Awards
- Winner of John Mulvaney Book Award 2013
- Winner of John Mulvaney Book Award 2013.
- Winner of John Mulvaney Book Award, Australian Archaeological Association 2013
Overview
This is the first book-length study of the archaeology of Australia's deserts, one of the world's major habitats and the largest block of drylands in the southern hemisphere. Over the last few decades, a wealth of new environmental and archaeological data about this fascinating region has become available. Drawing on a wide range of sources, The Archaeology of Australia's Deserts explores the late Pleistocene settlement of Australia's deserts, the formation of distinctive desert societies, and the origins and development of the hunter-gatherer societies documented in the classic nineteenth-century ethnographies of Spencer and Gillen. Written by one of Australia's leading desert archaeologists, the book interweaves a lively history of research with archaeological data in a masterly survey of the field and a profoundly interdisciplinary study that forces archaeology into conversations with history and anthropology, economy and ecology, and geography and Earth sciences.
Full Product Details
Author: Mike Smith (National Museum of Australia, Canberra)
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 18.20cm
, Height: 3.00cm
, Length: 26.00cm
Weight: 1.060kg
ISBN: 9780521407458
ISBN 10: 0521407451
Pages: 424
Publication Date: 25 February 2013
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
College/higher education
,
Professional & Vocational
,
Tertiary & Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
...the appeal of this well-illustrated volume supported with a current bibliography goes well beyond anthropology to include, more broadly, ecology and environmental studies. Clearly aimed at college and university audiences, archaeologist Smith's volume will find also interested readers in larger public libraries. Highly recommended. --Choice
'Mike Smith has produced an impressive overview of the prehistory and environmental history of Australia's vast and variable arid interior. His expert synthesis of over forty years of scholarly archaeological, scientific and related research will appeal to anyone interested in the archaeology of deserts, hunter-gatherers and Aboriginal Australia.' Antike Welt '...a substantial undertaking ... an impressive an elegant work. Informative, comprehensive and engaging, it [is] a pleasure to read and is a worthwhile addition to the Cambridge World Archaeology series and to the bookshelf of any practising or aspiring archaeologist.' Jacqueline Tumney, Quaternary Australasia
Author Information
Mike Smith is the senior archaeologist at the National Museum of Australia. For more than 30 years, he has worked extensively across the Australian arid zone, piecing together the archaeology of this immense continental region of dune fields, sandy rivers, salt lakes and desert uplands. His previous appointments include field archaeologist at the Northern Territory Museum in Darwin and Alice Springs, research fellow in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University, and lecturer in archaeology for the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University. A Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and of the Society of Antiquaries (London), the Australian Archaeological Association awarded him the Rhys Jones medal in 2006 for 'outstanding contributions to Australian Archaeology'. In 2010 he received the Verco medal from the Royal Society of South Australia for his research.
