商品簡介
Australian archaeology has been involved in a great enterprise over the last sixty years, uncovering the deep past of a desert continent and the history of its first people. This book is a guide to the catchphrases of the discipline. It is a meditation on science and place, culture and politics, deep time and the Dreaming - and it is steeped in an appreciation of good writing and a well-turned phrase. Woven in amongst these quotations is the story of how, as a nation, we are coming to terms with ancient Australia. The entries are drawn from letters and journals, histories and poems, newspapers and novels. Each has been chosen because it is a pithy summation of an issue. Combined, they map the development of the field and encourage a dialogue between science and the humanities. Mike Smith AM is a veteran desert archaeologist who learnt his trade in Australian archaeology's 'decades of discovery'. He is an emeritus research fellow at the National Museum of Australia and the author of The Archaeology of Australia's Deserts (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Billy Griffiths is a Sydney-based writer and historian. He is the author of The China Breakthrough: Whitlam in the Middle Kingdom, 1971 (Monash University Publishing, 2012).