Series 620 - Robert Mitton papers

Robert ‘Bob’ Mitton is primarily known for his book The Lost World of Irian Jaya, published posthumously after his early death in 1977.

After completing a geography degree at Monash in 1970, Mitton was hired by mining companies Kennecott Indonesia and subsequently Newmont, to prospect for copper in the western half of the island of New Guinea, a region then known as Irian Jaya (now divided between six Indonesian provinces, and also commonly called West Papua). This work gave him the opportunity for private research, taking him over the entire length of the Irian Jaya central mountain range. In 1974 he joined an anthropology expedition (of Prof. M. T. Walker of Southern Illinois University) in the Asmat coastal area, and later organised another expedition of his own, and traveling the entire length of the Baliem river. In 1975 he was appointed a cultural consultant by the National Cultural Council of Papua New Guinea and subsequently did work for the National Museum in Port Moresby.

Bob Mitton spent six years in Irian Jaya. A serious observer, he developed extensive knowledge of the region’s botany, geology, geography, history and anthropology. He was motivated by concern that the region “nearest to paradise” was being destroyed by contact with the outside world and conceived a book that might alert the world to Irian Jaya’s needless destruction. He made notes and took thousands of photographs for this projected volume, but before these plans came to fruition he was struck (in October 1976) with leukemia and died on the 21st of January of 1977 at the age of 30 at Melbourne. The book project was taken up by his friends, leading to the publication of The Lost World of Irian Jaya with Oxford University Press in 1983.

Over the years 1971-1976 Mitton assembled a significant collection of artefacts, especially Asmat shields, as well as significant quantities from Dani groups of the central highlands. After his death, some of these materials were placed in the MacLeay Museum (now part of the Chak Chak Wing Museum) in Sydney.