Book reviews

Australian Archaeology Book Reviews

Review of books listed below are published in the journal Australian Archaeology. Reviews are reproduced here with permission of the Australian Archaeological Association Inc. (the publisher). Click on link for books of interest to link to the published review and other details. AAA receives a small commission for books purchased by following the amazon.com links provided for each book below.

Search by volume:
VolumeMore informationReview
O'Connell, J.F.

Book review: The Great Kartan Mystery by Ronald Lampert

97-100
Murray, Tim

Book review: Australian Pioneer Technology: Sites and Relics by Judy Birmingham,, R. Ian Jack and Dennis Jeans

129-133
Harris, David

Book review: Archaeological Research in Kakadu National Park by Rhys Jones (ed.)

75-78
Frankel, David

Book review: The Archaeology of Western Iran: Settlement and Society from Prehistory to the Islamic Conquest by F. Hole (ed.)

79-80
Allen, Harry

Book review: Archaeology with Ethnography: An Australian Perspective by Betty Meehan and Rhys Jones (eds)

80-81
Frankel, David

Book review: Bulletin of the Institute of Archaeology Volume 24 by the Institute of Archaeology

81-82
Yesner, David

Book review: Man on the Rim: The Peopling of the Pacific by Alan Thorne and Robert Raymond

82-83
Baker, Neville

Book review: Hunters in Transition: Mesolithic Societies of Temperate Eurasia and Their Transition to Farming by M. Zvelebil (ed.)

83-84
Boyd, Bill

Book review: Plants in Australian Archaeology by W. Beck, A. Clarke and L. Head (eds)

97-99
Spriggs, Matthew

Book review: The Archaeology of Contextual Meanings by Ian Hodder (ed.) and Archaeology as Long-Term History by Ian Hodder (ed.)

99-104
Wakelin-King, Zoe

Book review: African Civilizations - Pre-Colonial Cities and States in Tropical Africa: An Archaeological Perspective by Graham Connah

104-105
Davidson, Iain and William Noble

Book review: What is an Animal? by Tim Ingold (ed.)

105-108
Skates, Anne

Book review: Our People Series by various authors

107-108
Sales, Kim

Book review: The Rock Paintings of Arnhem Land, Australia: Social, Ecological and Material Culture Change in the Post-Glacial Period by Darrel Lewis

109-111
Lampert, R.J.

Book review: Records in Stone: Papers in Memory of Alexander Thom by C.L.N. Ruggles

111-112
Gosden, Chris

Book review: Social Theory and Archaeology by M. Shanks and C. Tilley

69-70
Murray, Tim

Book review: Documentary Archaeology in the New World by Mary C. Beaudry

71-73
Smith, Moya

Book review: Marine Molluscan Remains from Franchthi Cave by Judith C. Shackleton

73-75
Bednarik, Robert G.

Book review: The Uses of Style in Archaeology by Margaret W. Conkey and Christine A. Hastorf

75-76
Lampert, R.J.

Book review: Prehistory and Heritage: The Writings of John Mulvaney by D.J. Mulvaney

76-77
Corkill, Tessa

Book review: The New Archaeology and Aftermath: A View From Outside the Anglo-American World by K. Paddayya

71-72
White, J. Peter

Book review: Pacific Production Systems. Approaches to Economic Prehistory by D.E. Yen and J.M.J. Mummery

72-73
Witter, Dan

Book review: Time, Energy, and Stone Tools by Robin Torrence

73-75
Lawrence Cheney, Susan

Book review: A Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture by R. Apperly, R. Irving and P. Reynolds

63-64
Smith, Tony

Book review: First Light by Peter Ackroyd and Motherland by Timothy O'Grady

64-65
Lampert, Ron

Book review: Nomads in Archaeology by Roger Cribb

65-66
Rainbird, Paul

Book review: The Domestication of Europe by Ian Hodder

66-67
Specht, Jim

Book review: Lapita Design, Form and Composition: Proceedings of the Lapita Design Workshop, Canberra by Matthew Spriggs

67-70
Chippindale, Christopher

Book review: Rock Art and Posterity: Conserving, Managing and Recording Rock Art by Colin Pearson and B.K. Swartz Jr. and Conserving Australian Rock Art: A Manual for Site Managers by David Lambert

70-71
Pardoe, Colin

Book review: Quantifying Diversity in Archaeology by Robert D. Leonard and George T. Jones (eds)

72-73
Stuart, Iain

Book review: Maritime Archaeology: A Technical Handbook by J. Green

73-75
Ross, Anne

Book review: Remains To Be Seen: Archaeological Insights into Australian Prehistory by David Frankel

75-76
Habgood, Phillip J.

Book review: The Willandra Lakes Hominids by S.G. Webb and Coobool Creek. A Morphological and Metrical Analysis of the Crania, Mandibles and Dentition of a Prehistoric Australian Human Population by Peter Brown

66-69
Smithers, Scott

Book review: The Cainozoic in Australia: A Reappraisal of the Evidence by M.A.J. Williams, P. De Deckker and A.P. Kershaw (eds) and Lessons For Human Survival: Nature's Record from the Quaternary by Paul Bishop (ed.)

70-72
Smith, Claire

Book review: Australian Rock Art: A New Synthesis by Robert Layton

72-73
Flannery, Tim

Book review: Ancestors for the Pigs: Taxonomy and Phylogeny of the Genus Sus by Colin Groves

73-74
Megaw, M. Ruth

Book review: The Northern Barbarians 100BC-AD300 by Malcolm Todd

74
Bowdler, Sandra

Book review: The Naive Lands: Prehistory and Environmental Change in Australia and the South-West Pacific by John Dodson (ed.)

67
Bowdler, Sandra

Book review: Recovering the Tracks: The Story of Australian Archaeology by David Horton

68
Lilley, Ian

Book review: The Origins of Hereditary Social Stratification by Malcolm McKay

69-70
Thorley, Peter

Book review: Dingo Makes Us Human by Deborah Bird Rose

70-71
Schwede, Madge

Book review: Between Plateau and Plain by June Anderson

72
Beck, Wendy

Book review: The Riches of Ancient Australia by Josephine Flood

72-73
Veth, Peter

Book review: Sites and Bytes: Recording Aboriginal Places in Australia by Josephine Flood, Ian Johnson and Sharon Sullivan (eds)

73-74
Bednarik, Robert G.

Book review: An Analysis of Ice Age Art. Its Psychology and Belief System by Noel W. Smith

74
Lampert, Ron

Book review: Pitt Rivers. The Life and Archaeological Work of Lieutenant-General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers, DCL FRS FSA by Mark Bowden

64-65
Holdaway, Simon

Book review: Invitation to Archaeology by Philip Rahtz

65-66
Marshall, Brendan

Book review: Prodigious Birds. Moas and Moa-Hunting in Prehistoric New Zealand by Atholl Anderson

66-68
Cameron, David

Book review: Owls, Caves and Fossils: Predation, Preservation and Accumulation of Small Mammal Bones in Caves, with an Analysis of the Pleistocene Cave Faunas from Westbury-Sub-Mendip, Somerset, United Kingdom by Peter J. Andrews

68-69
Franklin, Natalie

Book review: The Rock Paintings of Arnhem Land, Australia: Social, Ecological and Material Culture Change in the Post-Glacial Period by Darrell Lewis

69-71
Cameron, David

Book review: The History and Archaeology of the Sydney Cove Shipwreck (1797): A Resource for Future Work by Shirley Strachan

71-72
Head, Lesley

Book review: Burning Bush. A Fire History of Australia by Stephen J. Pyne

72
Summerhayes, Glenn R.

Book review: Archaeological Typology and Practical Reality: A Dialectical Approach to Artifact Classification and Sorting by W.Y. Adams and E.W. Adams

69
Gorecki, Paul

Book review: Catalogue of the Roth Collection of the Aboriginal Artefacts from North Queensland, Vol. 1 by Kate Khan

69-70
Attenbrow, Val

Book review: Blue Mountains Dreaming. The Aboriginal Heritage by Eugene Stockton

70-71
David, Bruno

Book review: Reading Material Culture: Structuralism, Hermeneutics and Post-Structuralism by Christopher Tilley (ed.)

71
Attenbrow, Val

Book review: The Archaeology of the Angophora Reserve Rock Shelter by Josephine McDonald

59-61
White, J. Peter

Book review: Archaeology of a Coastal Exchange System: Sites and Ceramics of the Papuan Gulf by David Frankel and James W. Rhoads

61
Lance, Allan

Book review: What is Archaeology? An Essay on the Nature of Archaeological Research by Paul Courbin

62-63
David, Bruno

Book review: Quinkan Prehistory: The Archaeology of Aboriginal Art in S.E. Cape York Peninsula, Australia by M.J. Morwood and D.R. Hobbs (eds)

63-64
David, Bruno

Book review: Re-Constructing Archaeology: Theory and Practice by Michael Shanks and Christopher Tilley

69-70
Simmons, Alexy

Book review: Women in Archaeology: A Feminist Critique by Hilary du Cros and Laurajane Smith (eds)

70-71
Viel, Rene and Jay Hall

Book review: Scribes, Warriors and Kings, the City of Copán and the Ancient Maya by William L. Fash

71-72
Morwood, M.J.

Book review: Bradshaws: Ancient Paintings of Northwest Australia by Grahame L. Walsh

47-48
Smith, Claire

Book review: First in Their Field: Women and Australian Anthropology by Julie Marcus (ed.)

48-49
Balme, Jane

Book review: The Illustrated History of Humankind by Goran Burenhult (ed.)

49-51
Moser, Stephanie

Book review: Gendered Archaeology by Jane Balme and Wendy Beck (eds)

51-52
Smith, Laurajane

Book review: Archaeological Theory: Who Sets the Agenda? by Norman Yoffee and Andrew Sherratt (eds)

52-53
Rich, Elizabeth

Book review: Weipa Shell Mounds: Cultural or Natural Deposits? by Geoff Bailey

53
Knuckey, Graham

Book review: Palaeopathology of Aboriginal Australians: Health and Disease Across a Hunter-Gatherer Continent by Stephen Webb

53-56
Veth, Peter

Book review: Abandonments of Settlements and Regions: Ethnoarchaeological and Archaeological Approaches by S.M. Cameron and S.A. Tomka (eds)

56-58
Smith, Mike

Book review: Marki Alonia: An Early and Middle Bronze Age Town in Cyprus - Excavations 1990-1994 by David Frankel and Jennifer M. Webb

58
Bowdler, Sandra

Book review: Transitions: Pleistocene to Holocene in Australia and Papua New Guinea by Jim Allen and J.F. O'Connell (eds)

69-70
Barker, Bryce

Book review: Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: A Reader by R.W. Preucel and I. Hodder (eds)

70-71
Beck, Wendy

Book review: Bushfires and Bushtucker: Aboriginal Plant Use in Central Australia by Peter Latz

71
Field, Judith

Book review: The Illusion of Riches: Scale, Resolution and Exploration in Tasmanian Pleistocene Human Behaviour by Richard Cosgrove

71-72
Strang, Veronica

Book review: Returning to Nothing: The Meaning of Lost Places by Peter Read

72-73
Theunissen, Robert

Book review: The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia by Charles Highman

73-74
Wellfare, Sharon

Book review: Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander History, Society and Culture by D. Horton

74-75
Gargett, Robert H.

Book review: Tracks, Scats and Other Traces: A Field Guide to Australian Mammals by Barbara Triggs

75-76
MacDonald, Katrina

Book review: Flintknapping: Making and Using Stone Tools (Second Edition) by John C. Whittaker

76
Cole, Noelene

Book review: Rock Art and Ethnography: Proceedings of the Ethnography Symposium, Australian Rock Art Research Association Congress, Darwin 1988 by M.J. Morwood and D.R. Hobbs (eds)

65
David, Bruno

Book review: Style, Society and Person: Archaeological and Ethnological Perspectives by Christopher Carr and Jill E. Neitzel (eds)

65-66
McNiven, Ian

Book review: Continent of Hunter-Gatherers: New Perspectives in Australian Prehistory by Harry Lourandos

66-67
Mitchell, Catherine

Book review: The Prehistory of the Mind: A Search for the Origins of Art, Religion and Science by Steven Mithen

67-68
Pate, F. Donald

Book review: Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology (Second Edition) by Kenneth L. Feder

68-69
Smith, Mike

Book review: Hunters and Collectors: The Antiquarian Imagination in Australia by Tom Griffiths

69-70
Ulm, Sean

Book review: Kakadu: Natural and Cultural Heritage and Management by Tony Press, David Lea, Ann Webb and Alistair Graham (eds)

70-72
Vail, Gabrielle

Book review: Cycles of the Sun, Mysteries of the Moon: The Calender of Mesoamerican Civilization by Vincent H. Malmström

72
White, J. Peter

Book review: Explorations into Highland New Guinea by Michael J. Leahy

72-73
Veth, Peter

Book review: Australian Archaeology 95: Proceedings of the 1995 Australian Archaeological Association Annual Conference by Sean Ulm, Ian Lilley and Anne Ross (eds)

73-76
Thomas, Annie

Book review: Rock Art of the Dreamtime: Images of Ancient Australia by Josephine Flood

76
Burke, Heather

Book review: The Discovery of the Past: The Origins of Archaeology by Alain Schnapp

54
Lydon, Jane

Book review: The Rocks: Life in Early Sydney by Grace Karskens

54-56
Fletcher, Roland

Book review: Virtual Archaeology: Re-Creating Ancient Worlds by Maurizio Forte and Alberto Siliotti (eds)

56-57
Grave, Peter

Book review: Investigating Olduvai: Archaeology of Human Origins by Jeanne Sept

57-58
Gargett, Robert H.

Book review: American Beginnings: The Prehistory and Palaeoecology of Beringia by Frederick Hadleigh West (ed.)

58-59
MacDonald, Katrina

Book review: Adventures in Fugawiland: A Computer Simulation in Archaeology (Second Edition) by T. Douglas Price and Anne Birgette Gebauer

59-60
Morphy, Howard

Book review: Human Evolution, Language and Mind: A Psychological and Archaeological Enquiry by William Noble and Iain Davidson

60-61
Beck, Wendy

Book review: Uncommon Ground: Cultural Landscapes and Environmental Values by Veronica Strang

71
Conroy, Linda

Book review: Beyond Art: Pleistocene Image and Symbol by Margaret W. Conkey, Olga Soffer, Deborah Stratmann and Nina G. Jablonski (eds)

71-73
Knight, James

Book review: Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin: A Word That Is, Was and Will Be by Diane Bell

73-75
Lilley, Ian

Book review: Archaeology and Linguistics: Aboriginal Australia in Global Perspective by P. McConvell and N. Evans (eds)

75-76
Ross, June

Book review: Exploring Central Australia: Society, the Environment and the 1984 Horn Expedition by S.R. Morton and D.J. Mulvaney (eds)

59-60
Veth, Peter

Book review: The Archaeology of Whaling in Southern Australia and New Zealand by S. Lawrence and M. Staniforth (eds)

60-61
Pate, F. Donald

Book review: Quaternary Environments by M.A.J. Williams, A.P. Kershaw and T. Stokes

61-62
Gargett, Robert H.

Book review: Geoarchaeology: The Earth-Science Approach to Archaeological Interpretation by George (Rip) Rapp Jr. and Christopher L. Hill

62-64
David, Bruno

Book review: Bruising the Red Earth: Ochre Mining and Ritual in Aboriginal Tasmania by Antonio Sagona (ed.)

64-65
Walmsley, Jim

Book review: The City in Time and Space by Aidan Southall

70-71
Taçon, Paul S.C.

Book review: At a Crossroads: Archaeology and First Peoples in Canada by George P. Nicholas and Thomas D. Andrews

71
Allen, Harry

Book review: Second Nature: The History and Implications of Australia as Aboriginal Landscape by Lesley Head

74
Pate, F. Donald

Book review: Quaternary Environments (Second Edition) by Martin Williams, David Dunkerley, Patrick De Deckker, Peter Kershaw and John Chappell

74-76
Bedford, Stuart

Book review: On the Road of the Winds: An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands Before European Contact by Patrick V. Kirch

67-69
Rawson, Mark

Book review: Aboriginal Archaeological Investigations in the Barwon Drainage Basin by Thomas Richards and Joanne Jordan

69-70
Stankowski, Katrina

Book review: Excavating Women: A History of Women in European Archaeology by Margarite Diaz-Andreu and Marie Louise Stig Sorensen (eds)

71-72
Weeks, Lloyd

Book review: Index of Dates from Archaeological Sites in Queensland by Sean Ulm and Jill Reid

56-57
Roberts, Amy

Book review: Anthropology and Archaeology: A Changing Relationship by Christopher Gosden

57-58
McDonald, Jo

Book review: The Archaeology of Difference: Negotiating Cross-Cultural Engagements in Oceania by Robin Torrence and Anne Clarke (eds)

65-66
Chippindale, Christopher

Book review: Altered States: Material Culture Transformations in the Arafura Region by Clayton Fredricksen and Ian Walters (eds)

66-67
Smith, Mike

Book review: Faunal Extinction in an Island Society: Pygmy Hippopotamus Hunters of Cyprus by Alan H. Simmons and Associates with a foreword by G.A. Clark

67-68
Owen, Tim

Book review: Environmental Archaeology: Principles and Practice by Dena Dincauze

68-69
Paterson, Alistair

Book review: Native Title and the Transformation of Archaeology in the Postcolonial World by Ian Lilley (ed.)

69
Chippindale, Christopher

Book review: Australian Rainforests: Islands of Green in a Land of Fire by David Bowman

49-50
Marwick, Ben

Book review: A Dictionary of Archaeology by Ian Shaw and Robert Jameson (eds)

50
Rainbird, Paul

Book review: The Fourth Lapita Conference, June 2000, Canberra, Australia by G.R. Clark, A.J. Anderson and T. Vunidilo (eds)

51
Smith, Anita

Book review: Conservation of Earth Structures by John Warren

51-53
Smith, Pamela A.

Book review: Gwion Gwion: Secret and Sacred Pathways of the Ngarinyin Aboriginal People of Australia by Ngarjno, Ungudman, Banggal and Nyawarra; Jeff Doring (ed.)

53-54
Sweet, Jonathan

Book review: Lacquer: Technology and Conservation. A Comprehensive Guide to the Technology and Conservation of Asian and European Lacquer by Marianne Webb

54-55
Taçon, Paul

Book review: Rock Art Science: The Scientific Study of Palaeoart by Robert Bednarik

55-56
Veth, Peter

Book review: Nhanda Villages of the Victoria District, Western Australia by Rupert Gerritsen

57-58
Griffin, Darren

Book review: The Languages of Archaeology: Dialogue, Narrative, and Writing by Joyce Rosemary

60
McNiven, Ian J.

Book review: Uncovering Australia: Archaeology, Indigenous People and the Public by Sarah Colley

61
Ross, Annie

Book review: An Annotated Bibliography of Theses in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies at the University of Queensland, 1948-2000 by Sean Ulm, Anna Shnukal and Catherine Westcott

62
Smith, Mike

Book review: The Archaeology of Drylands: Living at the Margin by Graeme Barker and David Gilbertson (eds)

62-63
Williams, Martin

Book review: East of Wallace's Line. Studies of Past and Present Maritime Cultures of the Indo-Pacific Region by Sue O'Connor and Peter Veth (eds)

63-64
Bowdler, Sandra

Book review: East of Wallace's Line: Studies of Past and Present Maritime Cultures of the Indo-Pacific Region by Sue O'Connor and Peter Veth (eds)

47
Wilson, Meredith

Book review: Visions from the Past: The Archaeology of Australian Aboriginal Art by M.J. Morwood

47-48
Harrison, Rodney

Book review: Archaeologies of Memory by Ruth M. Van Dyke and Susan E. Alcock (eds)

48-51
Murray, Tim

Book review: Thinking from Things: Essays in the Philosophy of Archaeology by Alison Wylie

51
Birmingham, Judy

Book review: After Captain Cook: The Archaeology of the Recent Indigenous Past in Australia by Rodney Harrison and Christine Williamson (eds)

52
Bowdler, Sandra

Book review: The Fabrication of Aboriginal History: Van Diemen's Land 1803-1847 by Keith Windschuttle

69-70
Ireland, Tracy

Book review: Much More than Stones and Bones: Australian Archaeology in the Late Twentieth Century by Hilary du Cros

70-71
Megaw, Vincent

Book review: Treasures of the Nicholson Museum the University of Sydney by D.T. Potts and K.N. Sowada (eds)

72-73
Bulbeck, David

Book review: The Incas by Terence N. D'Altroy

76
Cole, Noelene

Book review: Colouring the Past: The Significance of Colour in Archaeological Research by Andrew Jones and Gavin MacGregor (eds)

76-78
Crowther, Alison

Book review: A Pacific Odyssey: Archaeology and Anthropology in the Western Pacific. Papers in Honour of Jim Specht by V. Attenbrow and R. Fullagar (eds)

78-79
Harrison, Rodney

Book review: Archaeology and Colonialism: Cultural Contact from 5000BC to the Present by Chris Gosden and The Archeology of the Colonized by Michael Given: Review essay: Archaeologies of Colonialism

79-81
McNiven, Ian

Book review: Hunter-Gatherers in History, Archaeology and Anthropology by Alan Barnard

81-82
Pate, F. Donald

Book review: Constructing Frames of Reference: An Analytical Method for Archaeological Theory Building Using Ethnographic and Environmental Data Sets by Lewis R. Binford

82-83
Struwe, R