Themes in the archaeology of mid-to-late Holocene Australia

Abstract

[Extract] It has been twenty years since Harry Lourandos (1983) published an influential paper promoting a radical re-orientation in our approaches to understanding the recent Australian archaeological past. Lourandos' work inspired a generation of scholars to challenge prevailing frameworks which encouraged a more static view of the Aboriginal past, instead promoting internal social factors as the primary agent of cultural change. Over the last two decades, an enormous body of field research, aided by developments and refinements in technical methods, has exponentially expanded our knowledge of the human story in Australia. In this paper, I review and reflect on current directions in Australian archaeology and the theoretical and methodological hurdles that constrain our understandings of Holocene Australia.