The Australian Archaeologist's Book of Quotations
The Australian Archaeologist's Book of Quotations
ISBN10 1922235741 ISBN13 9781922235749
Blurb
"Australian archaeology has been involved in a great enterprise over the last sixty years, uncovering the deep past of a desert continent and the history of its first people. This book is a guide to the catchphrases of the discipline. It is a meditation on science and place, culture and politics, deep time and the Dreaming – and it is steeped in an appreciation of good writing and a well-turned phrase. Woven in amongst these quotations is the story of how, as a nation, we are coming to terms with ancient Australia.
The entries are drawn from letters and journals, histories and poems, newspapers and novels. Each has been chosen because it is a pithy summation of an issue. Combined, they map the development of the field and encourage a dialogue between science and the humanities.
ABOUT THE EDITORS
Mike Smith AM is a veteran desert archaeologist who learnt his trade in Australian archaeology’s ‘decades of discovery’. He is an emeritus research fellow at the National Museum of Australia and the author of The Archaeology of Australia’s Deserts (Cambridge University Press, 2013).
Billy Griffiths is a Sydney-based writer and historian. He is the author of The China Breakthrough: Whitlam in the Middle Kingdom, 1971 (Monash University Publishing, 2012)."
Review
This is a POP page.
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The book falling open at "Australian archaeology has in its ranks a high number of hypercritical individuals " (Josephine Flood) - raised expectations of a series excoriations of colleagues, which is fortunately not delivered. Rather the categories used: On Australian Prehistory; On the Practice of Archaeology and History; Chronology, Sequence and the Perception of Time; On space Landscapes and Climate Change; On Deserts in Particular; On Aboriginal Society and the Dreaming; On the Role of Fire; On the Politics of Prehistory, give a flavour of the scope.
There are not a few quotes that will appeal to any archaeologist, some not being derived in any way from Australia but relevant to the discipline. Many relate to the environment and ethnology of Australia and aspects of its early exploration. The authors are diverse, poets and politicians not excepted. A few of the archaeologists quoted have spanned the Tasman Sea in their careers. Archaeologists are included but it is not a book of quotations of archaeologists alone.
In an introduction one author notes that some who have made a significant contribution to Australian archaeology are not represented: "...not everyone writes in epigrams, and quality is not the same as quotability." The most frequently quoted are unsurprisingly Rhys Jones and John Mulvaney but then follows one of the authors - Mike Smith. Who best to know their own work?
No doubt a modicum of knowledge of the issues of Australian archaeology of the past 50 years will add to the reading experience, for the collection reprises those issues widely and entertainingly.
