What archaeological projects are you working on at the moment?
My current research project is about the archaeology and cultural heritage management of space exploration. I am investigating the significance of rocket launch sites, tracking stations, satellites, space junk and planetary landing sites. One of my main case studies is Australia’s own launch site, Woomera in South Australia. Although Woomera and Australian space research was once at the forefront of space exploration, few people are aware of its history. Even fewer have considered how the development of a rocket range in the desert impacted on Aboriginal people and what this might mean for the heritage values of space-related material culture at Woomera. There are many parallels for this interaction of Indigenous people and space industry across the world, in the USA, South America and Africa.

I am also looking at satellites as Cold War heritage, and practical measures for preserving significant space artefacts in Earth orbit. Space junk is becoming an increasingly urgent problem, and there are many proposed schemes to control or remove orbital debris. I support this; but I also want space industries and agencies to consider heritage values before they do something drastic, such as shooting the oldest satellite in Earth orbit, Vanguard 1, out of the sky.

At the moment I am working on the former Orroral Valley NASA Tracking Station in the ACT. A geophysical survey using magnetometer, in collaboration with Ian Moffat of ANU, was undertaken in February 2010, and I am really enjoying researching the technology of antennas and cables, so that I can understand both what is left at the site, and the interpretations of the magnetometer data. ACT Heritage funded this project and we hope it may result in heritage listing for the tracking station.

More information is available at my blog: http://zoharesque.blogspot.com/

Tell us about one of your most interesting archaeological discoveries.
It’s really hard to pick – everything is interesting in its own way. When I was doing my PhD research, I discovered that it was possible to detect the evidence of body modification on stone tool edges. Stone tools were used for a very wide range of tasks, and this included haircutting, shaving, decorative scarification and surgery. By analysing collections of recent stone tools that I knew had been used for these purposes, I found that there was a consistent pattern of residues – hair, blood, skin and tissue – combined with damage on the stone tool edge that was characteristic of body modification. Therefore, this kind of evidence could be used to detect the origins of human symbolic behaviour in the Palaeolithic.

More recently, I went to the former Maralinga nuclear test site in South Australia with colleagues from Murdoch University. We came across a European campsite on the road to Emu Field which was probably where Len Beadell had camped when surveying the area – plenty of ancient beer cans around a survey tree!. I would love to go back and record it properly.

Tell us about a funny/disastrous/amazing experience that you have had while doing archaeology.
A few of us were surveying coastal Sydney sites with Val Attenbrow, years ago. One day we were trying to track down an engraving site on a beach in the North Sydney area. We were all in our field clothes, with backpacks and tape measures and water bottles and long sleeves and hats, when we ventured down to this beach. It quickly became apparent that it was a nudist beach, and there were a number of bemused naked men watching us traipse around. Eventually one kind gent decided to put us out of our (apparent) misery, and came over. He suggested that perhaps we might be lost. Val explained that we were in the right place, and we were looking for an engraving of a fish that should be exposed at low tide. Well! He couldn’t have been more helpful. He called a couple of other naked men over and we all conferred. Then they all helped us look. It created quite a stir and many more naked men flocked to join us. I can’t remember if we found the engraving or not. I was too busy concentrating on nudist etiquette, and trying to keep my eyes from wandering below waist level!

What’s your favourite part of being an archaeologist?
The thing I love most is putting all the pieces together to tell an interesting, and hopefully accurate, story about the past. It’s very exciting when everything comes together: archival research, oral history and consultation with Aboriginal people, field work and artefact analysis. I’m constantly struck by how many hidden stories are waiting to be uncovered, and I particularly enjoy the perspective that material culture can bring to the study of the past.

Follow up reading:
Gorman, A.C. 2009 The archaeology of space exploration. In David Bell and Martin Parker (eds) Space Travel and Culture: From Apollo to Space Tourism, pp 129-142. Wiley-Blackwell

Gorman, A.C. 2009 Heritage of Earth orbit: orbital debris – its mitigation and heritage. In Ann Darrin and Beth Laura O’Leary (eds) The Handbook of Space Engineering, Archaeology and Heritage, pp 377 – 393. CRC Press: Boca Raton

Gorman, A.C. 2009 Beyond the Space Race: the significance of space sites in a new global context. In Angela Piccini and Cornelius Holthorf (eds) Contemporary Archaeologies: Excavating Now. Bern: Peter Lang

Gorman, A.C. 2005 The cultural landscape of interplanetary space. Journal of Social Archaeology 5(1):85-107