Name: The Archaeology of Ancient Australia
ISBN: 9780415338110

Peter Hiscock

Peter Hiscock presents an introduction to the archaeology of Australia from prehistoric times to the 18th century AD.

The Archaeology of Ancient Australia

Jane Krauss

Reading this book was part of my Australian Archaeology unit for uni. Without looking at the material culture, it can be too easy to fall into the Darwinist view of primitive peoples. Few skeletons remain after such a long period, whereas material culture is often more commonly preserved.

A few things that I learnt about cultural variation visible in indigenous Australians' skeletal remains:
- Different forms of burial practices. 
- Thorne thought gracile people reached Australia more than 50,000 years ago, but the robust population arrived only 20,000–30,000 years ago, bringing ground stone axes with them. 
- Pleistocene axes are found only in the north, and robust skulls have been found only in the south of the continent

It was also beneficial for my end of semester essay.