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Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia
Soon after Billy Griffiths joins his first archaeological dig as camp manager and cook, he is hooked. Equipped with a historian’s inquiring mind, he embarks on a journey through time, seeking to understand the extraordinary deep history of the Australian continent.
Deep Time Dreaming is the passionate product of that journey. In this original, important book, Griffiths investigates a twin revolution: the reassertion of Aboriginal identity in the second half of the twentieth century, and the simultaneous uncovering of the traces of ancient Australia by pioneering archaeologists.
Deep Time Dreaming is about a slow shift in national consciousness. It explores what it means to live in a place of great antiquity, with its complex questions of ownership and identity. It brings to life the deep time dreaming that has changed the way many Australians relate to their continent and its enduring, dynamic human history.
When John Mulvaney began his fieldwork in January 1956, it was widely believed that the first Australians had arrived on this continent only a few thousand years earlier. In the decades since, Australian history has been pushed back into the dizzying expanse of deep time. The human presence here has been revealed to be more ancient than that of Europe, and the Australian landscape, far from being terra nullius, is now recognised to be cultural as much as natural, imprinted with stories and law and shaped by the hands and firesticks of thousands of generations of Indigenous men and women. The New World has become the Old …
Deep Time Dreaming is the passionate product of that journey. In this original, important book, Griffiths investigates a twin revolution: the reassertion of Aboriginal identity in the second half of the twentieth century, and the simultaneous uncovering of the traces of ancient Australia by pioneering archaeologists.
Deep Time Dreaming is about a slow shift in national consciousness. It explores what it means to live in a place of great antiquity, with its complex questions of ownership and identity. It brings to life the deep time dreaming that has changed the way many Australians relate to their continent and its enduring, dynamic human history.
When John Mulvaney began his fieldwork in January 1956, it was widely believed that the first Australians had arrived on this continent only a few thousand years earlier. In the decades since, Australian history has been pushed back into the dizzying expanse of deep time. The human presence here has been revealed to be more ancient than that of Europe, and the Australian landscape, far from being terra nullius, is now recognised to be cultural as much as natural, imprinted with stories and law and shaped by the hands and firesticks of thousands of generations of Indigenous men and women. The New World has become the Old …
384 pages, Paperback
Published February 26, 2018
262 people are currently reading
1355 people want to read
About the author
Billy Griffiths
6 books9 followersDr Billy Griffiths is a historian and lecturer in Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies. His research engages with cultural heritage, Indigenous history, political history, archaeology and seascapes. His latest book, Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia, was awarded the Ernest Scott Prize, the John Mulvaney Book Award, the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction and 2019 Book of the Year at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
July 4, 2018
5★
“British archaeologist Christopher Chippindale reflected, ‘Does the history of humans in Australia . . . belong to the ethnic descendants of those first inhabitants? . . . Or is there some wider claim, of science and common human concern, to rights of access to relics of the past??’”
Fantastic resource! Science, history, anecdotes, politics – and at the base of it all is the world’s oldest continuing culture. Exactly how old keeps changing. I think we’re up to 65,000 years now for Australia’s Indigenous people. There was so much work done in the last 50 years that it’s hard to keep track, but the author does a great job of keeping us both informed and interested.
And guess what?
“. . . axes in Europe dated to about 8000 years ago.”
What? 8000 years? That’s not an old axe. THIS is an old axe.
“In 2017, another team pushed the date back . . . publishing the discovery of ground-edge axes in the lowest levels of a 65,000-year-old site at Madjedbebe.”
So who’s primitive now, eh? Old, yes. Primitive, well, yes, but more sophisticated than Europeans of the same era.
I arrived in Australia in 1968, and at that time, the 1967 referendum had only just been passed in an historic landslide YES vote with over 90% turnout:
“Do you approve the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled 'An Act to alter the Constitution so as to omit certain words relating to the people of the Aboriginal race in any state so that Aboriginals are to be counted in reckoning the population'?
Resoundingly YES!
Earlier, Griffiths tells us
“. . . anthropologist WEH Stanner described in 1938 . . .’a mass of solid indifference’ in Australian culture to Indigenous Australia. . . he coined the phrase ‘the great Australian silence.’”
Griffiths includes some politics, of course, and references to social history, but the main story is archaeological and cultural, which is what would have prompted the question at the beginning: Who owns the history?
He introduces us to many scientists, working at different times in different parts of the continent, but arriving at some similar conclusions. Indigenous Australians have been here for a long time, they lived in different nations, and they maintained networks between communities and nations for trade and commerce.
Isabel McBryde is arguably the mother of Australian archaeology. She began her work in 1960 in the New England region of NSW, thinking she’d be looking at only old relics, but “started seeing it as a living heritage, maintained through powerful connections to country, ‘preserved faithfully by a small community’ and ‘now the focus of a revival of interest in traditional culture and values.’”
Griffiths says her studies show “. . . a clear distinction between the societies that lived in the coastal river valleys and those the roamed the tablelands . . .over the last 9000 years. . . while Australia may be a continent, it is made up of many countries.”
So, then. Who does own the history? Who gives permission? Imagine a group of “foreigners” wandering into cathedrals and mosques and temples with their picks and trowels to unearth tombs and take the bones away in bags. Not likely.
In Arnhem Land, South African-born Carmel Schrire was helped in her digs by local people, but they gradually grew angry with her disturbing some sacred things. She wrote “Colonialism is a chronicle of betrayals.”
It sure is.
“. . . a film unit recorded a range of ethnographic activities in the Western and Central Deserts from 1964-1969, including stone knapping, burning regimes and restricted men’s business . . . with the firm assurance that the images would not return to the community. Gould made a similar verbal contract with the Ngaanyatjarra people.”
But Gould wrote a book and included 52 photos, assuming nobody in this remote community would ever see it.
Oops! Griffiths says he has condensed and simplified the story.
“On 16 May 1971 a Ngaanyatjarra schoolgirl returned to her home in Laverton with a copy of ‘Yiwara’. She had bought the book on a recent trip to Perth after recognising the woman on the front cover as a close relative. She showed the book to many women, but when her father saw it he became very angry. The book revealed information that was restricted to initiated men. By having it in her possession, there was concern the schoolgirl had breached customary law, and that she would be ritually speared for the transgression.”
I’m not sure what happened to her, but we know what other religions have done to transgressors, so we shouldn’t be surprised.
There’s far too much in this meaty book for me to discuss, but a few of the topics include uranium mining in the Northern Territory, the Franklin River campaign, the misrepresentation of Tasmanian Aborigines as “extinct” (or as Mark Twain once famously said, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”). In the case of Tasmania, by saying they are gone is to deny the current descendants their rights to native title and land claims.
I’ve not even touched the highlights of this important addition to the growing body of work about Australia’s geological and cultural history. You’d think there’d be more available, considering how many years we’ve had to look at it.
For academics, it's extremely thoroughly footnoted and referenced and has an index. Too easy!
Illustration of an Aboriginal Language map. (No two maps seem to spell the names the same, but all agree it's a big and varied continent.)
“British archaeologist Christopher Chippindale reflected, ‘Does the history of humans in Australia . . . belong to the ethnic descendants of those first inhabitants? . . . Or is there some wider claim, of science and common human concern, to rights of access to relics of the past??’”
Fantastic resource! Science, history, anecdotes, politics – and at the base of it all is the world’s oldest continuing culture. Exactly how old keeps changing. I think we’re up to 65,000 years now for Australia’s Indigenous people. There was so much work done in the last 50 years that it’s hard to keep track, but the author does a great job of keeping us both informed and interested.
And guess what?
“. . . axes in Europe dated to about 8000 years ago.”
What? 8000 years? That’s not an old axe. THIS is an old axe.
“In 2017, another team pushed the date back . . . publishing the discovery of ground-edge axes in the lowest levels of a 65,000-year-old site at Madjedbebe.”
So who’s primitive now, eh? Old, yes. Primitive, well, yes, but more sophisticated than Europeans of the same era.
I arrived in Australia in 1968, and at that time, the 1967 referendum had only just been passed in an historic landslide YES vote with over 90% turnout:
“Do you approve the proposed law for the alteration of the Constitution entitled 'An Act to alter the Constitution so as to omit certain words relating to the people of the Aboriginal race in any state so that Aboriginals are to be counted in reckoning the population'?
Resoundingly YES!
Earlier, Griffiths tells us
“. . . anthropologist WEH Stanner described in 1938 . . .’a mass of solid indifference’ in Australian culture to Indigenous Australia. . . he coined the phrase ‘the great Australian silence.’”
Griffiths includes some politics, of course, and references to social history, but the main story is archaeological and cultural, which is what would have prompted the question at the beginning: Who owns the history?
He introduces us to many scientists, working at different times in different parts of the continent, but arriving at some similar conclusions. Indigenous Australians have been here for a long time, they lived in different nations, and they maintained networks between communities and nations for trade and commerce.
Isabel McBryde is arguably the mother of Australian archaeology. She began her work in 1960 in the New England region of NSW, thinking she’d be looking at only old relics, but “started seeing it as a living heritage, maintained through powerful connections to country, ‘preserved faithfully by a small community’ and ‘now the focus of a revival of interest in traditional culture and values.’”
Griffiths says her studies show “. . . a clear distinction between the societies that lived in the coastal river valleys and those the roamed the tablelands . . .over the last 9000 years. . . while Australia may be a continent, it is made up of many countries.”
So, then. Who does own the history? Who gives permission? Imagine a group of “foreigners” wandering into cathedrals and mosques and temples with their picks and trowels to unearth tombs and take the bones away in bags. Not likely.
In Arnhem Land, South African-born Carmel Schrire was helped in her digs by local people, but they gradually grew angry with her disturbing some sacred things. She wrote “Colonialism is a chronicle of betrayals.”
It sure is.
“. . . a film unit recorded a range of ethnographic activities in the Western and Central Deserts from 1964-1969, including stone knapping, burning regimes and restricted men’s business . . . with the firm assurance that the images would not return to the community. Gould made a similar verbal contract with the Ngaanyatjarra people.”
But Gould wrote a book and included 52 photos, assuming nobody in this remote community would ever see it.
Oops! Griffiths says he has condensed and simplified the story.
“On 16 May 1971 a Ngaanyatjarra schoolgirl returned to her home in Laverton with a copy of ‘Yiwara’. She had bought the book on a recent trip to Perth after recognising the woman on the front cover as a close relative. She showed the book to many women, but when her father saw it he became very angry. The book revealed information that was restricted to initiated men. By having it in her possession, there was concern the schoolgirl had breached customary law, and that she would be ritually speared for the transgression.”
I’m not sure what happened to her, but we know what other religions have done to transgressors, so we shouldn’t be surprised.
There’s far too much in this meaty book for me to discuss, but a few of the topics include uranium mining in the Northern Territory, the Franklin River campaign, the misrepresentation of Tasmanian Aborigines as “extinct” (or as Mark Twain once famously said, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”). In the case of Tasmania, by saying they are gone is to deny the current descendants their rights to native title and land claims.
I’ve not even touched the highlights of this important addition to the growing body of work about Australia’s geological and cultural history. You’d think there’d be more available, considering how many years we’ve had to look at it.
For academics, it's extremely thoroughly footnoted and referenced and has an index. Too easy!
Illustration of an Aboriginal Language map. (No two maps seem to spell the names the same, but all agree it's a big and varied continent.)
March 25, 2023
My archaeological reading in the past has been purely British and for that I can thank my dad who left me a library of his books on the subject. That was later boosted with regular watching’s of Time Team, a popular show here in Australia back in the day. I also eventually devoured the works of Francis Prior after a visit to Flag Fen when making a visit to the UK many years back.
No complaints, but this book has made me realise that I have missed reading about what has happened in Australia and how as a nation archaeology has had a huge impact in terms of both the cultural and political understanding of both the past and the present.
The only negatives I have taken from Billy Griffiths very good history are two. The Epilogue was written for the release in 2018, a mere nanosecond in the scheme of things when it concerns the passing of archaeological time, but a lifetime in changes to the thoughts on the culture and history of a nation. With such deep research and reading of many texts on the subject, as shown in the superb end notes, that a bibliography would have been extremely useful to the likes of me that would be more than willing to read further on this enthralling subject.
But let’s put those minor gripes aside because this has been a fascinating read for me personally, and I would add that I would fail to understand how it could not be for anyone with a modicum of interest in understanding the history of Australia’s deep past via archaeological research.
It could be said that there has been a slow change in national consciousness concerning Australian History. The convict past of white Australia was very much put to the back of that consciousness due to a national embarrassment that British colonisation of the continent was via the transport of the so-called dregs of that nation, with this criminal class being the backbone of so-called modern development. As to what came before, there was seemingly a rejection that the original inhabitants could have had any kind of history at all. Vere Gordon Childe wrote in 1957 ‘I’m sure it’s something worth studying and preserving…..particularly the “Aboriginal” Rock pictures’ but there were but 3 or 4 people working in the field with next to no training nor adequate resources back then.
Things changed slowly from the coming of John Mulvaney who had been in Britain in WW2 and had immersed himself in ancient cathedrals and castles. On return, he took an interest in archaeology and his contributions to small diggings back in the mid 1950’s have led to larger archaeological works and the resources required that at present are striving to give an understanding of this ancient land's Deep Time and, as the title says, it's dreaming via the first nations' knowledge of antiquity.
One event that took my particular attention was Chapter Eight, "You Have Entered Aboriginal Land”.
I have youthful memories of the controversy that was the attempt by the Tasmanian state government to dam the Gordon below Franklin River in the early 1980s. It has been said that that controversy was part of the reason why the then Federal Government lost the election in 1983. In a high court decision of great significance, the archaeological work that had been done at both Kutikina Cave and Deena Reena Cave were deemed to show that to inundate these would have been in breach of Australia’s obligations under the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act. One judge stated that ‘Parliament was entitled to act…..to preserve the material evidence of the history and culture of the Tasmanian Aboriginals.’ After a Tasmanian Hydro-Electric official stated he saw no good reason to keep the caves, ‘What good does it do to anyone?’ he said. John Mulvaney was aghast that after 3 decades of working in the field there was still a lack of understanding as to what archaeology could achieve in the way of cross-cultural understanding, cultural pride, and local, national and global narratives. Indeed.
A very easy to read book that has been well researched, and I can but do no more than highly recommend to anyone with an interest in Archaeology.
No complaints, but this book has made me realise that I have missed reading about what has happened in Australia and how as a nation archaeology has had a huge impact in terms of both the cultural and political understanding of both the past and the present.
The only negatives I have taken from Billy Griffiths very good history are two. The Epilogue was written for the release in 2018, a mere nanosecond in the scheme of things when it concerns the passing of archaeological time, but a lifetime in changes to the thoughts on the culture and history of a nation. With such deep research and reading of many texts on the subject, as shown in the superb end notes, that a bibliography would have been extremely useful to the likes of me that would be more than willing to read further on this enthralling subject.
But let’s put those minor gripes aside because this has been a fascinating read for me personally, and I would add that I would fail to understand how it could not be for anyone with a modicum of interest in understanding the history of Australia’s deep past via archaeological research.
It could be said that there has been a slow change in national consciousness concerning Australian History. The convict past of white Australia was very much put to the back of that consciousness due to a national embarrassment that British colonisation of the continent was via the transport of the so-called dregs of that nation, with this criminal class being the backbone of so-called modern development. As to what came before, there was seemingly a rejection that the original inhabitants could have had any kind of history at all. Vere Gordon Childe wrote in 1957 ‘I’m sure it’s something worth studying and preserving…..particularly the “Aboriginal” Rock pictures’ but there were but 3 or 4 people working in the field with next to no training nor adequate resources back then.
Things changed slowly from the coming of John Mulvaney who had been in Britain in WW2 and had immersed himself in ancient cathedrals and castles. On return, he took an interest in archaeology and his contributions to small diggings back in the mid 1950’s have led to larger archaeological works and the resources required that at present are striving to give an understanding of this ancient land's Deep Time and, as the title says, it's dreaming via the first nations' knowledge of antiquity.
One event that took my particular attention was Chapter Eight, "You Have Entered Aboriginal Land”.
I have youthful memories of the controversy that was the attempt by the Tasmanian state government to dam the Gordon below Franklin River in the early 1980s. It has been said that that controversy was part of the reason why the then Federal Government lost the election in 1983. In a high court decision of great significance, the archaeological work that had been done at both Kutikina Cave and Deena Reena Cave were deemed to show that to inundate these would have been in breach of Australia’s obligations under the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act. One judge stated that ‘Parliament was entitled to act…..to preserve the material evidence of the history and culture of the Tasmanian Aboriginals.’ After a Tasmanian Hydro-Electric official stated he saw no good reason to keep the caves, ‘What good does it do to anyone?’ he said. John Mulvaney was aghast that after 3 decades of working in the field there was still a lack of understanding as to what archaeology could achieve in the way of cross-cultural understanding, cultural pride, and local, national and global narratives. Indeed.
A very easy to read book that has been well researched, and I can but do no more than highly recommend to anyone with an interest in Archaeology.
May 5, 2018
Mark McKenna wrote "‘Once every generation a book comes along that marks the emergence of a powerful new literary voice and shifts our understanding of the nation’s past. Deep Time Dreaming is one such book. Read it: it will change the way you see Australian history.’
That sums it up really. Billy Griffiths' book charts the gradual change in perception of Australia's archaeological past, from the days of "Australia has no archaeology to speak of" to the more recent acceptance that people have been living on this continent continuously for at least 45,000, maybe 60,000 years. The dates are mind-boggling when you start to compare them to, say, Stonehenge, or ancient Greece.
But the author goes beyond just describing the details of the archaeological discoveries, to explore the many fascinating personalities involved over the years (many of them women). He also traces the gradual shift in attitude away from seeing Aboriginal people as subjects to be studied, to involving them, and then to acknowledging their right to be consulted in archaeological discoveries. The politics of archaeology, and the impact of archaeology on the wider political scene are also described and discussed.
Griffiths writes well, and the book is both easy to read and yet satisfying. He makes a strong plea for seeing the past 200 years as "a shallow stratum in a richly layered Indigenous place." Not as a means of questioning the legitimacy of the present society, but as a way of taking a long view of the natural and cultural history of Australia. Aboriginal societies have survived periods of massive climate change in the distant past, as well as the impact of cultural change in the more recent past. We all have much to gain by learning more about the deep history of the land in which we live.
That sums it up really. Billy Griffiths' book charts the gradual change in perception of Australia's archaeological past, from the days of "Australia has no archaeology to speak of" to the more recent acceptance that people have been living on this continent continuously for at least 45,000, maybe 60,000 years. The dates are mind-boggling when you start to compare them to, say, Stonehenge, or ancient Greece.
But the author goes beyond just describing the details of the archaeological discoveries, to explore the many fascinating personalities involved over the years (many of them women). He also traces the gradual shift in attitude away from seeing Aboriginal people as subjects to be studied, to involving them, and then to acknowledging their right to be consulted in archaeological discoveries. The politics of archaeology, and the impact of archaeology on the wider political scene are also described and discussed.
Griffiths writes well, and the book is both easy to read and yet satisfying. He makes a strong plea for seeing the past 200 years as "a shallow stratum in a richly layered Indigenous place." Not as a means of questioning the legitimacy of the present society, but as a way of taking a long view of the natural and cultural history of Australia. Aboriginal societies have survived periods of massive climate change in the distant past, as well as the impact of cultural change in the more recent past. We all have much to gain by learning more about the deep history of the land in which we live.
March 11, 2018
Billy Griffith's account of the history of Australian archeology and of its intersection with Australia's Aboriginal peoples is easy to read though scholarly and detailed. The 60,000 year deep time of Australia's human history has been revealed in the western sense by archeologists. The Aboriginal people whose history this is and their relationship with the western 'discovery' of that 60,000 is told mostly chronologically starting in 1957 with John Mulvaney. I appreciated Billy's coverage of the women who have added to the archeological record, though they were rarely the 'cowboys' who garnered headlines. I also appreciated his coverage of the, at times, uneasy relationship between archeologists and Aboriginal people of today whose heritage is the subject being studied. But most impactful or all, was the steadily increasing appreciation of just what deep time is in terms of the amazing past of Australia's many Aboriginal cultures.
His book complements that written by his father Tom Griffiths "The art of time travel: historians and their craft". That book seemed to miss some of the western players that Billy covers well.
I do hope Billy writes many more books, fronts TV series, or does whatever it takes to communicate his message more widely.
His book complements that written by his father Tom Griffiths "The art of time travel: historians and their craft". That book seemed to miss some of the western players that Billy covers well.
I do hope Billy writes many more books, fronts TV series, or does whatever it takes to communicate his message more widely.
March 25, 2018
Excellent. Beautifully written history of modern archaeology in Australia, as it relates to the study of Aboriginal Australia. A fascinating look at how we know what we know and how indigenous culture, techniques and tools changed as their natural and social environment did (such as building major huts, farming crops, fish and eels, managing land via fire etc) as well as debates over the date of their arrival (around 60'000 years at best estimate) and much more.
The book also gives personality sketches of some of the major figures in archaeology in Australia, how they thought about their methods and discipline, and the creative tension that emerges from their relationship with indigenous Australians. Both the role some took as advocates of more rights, recognition and respect for the Aborigines, but also how the late 20th century re-assertion of aboriginal culture and identity has sometimes worked at cross-purposes to those of scientific study.
Recommended.
The book also gives personality sketches of some of the major figures in archaeology in Australia, how they thought about their methods and discipline, and the creative tension that emerges from their relationship with indigenous Australians. Both the role some took as advocates of more rights, recognition and respect for the Aborigines, but also how the late 20th century re-assertion of aboriginal culture and identity has sometimes worked at cross-purposes to those of scientific study.
Recommended.
October 3, 2018
This book is not a history of Australia, but is instead a history of the archaeology discipline as practised in Australia, written from an outsider's perspective, "from the fringes, steeped in the neighbouring discipline of history".(p.4) Moving chronologically, each chapter is devoted to a particular archaeologist (Mulvaney, Bowler, Rhys Jones), or an archaeological dig that moved out of academe into the wider politics of Australia (e.g. the Franklin River, Lake Mungo). The book documents the recognition of an ever increasing span of indigenous habitation in Australia, from 5000 years to 40,000 and now pushing 60,000. It reflects the interest in 'deep time', and the question of human activity in a starkly changing climate.
...This is a beautifully written book. Each chapter starts with an engaging anecdote, making you feel as if you're starting with a clean slate each time, although the connections soon become apparent. The narrative is broken up with three 'interludes' that place archaeology within the broader political and professional context. At heart, his argument is that archaeology is a human endeavour, and this humanity shines through. It's an excellent and important book.
For my complete review, see
https://residentjudge.com/2018/10/03/...
...This is a beautifully written book. Each chapter starts with an engaging anecdote, making you feel as if you're starting with a clean slate each time, although the connections soon become apparent. The narrative is broken up with three 'interludes' that place archaeology within the broader political and professional context. At heart, his argument is that archaeology is a human endeavour, and this humanity shines through. It's an excellent and important book.
For my complete review, see
https://residentjudge.com/2018/10/03/...
February 20, 2018
Full disclosure: Billy is a colleague, and because of this I got my hands on an advance copy. I think this is an outstanding book that should find a broad readership. The book builds up an argument about how archaeology has come to understand and discuss the deep history of the Australian continent by sticking to narratives of the people who've been engaged in that work, their lives, their ideals, and their mistakes. In the process, he outlines some of the big controversies of the field, how its institutions and politics have changed over time, and gives great insight into ongoing conflicts around who gets to tell the story of 'deep time' here and how. If you're interested in books about Australia, in the slightest, I recommend it.
December 31, 2018
A remarkable book that is a detailed, absorbing, and reflective history of Australian archaeology. Through the lens of key sites and archaeologists, we become enthralled with the history of archaeological research in Australia; the impact of the research, researchers, and the Aboriginal identity of country and time. A thrilling history of how and what archaeological research is and its unique engagement with the culture and politics of first Australians.
April 1, 2018
What is the common heritage of mankind? And who are the gatekeepers of that knowledge? These are the questions Deep Time Dreaming forces us to consider. There are no easy answers, particularly as the early decades of archaeology in Australia are rife with questionable practices and methodologies that leave their mark on the discipline – and the physical sites – to this day.
As Griffiths quotes (on page 128), ‘Australia – virtually ignored by prehistorians until the 1960s as a tedious archaeological backwater – is now the focus of the quest to unravel the prehistory of mankind’. Griffiths explores the growing recognition of Australia’s deep past, once considered an empty continent and now proven to be home to the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
The book follows the careers of the most prominent archaeologists working in Australia in the 20th century. This chronological approach highlights the extraordinary development of the discipline – begun by 20th century museum curators literally digging up whatever they found to 21st century researchers rewriting the timeline of humanity itself.
At times, this means Deep Time Dreaming reads as the narrative of inadequately trained white men (many who were not even born in Australia) plundering a past they did not understand. It is mind boggling to consider, but in the early years most of the motley museum curators, historians and want-to-be Indiana Joneses who dug up the deep past had never even met – or tried to meet – an Aboriginal person.
As a reader, this made for a tough few chapters. However, Deep Time Dreaming is worth pursuing. The structure serves to highlight a key point: archaeology in Australia was a white man’s playground for decades. The mistakes made – as much as the discoveries found – leave their mark on the discipline today. My interest as a reader increased as female archaeologists began to make their presence felt, especially Isabel McBryde, who was one of the first archaeologists to connect with the traditional owners on whose land she worked.
There are fewer Indigenous voices in this narrative than I expected. Noel Pearson’s 2004 Quarterly Essay is quoted, as is Stan Grant’s 2016 memoir. However the Indigenous archaeologists trained by McBryde and specifically mentioned by Griffiths as representing her major contribution to the field don’t have a voice.
Deep Time Dreaming was an education for me, highlighting how archaeology and the uncovering of Australia’s deep past has influenced (and been influenced in turn) by politics. Most profoundly, the development of the discipline has gone hand in hand with Aboriginal politics and the changing meaning of identify in Australia. The most moving example is, of course, that of Mungo Lady. She was found and excavated almost by accident in 1968, at the beginning of the Aboriginal rights movement when notions of consent and ownership began to change. Mungo Lady was eventually returned in 1992 in a symbolic act: her remains were reburied in a ‘keeping place’ locked with two keys, one held by the community and one by scientists.
Archaeology is not a static discipline. It is unfolding around us, and as recently as 2017 archaeological research in Australia is pushing back the date of humanity’s past to 65,000 years. These new discoveries in our own backyard force us to reevaluate the tensions between science and culture. Does the deep time record belong to humanity, to the distant descendants inhabiting the same land, or to both? Who should make decisions about access and methodology? And how should we, as Australians, understand and share the history of our continent?
Deep Time Dreaming leaves me with questions, as a work of this import should.
This review was first published on The Garret (www.thegarretpodcast.com) in February 2018.
As Griffiths quotes (on page 128), ‘Australia – virtually ignored by prehistorians until the 1960s as a tedious archaeological backwater – is now the focus of the quest to unravel the prehistory of mankind’. Griffiths explores the growing recognition of Australia’s deep past, once considered an empty continent and now proven to be home to the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
The book follows the careers of the most prominent archaeologists working in Australia in the 20th century. This chronological approach highlights the extraordinary development of the discipline – begun by 20th century museum curators literally digging up whatever they found to 21st century researchers rewriting the timeline of humanity itself.
At times, this means Deep Time Dreaming reads as the narrative of inadequately trained white men (many who were not even born in Australia) plundering a past they did not understand. It is mind boggling to consider, but in the early years most of the motley museum curators, historians and want-to-be Indiana Joneses who dug up the deep past had never even met – or tried to meet – an Aboriginal person.
As a reader, this made for a tough few chapters. However, Deep Time Dreaming is worth pursuing. The structure serves to highlight a key point: archaeology in Australia was a white man’s playground for decades. The mistakes made – as much as the discoveries found – leave their mark on the discipline today. My interest as a reader increased as female archaeologists began to make their presence felt, especially Isabel McBryde, who was one of the first archaeologists to connect with the traditional owners on whose land she worked.
There are fewer Indigenous voices in this narrative than I expected. Noel Pearson’s 2004 Quarterly Essay is quoted, as is Stan Grant’s 2016 memoir. However the Indigenous archaeologists trained by McBryde and specifically mentioned by Griffiths as representing her major contribution to the field don’t have a voice.
Deep Time Dreaming was an education for me, highlighting how archaeology and the uncovering of Australia’s deep past has influenced (and been influenced in turn) by politics. Most profoundly, the development of the discipline has gone hand in hand with Aboriginal politics and the changing meaning of identify in Australia. The most moving example is, of course, that of Mungo Lady. She was found and excavated almost by accident in 1968, at the beginning of the Aboriginal rights movement when notions of consent and ownership began to change. Mungo Lady was eventually returned in 1992 in a symbolic act: her remains were reburied in a ‘keeping place’ locked with two keys, one held by the community and one by scientists.
Archaeology is not a static discipline. It is unfolding around us, and as recently as 2017 archaeological research in Australia is pushing back the date of humanity’s past to 65,000 years. These new discoveries in our own backyard force us to reevaluate the tensions between science and culture. Does the deep time record belong to humanity, to the distant descendants inhabiting the same land, or to both? Who should make decisions about access and methodology? And how should we, as Australians, understand and share the history of our continent?
Deep Time Dreaming leaves me with questions, as a work of this import should.
This review was first published on The Garret (www.thegarretpodcast.com) in February 2018.
July 30, 2018
One of the most remarkable aspects of Billy Griffith’s
Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia
is the revelation that a science as young as Australian archeology (Griffiths contends that not until 1956 did the modern era of archeological investigation begin in Australia, Loc 448) has from that time been a driving force in determining the history of one of the world’s most ancient people, a history believed to be longer than 60,000 years.(Loc 74) The book gave me a greater understanding of many aspects of the culture of Indigenous Australians and the ways in which Aboriginal spirituality has thankfully been allowed to figure more prominently when political, social or economic policies are under consideration and/or implementation by Australian governments.
Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia
is an engrossing, enlightening, important book for our times.
February 1, 2019
This is a fantastic and easily readable book on the development of archaeology in Australia and the way it became entwined with the reemergence of Australian Aboriginal identity to the ultimate benefit of both. Griffiths has selected about a dozen archaeologists who he feels carried out seminal studies starting with John Mulvaney's excavation at Fromm's landing in 1957, the first carefully stratigraphic excavation of a aboriginal campsite which produced then-startling occupation dates of up to 6,000 years. The book then explores the complexities of developing archaeology research into the prehistory of what they discovered to be a still living culture.
Most interesting both from an archaeological and modern historial view.
Most interesting both from an archaeological and modern historial view.
December 8, 2020
During my lifetime the estimate of how long Aboriginal Australians have lived here has gradually been extended to at least 60,000 years. I have visited the Dordogne area of France and been awed by its prehistory. It is salutary to know that this is relatively recent by comparison with the prehistory of our continent. Yet this is something that Indigenous peoples have understood through the dreaming stories which keep the 'deep time' of the past ever present for them through ceremony and connection to country. Billy Griffiths has done a remarkable job of combining a history of Australian archeology with a respect for the continuing traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It makes for compelling reading and gave me a sense of wonder as well as knowledge.
August 28, 2025
Gives a good overview of the history of archaeology in Aus and details the ins and outs of a dig. Was interesting to see the growth of the field from mere artefact hunting to actual science.
May 5, 2018
This is a more academic tome about archaeology.
November 21, 2018
An informative book about the archeology and archeologists of 20th c. Australian Aboriginals.
December 31, 2019
This may just be my best read of the year. These debates, discoveries, controversies and narratives emerged in my lifetime - yet I had only fragmentary knowledge. As a student at Sydney University in 1964 my knowledge of archaeology came from Agatha Christie and anthropology had just been added as an alternative to philosophy or psychology for students in teaching scholarships.
Griffiths connected so many dots for me, filled in gaping holes, told a story, a saga that drew in so many loose threads. It is a remarkable achievement to tell the history of a discipline in such a way. There is certainly nothing in the field of Australian education that comes anywhere near it.
I almost regret being so reliant on Christie in 1964.
Griffiths connected so many dots for me, filled in gaping holes, told a story, a saga that drew in so many loose threads. It is a remarkable achievement to tell the history of a discipline in such a way. There is certainly nothing in the field of Australian education that comes anywhere near it.
I almost regret being so reliant on Christie in 1964.
September 18, 2020
During lockdown I was sifting and scratching around the many layers of a bookshop website with my trusty trowel (aka credit card) when I chanced on this amazing discovery.
What a revelation.
At first this book seems to focus on the past of both archeology and Australia but as it slowly unfolds this reader began to realise that the far greater emphasis is on the future of both. As the story develops the natural and cultural worlds become more and more tightly entwined, forming a thrumming whole.
Griffiths has rightly won a swag of awards for this work, and I'd rate it right up toward the top of my 2020 list of great reads.
What a revelation.
At first this book seems to focus on the past of both archeology and Australia but as it slowly unfolds this reader began to realise that the far greater emphasis is on the future of both. As the story develops the natural and cultural worlds become more and more tightly entwined, forming a thrumming whole.
Griffiths has rightly won a swag of awards for this work, and I'd rate it right up toward the top of my 2020 list of great reads.
March 4, 2018
I found this a stimulating and thorough guide to the recent study of Australia’s past. It is a history of the discipline of archaeology in Australia, with the aim of continuing the work of undoing the ‘great Australian silence’: the lack of knowledge and curiosity about the first Australians. As the anthropologist WEH Stanner described when he coined that phrase in 1968, it is not so much that Australian history has been filled with lies, but is ‘a view from a window that has been very carefully placed’ to tell us what we’d rather hear.
Each chapter loosely discusses one archaeologist and one major site. They are arranged mostly chronologically from Australia’s first trained archaeologist John Mulvaney’s work at Fromm’s Landing on the Murray River (which was dated to 5,000 years ago) in 1956 to the most recent work (from 2017) in Arnhem Land pushing Aboriginal inhabitation back to 65,000 years ago.
A number of striking threads emerge. The young age that many of the archaeologists made their names - often in their early 20s! - seemed to me to be overacheiving. Griffiths also teases out gender biases within the field - from the ‘cowboy’ archaeologists obsessed with the oldest and biggest, to the women who were perceived to have taken a ‘softer’ approach (that often turned out to be more thorough. I want to learn more about Isabel McBryde, Josephine Flood, and Sylvia Hallam)
The story of Australian archaeology is also partly a story of the Aboriginal rights movement, particularly around land. It has been an often tense relationship. While archaeology has sometimes validated the claims of Aboriginal people, it has equally often bulldozed through cultural sensitivities. These issues come to a head in a striking and compelling chapter around the Franklin dam campaign in Tasmania around 1983 and the ice age cave at its heart. Celebrated as a win for ‘wilderness’, the discovery of artefacts 20,000 years old completely turned on its head the idea that south west Tasmania was never inhabited by people. It is a history underecognised still today.
The writing is clear and very thoroughly referenced (many books I’d now like to read!), with a dispassionate tone that allows its characters to succeed or fall through their own words. There is rather less than I expected about the people who are the subject of these archaeological studies, but I came to think that this is a respectful and accurate impression of how little we know, and of what is possible to know using western methods. Nonetheless there are tantalising glimpses of the extraordinary world that the first Australians lived in - a world with ice caps and sea level hundreds of metres lower than today, and the incredible environmental and social changes that people lived through. I found it a little heavy-going at times, with some bureaucratic and technical detail perhaps aimed at someone with a more specific interest in the topic. But overall a very stimulating book that forced me to question what we think we know about Aboriginal history and how we know it.
Each chapter loosely discusses one archaeologist and one major site. They are arranged mostly chronologically from Australia’s first trained archaeologist John Mulvaney’s work at Fromm’s Landing on the Murray River (which was dated to 5,000 years ago) in 1956 to the most recent work (from 2017) in Arnhem Land pushing Aboriginal inhabitation back to 65,000 years ago.
A number of striking threads emerge. The young age that many of the archaeologists made their names - often in their early 20s! - seemed to me to be overacheiving. Griffiths also teases out gender biases within the field - from the ‘cowboy’ archaeologists obsessed with the oldest and biggest, to the women who were perceived to have taken a ‘softer’ approach (that often turned out to be more thorough. I want to learn more about Isabel McBryde, Josephine Flood, and Sylvia Hallam)
The story of Australian archaeology is also partly a story of the Aboriginal rights movement, particularly around land. It has been an often tense relationship. While archaeology has sometimes validated the claims of Aboriginal people, it has equally often bulldozed through cultural sensitivities. These issues come to a head in a striking and compelling chapter around the Franklin dam campaign in Tasmania around 1983 and the ice age cave at its heart. Celebrated as a win for ‘wilderness’, the discovery of artefacts 20,000 years old completely turned on its head the idea that south west Tasmania was never inhabited by people. It is a history underecognised still today.
The writing is clear and very thoroughly referenced (many books I’d now like to read!), with a dispassionate tone that allows its characters to succeed or fall through their own words. There is rather less than I expected about the people who are the subject of these archaeological studies, but I came to think that this is a respectful and accurate impression of how little we know, and of what is possible to know using western methods. Nonetheless there are tantalising glimpses of the extraordinary world that the first Australians lived in - a world with ice caps and sea level hundreds of metres lower than today, and the incredible environmental and social changes that people lived through. I found it a little heavy-going at times, with some bureaucratic and technical detail perhaps aimed at someone with a more specific interest in the topic. But overall a very stimulating book that forced me to question what we think we know about Aboriginal history and how we know it.
December 24, 2018
A book on this topic feels like it should have been written years ago, although I doubt it would have been as good if it had. Griffiths does a great job of telling the history of Australian archeology - interspersing explanations of changing techniques and learnings with personality sketches that always stay respectful and affectionate. As an amateur who tries to keep up with developments in archeology, this was a relief to read, putting many jigsaw pieces together and spelling out some of the main differences in the field.
It is inevitably a white Australian view of the topic. Griffiths succeeds at showing how the field got going (keeping with the upbeat tone, Griffiths eschews discussing the intense theft period of 'archeology') with total disregard for seeking permission from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for work on their land, with their sacred and other sites, and grew into a modern discipline with more respectful protocols, discussing the debates along the way. He covers some of the worst behaviour of archeologists with sensitivity, and a capacity to understand the complexity of ways that ignorance can play out, while not minimising the impact.
It is a history of archeology, not of Australian deep time. Griffiths covers the main consensus and debates, but relatively briefly and as part of the other story. Nevertheless, it is the most readable summary available in book form, and provides a basis to understand science reporting on the topic much better. He has an easy conversational style that is pleasant without being too cute.
My biggest beef with the book was the scant coverage - two sentences - given to genetic evidence for age of arrival of peoples. Fairly enough, part of Griffiths intent is to draw attention to the richness beyond a number - that Australian art of 10,000 years ago is spectacular in its sophistication, and more then three times older than the pyramids or Stonehenge - and refocus on debates such as how much, when and how, cultures changed. Nevertheless, it is one of the biggest cross-disciplinary schisms that historical geneticists mostly argue for a pre-50,000 arrival date for Aboriginal peoples, based on clock timing of Denisovan DNA, while archeologists support a 65,000 year date based on rock dated settlement signs. Both groups argue - correctly - that there are unreliabilities in the others' dating, and acknowledging and discussing the issue would have been worthwhile.
Otherwise, however, this is a great primer on how Europeans came to appreciate that our continent is home to the oldest culture outside of Africa - possibly anywhere - which is also unusually interconnected by trade and culture. The world has a lot to learn about the relative peace of the Australian continent over many millennia, and the evidence for longstanding interaction without colonisation. I would like more books like this!
It is inevitably a white Australian view of the topic. Griffiths succeeds at showing how the field got going (keeping with the upbeat tone, Griffiths eschews discussing the intense theft period of 'archeology') with total disregard for seeking permission from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for work on their land, with their sacred and other sites, and grew into a modern discipline with more respectful protocols, discussing the debates along the way. He covers some of the worst behaviour of archeologists with sensitivity, and a capacity to understand the complexity of ways that ignorance can play out, while not minimising the impact.
It is a history of archeology, not of Australian deep time. Griffiths covers the main consensus and debates, but relatively briefly and as part of the other story. Nevertheless, it is the most readable summary available in book form, and provides a basis to understand science reporting on the topic much better. He has an easy conversational style that is pleasant without being too cute.
My biggest beef with the book was the scant coverage - two sentences - given to genetic evidence for age of arrival of peoples. Fairly enough, part of Griffiths intent is to draw attention to the richness beyond a number - that Australian art of 10,000 years ago is spectacular in its sophistication, and more then three times older than the pyramids or Stonehenge - and refocus on debates such as how much, when and how, cultures changed. Nevertheless, it is one of the biggest cross-disciplinary schisms that historical geneticists mostly argue for a pre-50,000 arrival date for Aboriginal peoples, based on clock timing of Denisovan DNA, while archeologists support a 65,000 year date based on rock dated settlement signs. Both groups argue - correctly - that there are unreliabilities in the others' dating, and acknowledging and discussing the issue would have been worthwhile.
Otherwise, however, this is a great primer on how Europeans came to appreciate that our continent is home to the oldest culture outside of Africa - possibly anywhere - which is also unusually interconnected by trade and culture. The world has a lot to learn about the relative peace of the Australian continent over many millennia, and the evidence for longstanding interaction without colonisation. I would like more books like this!
July 24, 2018
This is a wonderful book about the extraordinary history of humans in Australia.
Most Australians would have no idea that Indigenous Australians have been living on this continent for over 65,000 years. That number is hard to fathom, but it takes us back well into the middle of the last ice age, when Tasmania was still connected to the mainland. One of my favourite bloggers Tim Urban puts in into nice perspective with colourful charts here (https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/08/puttin...).
The book uncovers the amazing story of how Indigenous communities across the continent managed to sustain communities through dramatic environmental changes that occurred over that period.
The story is told in a really compelling and accessible way through mini-biographies of archaeologists who worked to reveal the 'deep time' history of Australia over the last century. It gives me a whole new perspective on the land on which I live.
Most Australians would have no idea that Indigenous Australians have been living on this continent for over 65,000 years. That number is hard to fathom, but it takes us back well into the middle of the last ice age, when Tasmania was still connected to the mainland. One of my favourite bloggers Tim Urban puts in into nice perspective with colourful charts here (https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/08/puttin...).
The book uncovers the amazing story of how Indigenous communities across the continent managed to sustain communities through dramatic environmental changes that occurred over that period.
The story is told in a really compelling and accessible way through mini-biographies of archaeologists who worked to reveal the 'deep time' history of Australia over the last century. It gives me a whole new perspective on the land on which I live.
January 28, 2019
This is an important book for all Australians.
January 4, 2021
I don't often find highly readable histories of science or exploration. This one is one of those exceptions. It's a cracker. It's a history of archaeology in Australia told with a lively pace and enough detail to feel well-informed, enough data to become well-informed and ranges across names and places familiar enough to me to recognise acquaintances from readings and viewings past.
In the opening chapter we meet P J Mulvaney - and his learnings in England from a hero of mine in other contexts, R G Collingwood. And then there's the wonderful school of history at UniMelb and its energy, And there's Blainey and Clark, and Rhys Jones in Tassie and...
Well, that's as far as I've got, so far. The library will demand it back soon, but I shall attempt to prise it from their grasp again, to complete it.
You don't often get books of this character and quality (let me say again) and it's collection of awards show the recognition of significant reviewers!
I am reminded of the style and pacing of Henry Reynolds' work; also of Jenny Uglow's history of English science in the Scientific Revolution through her account of a little society of greatly significant people, The Lunar Men.
In the opening chapter we meet P J Mulvaney - and his learnings in England from a hero of mine in other contexts, R G Collingwood. And then there's the wonderful school of history at UniMelb and its energy, And there's Blainey and Clark, and Rhys Jones in Tassie and...
Well, that's as far as I've got, so far. The library will demand it back soon, but I shall attempt to prise it from their grasp again, to complete it.
You don't often get books of this character and quality (let me say again) and it's collection of awards show the recognition of significant reviewers!
I am reminded of the style and pacing of Henry Reynolds' work; also of Jenny Uglow's history of English science in the Scientific Revolution through her account of a little society of greatly significant people, The Lunar Men.
June 15, 2020
Another book that all Australians should read in order to begin to comprehend the place where they live. It is a thorough account of Australian archaeological research, offering glimpses of Australia’s extraordinary history. But frustratingly, they are only glimpses - the human stories from deep time are largely lost.
Nevertheless, the very notion of deep time is extraordinary - a history extending well before the Holocene. In fact, by Australian standards, the Holocene era is modern history!
One tension I found particularly interesting is the question about who owns deep time artefacts. Can modern day cultural descendants claim ownership of artefacts 65,000 years old, or do they belong to all humanity? Or, as happened as I was reading this book, can modern Indigenous people sell a mining company the right to destroy 45,000 year old sites(assuming they were not deceived into doing so)?
That tension aside, I think the best hope we have as a nation to truly appreciate our amazing history and respect our Indigenous people is for this real Australian history to be taught and celebrated.
Nevertheless, the very notion of deep time is extraordinary - a history extending well before the Holocene. In fact, by Australian standards, the Holocene era is modern history!
One tension I found particularly interesting is the question about who owns deep time artefacts. Can modern day cultural descendants claim ownership of artefacts 65,000 years old, or do they belong to all humanity? Or, as happened as I was reading this book, can modern Indigenous people sell a mining company the right to destroy 45,000 year old sites(assuming they were not deceived into doing so)?
That tension aside, I think the best hope we have as a nation to truly appreciate our amazing history and respect our Indigenous people is for this real Australian history to be taught and celebrated.
October 27, 2024
Such an awesome book about the history of Aboriginal Archaeology. It’s made me a better archaeology student.
February 7, 2019
Ancient history of Australia
The book is the result of an extensive and structured research by the author. It tells Australian history from an aboriginal perspective based on the hard work of early archeologists and support of the land custodians. The book is also a history of Australian archeology.
The book is the result of an extensive and structured research by the author. It tells Australian history from an aboriginal perspective based on the hard work of early archeologists and support of the land custodians. The book is also a history of Australian archeology.
July 7, 2019
Astounding. I loved this.
January 23, 2019
As a child, I was fascinated by archaeology, but didn't see a future as an archaeologist in Australia. This book shows how wrong I was. It is a history of archaeologists in Australia taking a person-per-chapter approach, rather than a theory by theory approach to age or settlement patterns. The time frame is somewhat narrow, focusing on the 1950s to 1970s. I had heard of many of the names and places, but hadn't realised how much impact the archaeological evidence had on the eventual decision not to dam the Franklin River - I thought it was about the trees. The different approach taken by women, such as landscape wide approaches and looking for all sources of evidence, was also interesting. I know it should not all be about "how long have people been here", but more discussion about ages and theories of movement, including the impact of recent finds in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, would be good. A book I wished was longer, which is always a good sign.
November 1, 2020
Deep Time Dreaming, Billy Griffiths
This a multi-layered narrative of a recent, and continuing, phase in the European 'discovery' of the small continent we now call Australia. It's the discovery by Science of the Indigenous history of the many countries here, from the Pleistocene to now, and the peoples and other species that have occupied them. And in that process, the study of study, Indigenous peoples, have declared themselves not to be extinct and have become major actors in the process, sometimes to the chagrin of the scientists, but for the betterment of all.
I have to declare an interest. After graduating in Anthropology 1981, and having supported the Land Rights pushes of the 70's, I chose to work directly for Aboriginal organisations rather than as an academic. In Central Australia I worked with Pintupi people, pretty well the last group contacted by Europeans, and later with other groups in various places around Australia. In the mid 80s I set up and ran a training program for NSW Land Councils for people to be able to recognise, document and preserve sites of significance - archaeological, historical or cultural. Also a bookshop for Indigenous books. And a consultancy specialising in Indigenous development programs.
Throughout these years Australian Archaeology was pushed to the forefront of our knowledge of how long and how subtly the continent had been occupied by people. It seemed that every few years the dates went further out, from 9,000 to 15,000 to 21,000 to 35,000, to 45,000 then 65,000 years. More may be in store. And every time it became clearer that we had known less than we thought about this continent's biology as an artefact of occupation rather than pristine nature.
The newly emerging histories of the European invasion also made it clear that the Indigenous populations had not simply faded away. Massacres, new diseases, food denial, rounding up and sometimes open warfare had been employed in the European advance. Terra Nullius gave way to Mabo, Land Rights were entrenched in law and the academics had to renegotiate the terms of study with the survivors of that which they were studying.
Contested remains - contesting philosophies
Reburying bones from sites, or from overseas collections, was a very hard thing to contemplate at first. How could future ways of extracting knowledge be denied? How can science proceed if its evidence is destroyed? How can the present Indigenous groups over-ride research when they are not culturally 'pristine' and don't value its scientific worth? How can any group 'own' evidence of global significance (a question arising in a wholly different light with the Rio Tinto destruction of a 45000 years old site, the Ju'urkan cave, within its mining tenement). The very basics of the Enlightenment seemed to many researchers to be at stake.
But they were not united in this. On one hand, call them the traditionalists, there were those who held that science is universal and has values, such as the preciousness of unique evidence, which transcend factional or current interests. On the other was a growing number who could see that engagement, education and negotiated partnerships would lead to more productive results. In large degree the latter have gradually become the norm.
This has become the new norm through various channels - legal, cultural, practical. Land Rights has led to a need for permission to investigate on Aboriginal-held land. Land Councils across the country have become mandatory participants. Safe ways of reburying remains so that one day they may perhaps be reviewed have become available - perhaps the new sacred sites of the future. Relations on the whole have settled down in the academic field if not in mining, agriculture or other developmental fields. And as the number of Indigenous people completing schooling into tertiary levels grows, more sophisticated models of collaboration will emerge.
A timeless land? Not at all!
The saga of Archaeology in Australia has been foundational in our enlightenment about the nature of the landscape - and artefact of occupation over a long time - and the status of the original peoples, previously dismissed as primitive wanderers in a natural setting. With each discovery, from the New England stone arrangements to the caves of the Western Desert, Arnhem Land or Tasmania, the lunettes of the Darling basin, a more complex story than was ever expected has obliged us to revise and revise again our understandings about the waves of peoples who had not just spread across the continent but had changed it permanently. As the cooler drier Pleistocene changed to the hotter and wetter climate of the Holocene, simultaneously the introduction of humans with their hunting, firestick farming and the dingo were part of the changing of species and landforms. The megafauna died out, the grass-eucalypt regime expanded and the managed landscape developed into the one eventually seen by Europeans as natural. And as Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu evideces, it was so delicately balanced as to be destroyed before it was seen for what it was. Tim Winton's Island Home has a dark history, as he knows.
Indeed, the more recent work of historians into the destruction wrought upon the Indigenous population by the Invasion is also part of this rewriting of the story of the country. Ditto the linguists who have shown the richness, variety and depth of the 250 languages, 750 dialects, spoken here. And the anthropologists detailing the complex systems of kinship, song, religion and ties to country that were the mainstay of survival in a landscape that regularly kills strangers who stray off the highways.
And there is an implied warning in this archaeology. That which we in our short lifespans think is permanent is anything but. Change has been the norm over deep time, more so with our own global scale destruction. Over the last 200 years we have set in motion shifts that could challenge those of the last 40,000 in impacts on land and people. It's all written in the strata of rock shelter floors and in sand dunes, in languages and legends, in art and in landscapes. One of the most valuable sets of evidence and warnings on the planet is emerging, and with it a lesson on survival we'd be foolish to ignore.
In summary, this well narrated tale takes on a tour from Terra Nullius to Terra Australis in our knowledge of this continent today. Deservedly, it has won praise and awards. Its makeup includes background and explanations. Its form flows well, each chapter covering a significant discovery, backgrounded, personalised and linked to others. Technicalities are briefly explained but not dwelled upon. Themes, such as the 'heroic' archaeology pushing dates back vs. the 'particularist' model detailing localised links between occupation, ecosystem, geology and history, are given fair discussion. Personalities are well covered but not to the fore. Well written and documented it should be a milestone in both the writing of science and the dissemination of its lessons to a broader public.
DM
Sydney
29/10/20
This a multi-layered narrative of a recent, and continuing, phase in the European 'discovery' of the small continent we now call Australia. It's the discovery by Science of the Indigenous history of the many countries here, from the Pleistocene to now, and the peoples and other species that have occupied them. And in that process, the study of study, Indigenous peoples, have declared themselves not to be extinct and have become major actors in the process, sometimes to the chagrin of the scientists, but for the betterment of all.
I have to declare an interest. After graduating in Anthropology 1981, and having supported the Land Rights pushes of the 70's, I chose to work directly for Aboriginal organisations rather than as an academic. In Central Australia I worked with Pintupi people, pretty well the last group contacted by Europeans, and later with other groups in various places around Australia. In the mid 80s I set up and ran a training program for NSW Land Councils for people to be able to recognise, document and preserve sites of significance - archaeological, historical or cultural. Also a bookshop for Indigenous books. And a consultancy specialising in Indigenous development programs.
Throughout these years Australian Archaeology was pushed to the forefront of our knowledge of how long and how subtly the continent had been occupied by people. It seemed that every few years the dates went further out, from 9,000 to 15,000 to 21,000 to 35,000, to 45,000 then 65,000 years. More may be in store. And every time it became clearer that we had known less than we thought about this continent's biology as an artefact of occupation rather than pristine nature.
The newly emerging histories of the European invasion also made it clear that the Indigenous populations had not simply faded away. Massacres, new diseases, food denial, rounding up and sometimes open warfare had been employed in the European advance. Terra Nullius gave way to Mabo, Land Rights were entrenched in law and the academics had to renegotiate the terms of study with the survivors of that which they were studying.
Contested remains - contesting philosophies
Reburying bones from sites, or from overseas collections, was a very hard thing to contemplate at first. How could future ways of extracting knowledge be denied? How can science proceed if its evidence is destroyed? How can the present Indigenous groups over-ride research when they are not culturally 'pristine' and don't value its scientific worth? How can any group 'own' evidence of global significance (a question arising in a wholly different light with the Rio Tinto destruction of a 45000 years old site, the Ju'urkan cave, within its mining tenement). The very basics of the Enlightenment seemed to many researchers to be at stake.
But they were not united in this. On one hand, call them the traditionalists, there were those who held that science is universal and has values, such as the preciousness of unique evidence, which transcend factional or current interests. On the other was a growing number who could see that engagement, education and negotiated partnerships would lead to more productive results. In large degree the latter have gradually become the norm.
This has become the new norm through various channels - legal, cultural, practical. Land Rights has led to a need for permission to investigate on Aboriginal-held land. Land Councils across the country have become mandatory participants. Safe ways of reburying remains so that one day they may perhaps be reviewed have become available - perhaps the new sacred sites of the future. Relations on the whole have settled down in the academic field if not in mining, agriculture or other developmental fields. And as the number of Indigenous people completing schooling into tertiary levels grows, more sophisticated models of collaboration will emerge.
A timeless land? Not at all!
The saga of Archaeology in Australia has been foundational in our enlightenment about the nature of the landscape - and artefact of occupation over a long time - and the status of the original peoples, previously dismissed as primitive wanderers in a natural setting. With each discovery, from the New England stone arrangements to the caves of the Western Desert, Arnhem Land or Tasmania, the lunettes of the Darling basin, a more complex story than was ever expected has obliged us to revise and revise again our understandings about the waves of peoples who had not just spread across the continent but had changed it permanently. As the cooler drier Pleistocene changed to the hotter and wetter climate of the Holocene, simultaneously the introduction of humans with their hunting, firestick farming and the dingo were part of the changing of species and landforms. The megafauna died out, the grass-eucalypt regime expanded and the managed landscape developed into the one eventually seen by Europeans as natural. And as Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu evideces, it was so delicately balanced as to be destroyed before it was seen for what it was. Tim Winton's Island Home has a dark history, as he knows.
Indeed, the more recent work of historians into the destruction wrought upon the Indigenous population by the Invasion is also part of this rewriting of the story of the country. Ditto the linguists who have shown the richness, variety and depth of the 250 languages, 750 dialects, spoken here. And the anthropologists detailing the complex systems of kinship, song, religion and ties to country that were the mainstay of survival in a landscape that regularly kills strangers who stray off the highways.
And there is an implied warning in this archaeology. That which we in our short lifespans think is permanent is anything but. Change has been the norm over deep time, more so with our own global scale destruction. Over the last 200 years we have set in motion shifts that could challenge those of the last 40,000 in impacts on land and people. It's all written in the strata of rock shelter floors and in sand dunes, in languages and legends, in art and in landscapes. One of the most valuable sets of evidence and warnings on the planet is emerging, and with it a lesson on survival we'd be foolish to ignore.
In summary, this well narrated tale takes on a tour from Terra Nullius to Terra Australis in our knowledge of this continent today. Deservedly, it has won praise and awards. Its makeup includes background and explanations. Its form flows well, each chapter covering a significant discovery, backgrounded, personalised and linked to others. Technicalities are briefly explained but not dwelled upon. Themes, such as the 'heroic' archaeology pushing dates back vs. the 'particularist' model detailing localised links between occupation, ecosystem, geology and history, are given fair discussion. Personalities are well covered but not to the fore. Well written and documented it should be a milestone in both the writing of science and the dissemination of its lessons to a broader public.
DM
Sydney
29/10/20
June 28, 2018
This was an interesting book. No doubt it’s content - a charting of Australian archaeological discoveries coupled with a reflection of the flow-on effect in politics and identity - is important to contemporary debate.
There is much value on understanding how archeology from the 50s and 60s strengthened the growing Indigenous Peoples rights movement. The narratives are not so simple: those early research projects often ignored issues of land rights and community engagement. They caused a lot of pain, and a fair share of controversy. But, many archeologists acknowledged their mistakes, and worked to create more inclusive and respectful institutions and processes. It seems they’ve been reasonably successful.
The overarching narrative of Deep Time Dreaming is the slow growing respect of settler institutions of Australia’s indigenous past - which, in turn, sharpens questions about the present and the future.
The book, I must say, is not flawless. Some of the archeologist profiles are accounts are a bit dry. The more lively prose comes from Billy Griffiths’ accounts of being out in the field, absorbing country and thinking about deep time - but these passages are few and far between. The balance feels a little off; perhaps is an over reliance on the ‘scientific story’ to open up a conversation about indigenous identity, culture and politics. Given our current political climate (and Griffith’s short career) I can understand the approach, but it feels there is a more masterful execution lurking in the brain of some other writer in this country.
In summary: excellent, relevant content. Decent execution.
There is much value on understanding how archeology from the 50s and 60s strengthened the growing Indigenous Peoples rights movement. The narratives are not so simple: those early research projects often ignored issues of land rights and community engagement. They caused a lot of pain, and a fair share of controversy. But, many archeologists acknowledged their mistakes, and worked to create more inclusive and respectful institutions and processes. It seems they’ve been reasonably successful.
The overarching narrative of Deep Time Dreaming is the slow growing respect of settler institutions of Australia’s indigenous past - which, in turn, sharpens questions about the present and the future.
The book, I must say, is not flawless. Some of the archeologist profiles are accounts are a bit dry. The more lively prose comes from Billy Griffiths’ accounts of being out in the field, absorbing country and thinking about deep time - but these passages are few and far between. The balance feels a little off; perhaps is an over reliance on the ‘scientific story’ to open up a conversation about indigenous identity, culture and politics. Given our current political climate (and Griffith’s short career) I can understand the approach, but it feels there is a more masterful execution lurking in the brain of some other writer in this country.
In summary: excellent, relevant content. Decent execution.
April 19, 2019
Finished: 19.04.2019
Genre: non-fiction
Rating: A+++
#NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2019
Conclusion:
Deep Time Dreaming is MY CHOICE
as winner of the non-fiction
Douglas Stewart Prize ( NSW Literary Awards 2019)!
Here is why...
My Thoughts
Genre: non-fiction
Rating: A+++
#NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2019
Conclusion:
Deep Time Dreaming is MY CHOICE
as winner of the non-fiction
Douglas Stewart Prize ( NSW Literary Awards 2019)!
Here is why...
My Thoughts
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