024	May, S., Blair, S., O'Loughlin, G., & Goldhahn, J. (2024). Anlarrh Bininj Bush Camps.

Original Creative Works

Year	Citation
2025	Authors: Cusack K, May S, Maralngurra G, Jalandoni A, Goldhahn J, Tacon PSC, Taylor L, Farrar C. Title: Art at a Crossroads. Description: N/A. Extent: Exhibition, 8 key panels, photo boards, VR interactive, digital display..

I am currently the Chief Investigator (CI) for three research projects: the ARC SRI-funded Art at a Crossroads: Aboriginal Responses to Contact in Northern Australia (2021–2025), and the international project Making Rock Art Today: Encounters with Practising Samburu Rock Art Painters (2025-2028), funded by the Swedish research foundation Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.

Between 2026 and 2030, I will be engaged in the ARC DP project Re-storying Arnhem Land’s Aboriginal Knowledge Holders. The project is led by Dr Sally K May (University of Adelaide). It also includes Dr Laura Rademaker (Australian National University), Dr Jessyca Hutchens (Berndts Museum, Perth), Distinguished Professor Paul Tacon (Griffith University), and Dr Luke Taylor (University of Adelaide). The aims and predicted outcomes read as follows:

This project aims to re-story the lives and knowledge of Aboriginal Elders who worked with anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt in Arnhem Land from 1940s–1970s. The Berndt fieldnotes have recently (2024) emerged from embargo, providing a unique opportunity to foreground and reclaim the contributions of Aboriginal participants in their long-term collaboration. Combining archival/collection research and oral history recording, this community-led research expects to produce new biographies of key Aboriginal Elders, re-centring their experiences in anthropological research; and to repatriate digital archival materials. Planned outputs (a book, short films, and an exhibition) will be used to support community arts and cultural programs.

My ongoing research in Australia and Kenya is committed to collaborative, community-led research approaches that foreground Indigenous knowledges and perspectives.

I am currently in a research-focused role, but I am happy to discuss any supervision that falls within my area of expertise.

Email: joakim.goldhahn@adelaide.edu.au