Description
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.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Archaeology of Sahul by Ian J. McNiven and Bruno David The Thick Darkness of Pre-Historic Time: Antiquarian Archaeology in Nineteenth-Century Colonial Victoria by Ian J. McNiven History of Archaeology in Papua New Guinea: The Early Years Up to 1960 by Glenn R. Summerhayes Trans-Disciplinary Approaches to the Past in New Guinea by Chris Ballard Oral Tradition, History, and Archaeohistory of Indigenous Australia by Iain Davidson, Heather Burke, Lynley A. Wallis, Pearl Connelly, Lance Sullivan, Hazel Sullivan, Stephen Porter, and Isabel Tarrag? Cultural Heritage and Contract Archaeology in Australia and New Guinea by Joanna Fresl?v Museum Collections and their Legacies by Lindy Allen Island Hopping to Sahul by Kasih Norman, Sue O'Connor, and Michael Bird Australia's First People: Oldest Sites and Early Culture by Chris Clarkson, Kasih Norman, Sue O'Connor, Jane Balme, Peter Veth, and Ceri Shipton Interactions with Megafauna by Chris N. Johnson, Joe Dortch, and Trevor H. Worthy What Does DNA Tell Us about Past Connections and the Settlement of Sahul? by Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith and Anna L. Gosling Fire and the Transformation of Landscapes by Cassandra Rowe, Janelle Stevenson, Simon Connor, and Matthew Adeleye Beyond Agriculture: Ditch Networks in the New Guinea Landscape by Chris Ballard Enhanced Ecologies and Ecosystem Engineering: Strategies Developed by Aboriginal Australians to Increase the Abundance of Animal Resources by Ian J. McNiven, Tiina Manne, and Anne Ross The Coming of the Dingo by Jane Balme and Sue O'Connor Engaging and Designing Place: Furnishings and the Architecture of Archaeological Sites in Aboriginal Australia by Bruno David, Jean-Jacques Delannoy, Chris Urwin, Joanna Fresl?v, Russell Mullett, and Christine Phillips The Big Flood: Responding to Sea-Level Rise and the Inundated Continental Shelf by Jonathan Benjamin and Sean Ulm Past Aboriginal Populations and Demographic Change Using Radiocarbon Data and Time-Series Analysis by Alan Williams, Sean Ulm, and M. A. Smith Persistence of Complexity: Continuation of Intensification, Population Change, and Socio-Structural Change in Current Debates in Australian Archaeology by Harry Lourandos and Anne Ross Boundaries, Relationality, and Style Provinces in Australian Rock Art by Madeleine Kelly and Liam M. Brady Australian Indigenous Ochres: Use, Sourcing, and Exchange by Jillian Huntley Axe Quarrying, Production, and Exchange in Australia and New Guinea by Anne Ford and Peter Hiscock Shell Valuables and Exchange Systems in New Guinea by Kat Szab? Language Evolution and Spread by Patrick McConvell and Nick Evans Stone Tool Manufacture and Use by Chris Clarkson Mortars and Pestles Make the Mid-Holocene Occupation of New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago Visible by Pamela Swadling Pottery Exchange Systems in New Guinea by Glenn R. Summerhayes Coral Sea Cultural Interaction Sphere by Ian J. McNiven Maritime Coastal and Island Societies of Australia and New Guinea by Michael Rowland, Ben Shaw, and Sean Ulm Below the Sky, Above the Clouds: The Archaeology of the Australian High Country by Joanna Fresl?v and Russell Mullett The Archaeology of Social Transformation in the New Guinea Highlands by Dylan Gaffney and Tim Denham Beyond the Barriers: A New Model for the Settlement of Australian Deserts by Peter Veth, Jo McDonald, and Peter Hiscock Murray River Societies in Australia through the Lens of Bioarchaeology by Judith Littleton, Sarah Karstens, and Harry Allen Swamp and Delta Societies of the Papuan Gulf, Papua New Guinea by Chris Urwin, James W. Rhoads, and Joshua A. Bell Historisizing the "Dreaming": An Archaeological Perspective from Arid Australia by M. A. Smith Dugongs and Turtles as Kin: Relational Ontologies and Archaeological Perspectives on Ritualized Hunting by Coastal Indigenous Australians by Ian J. McNiven Rock Art Modification and its Ritualized and Relational Contexts by Liam M. Brady, R. G. Gunn, and Joakim Goldhahn Asian Traders and Macassan Trepangers by Daryl Wesley Whaling and Sealing in Nineteenth-Century Australia by Martin Gibbs and Lynette Russell Fatal Frontier: Temporal and Spatial Considerations of the Native Mounted Police and Colonial Violence Across Queensland by Lynley A. Wallis, Heather Burke, Bryce Barker, and Noelene Cole Missions and Reserves by Jeremy Ash The Archaeology of Agrarian Australia by Alistair Paterson Contact Rock Art by Jo McDonald, Ursula K. Frederick The Development (and Imagined Reinvention) of Australian Archaeology in the Twentieth Century by Chris Urwin and Matthew Spriggs Approaching Indigenous Archaeologies in Australia by Christopher Wilson Earth Mounding in the Western District of Victoria by Julian Dunn Flaked Stone Tools of Holocene Sahul: Case studies from Northern Australia and Papua New Guinea by Tim Ryan Maloney Plant Exploitation and Long-Term Cultural Change in Sahul: The Archaeobotanical Perspective by Stephanie Florin and Andrew Fairbairn Stone-Walled Fish Traps of Australia and New Guinea as Expressions of Enhanced Sociality by Ian J. McNiven and Ariana B. J. Lambrides
