Frederic Slater

Frederic Slater (c1880- 10 March 1947^[1]) was an Australian journalist, poet, researcher and "authority on aboriginal folk lore".^[2]

In the 1930s, Slater was founder and president of the Australian Archaeological and Education Research Society, also known as the Australian Archaeological Society. He married Katherine Elizabeth Plowman, who survived him and was executor of his will.^[3] They had one son, Ederic Charles James Sutherland Slater, born in January 1923.

Slater studied Aboriginal place names and archaeological sites and provided information on Aboriginal languages including, for example, the meaning of Canberra^[4] and Queanbeyan.^[5] However, his best known contribution, which has been described as pseudoarchaeology,^[6] is the claim that Australian Aborigianes came from Egypt, based on carvings at Devil's Rock, Wollombi, in the Royal National Park, Brunswick Heads,^[7] and other locations. In an address at Sydney, to the Anthropological Society of New South Wales. he claimed the carvings were especially significant ...totems, symbols and ideographs, which show that the ancestors of original Australians migrated from Egypt in the late paleolithic and the neolithic ages.^[8][9]

Slater's observations and theories have been revived in recent years by other pseudoarchaeologists such as Steven Strong.^[10][11]

Published works

• Slater, F. 1937, Interpretation of the Drawings of Barragurra and Yango, ANZUS, Auckland 1937.
• Frederic Slater, ‘Geographical nomenclature: Larmer's native names of points at Port Jackson’, Mankind, Volume 1, Issue 9, pages 213–218, May 1934, (or June 1934) Australian Anthropological Society

References

1. "Family Notices.". The Sydney Morning Herald (National Library of Australia). 12 March 1947. p. 24. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
2. "AN ABORIGINAL SCULPTRESS.". The Sydney Mail (National Library of Australia). 3 March 1937. p. 43. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
3. "Advertising.". The Sydney Morning Herald (National Library of Australia). 20 March 1947. p. 17. Retrieved 20 March 2015.
4. "TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.". The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954) (NSW: National Library of Australia). 2 June 1913. p. 11. Retrieved 8 September 2015.
5. Ian Warden, 'Going with the flow of history', Canberra Times December 28, 2012
6. What is the Kariong Hieroglyphs site? The Secret Visitors Project
7. "Discovery Of Aborigines' Religious Mound.". The Advertiser (Adelaide: National Library of Australia). 29 July 1939. p. 22. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
8. "NATIONAL PARK ROCK CARVINGS.". The Sydney Morning Herald (National Library of Australia). 18 August 1938. p. 5. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
9. Ogden Standard-Examiner » 1937 » May » 9 May 1937, Sun » Page 2
10. Steven Strong, Australia’s Stonehenge: the History of an Ancient Stone Arrangement, September 16, 2013
11. Australia’s Stonehenge: Frederic Slater’s Legacy By Steven & Evan Strong