Aspects of the historiography of Australian archaeology

Abstract

This article is a historiography, or critical review of the history, of Australian archaeology. It commences with a discussion of the two major regional histories of Australian archaeology, and a survey of the literature on the removal and scientific use of human remains. This is followed by an examination of the two major approaches to the history of Australian archaeology—individual and collective biography, and the use of specific archaeological sites or broader geographical regions—then three complementary but less used historical approaches. Finally, I offer suggestions for further research in the history of Australian archaeology.

The Collective Biography of Archaeology in the Pacific: Seven Years of the CBAP Project

“…The fifth aim was to re-discover the contribution of both French and German scholars to the early development of Pacific archaeology. Dotte-Sarout and Howes were recruited to pursue this objective and published extensively on it, including the proceedings of the conference held on Francophone approaches in 2016 (Dotte-Sarout et al 2020a, 2021b and papers therein) among other works (those cited in the previous paragraph by Howes, as well as Dotte-Sarout 2017& b, 2021bHowes 2020Howes , 2021aHowes , 2022c. Much of Douglas' work also researched early French (and Spanish) explorers and their contributions, particularly the edited volume on Bruni D'Entrecasteaux's collections and the papers therein as well as other contributions (Douglas 2017(Douglas , 2018f, 2020(Douglas , 2021(Douglas , 2022a(Douglas , 2023a.…”

“…Archaeological technologies and what they make possible in terms of new analyses and, importantly, when they make them possible are another such topic (Hayes et al 2023;Spriggs 2019b;Ward et al 2016). Wider theoretical developments in archaeology and in the historiography of archaeology have also been considered (Dotte-Sarout et al 2020b, 2021bDouglas 2023b; papers in the themed issue of History and Anthropology edited by Douglas and Ballard 2022a, persuasively situated in its introduction by Douglas and Ballard 2022b;Douglas and Di Rosa 2020;Howes 2021b;Howes and Spriggs 2019b; papers in the themed issue of World Archaeology edited by Tim Murray and Spriggs 2017a and their introduction, Murray and Spriggs 2017b;Spriggs 2018Spriggs , 2021c.…”