An Overview of Australian Archaeology: a near surface guide Near Surface keynote paper

Abstract

As a topic 'Australian archaeology' is immensely vast and covers close to 60,000 years of history with initial colonisation by the ancestors of Aboriginal Australians through to the maritime and industrial archaeology of more recent immigrants. During this keynote I will delve into the history and prehistory of Western Australia as evidenced through the results of exiting new research projects ranging from the enigmatic rock art of the Kimberley through the Pleistocene use of dusty caves in the Pilbara to the shipwrecks in the depths of the Roaring Forties.