David Abulafia David Abulafia

Captain Cook’s Aboriginal spears belong in Cambridge, not Australia

Captain Cook after his landing at Botany Bay (Credit: Getty images)

On the eve of the First World War, Trinity College, Cambridge deposited four spears collected by Captain Cook during his first encounter with native Australians in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology of Cambridge University. There they could be seen and studied by any visitor to Cambridge, rather than being hidden away in a cabinet of curiosities in the Wren Library at Trinity.

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