The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Indigenous Australia and New Guinea

by McNiven, Ian J.; David, Bruno

• ISBN13: 9780190095611
• ISBN10: 019009561X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2023-12-19
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

65,000 years ago, modern humans arrived in Australia, having navigated more than 100 km of sea crossing from southeast Asia. Since then, the large continental islands of Australia and New Guinea, together with smaller islands in between, have been connected by land bridges and severed again as sea levels fell and rose. Along with these fluctuations came changes in the terrestrial and marine environments of both land masses. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Indigenous Australia and New Guinea reviews and assembles the latest findings and ideas on the archaeology of the Australia-New Guinea region, the world's largest island-continent. In 42 new chapters written by 77 contributors, it presents and explores the archaeological evidence to weave stories of colonisation; megafaunal extinctions; Indigenous architecture; long-distance interactions, sometimes across the seas; eel-based aquaculture and the development of techniques for the mass-trapping of fish; occupation of the High Country, deserts, tropical swamplands and other, diverse land and waterscapes; and rock art and symbolic behaviour. Together with established researchers, a new generation of archaeologists present in this Handbook one, authoritative text where Australia-New Guinea archaeology now lies and where it is heading, promising to shape future directions for years to come.

Author Biography

Professor Ian J. McNiven (Monash University, and Chief Investigator with the Australian Research Council Centre for Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage) is an anthropological archaeologist who specialises in understanding the long-term development of Australian Indigenous coastal societies with a focus on the archaeology of seascapes and ritual and spiritual relationships with the sea. He is an elected member of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. In addition to over 180 refereed journal papers and book chapters, his 16 books include The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art (OUP, 2018), Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology (AltaMira Press, 2005), and Constructions of Colonialism: Perspectives on Eliza Fraser's Shipwreck (Leicester University Press, 1998).

Professor Bruno David (Monash University, and Chief Investigator with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage) is an archaeologist who specialises in the archaeology of Australia and the western Pacific, landscape archaeology, and rock art. He has long-practiced transdisciplinary approaches to archaeology, investigating the past through multiple disciplinary approaches in partnership research programs requested by local Indigenous communities. He has undertaken field research in Australia, Egypt, Papua New Guinea, the U.S.A., and Vanuatu. He has published hundreds of academic and popular articles on various dimensions of archaeology, and 17 books, the most recent including: The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art (OUP, 2018), Cave Art (Thames & Hudson, 2017), and Hiri: Archaeology of Maritime Trade along the South Coast of Papua New Guinea (University of Hawaii Press, 2017). He currently researches
community archaeology with the GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation of East Gippsland, southeastern Australia.