This is perhaps the most important message in this beautifully written book. More important is that Australians gain an inclusive and humanist approach to understanding their country's past. The implications of this freshest finding cannot be underestimated, Griffiths explains, for it means reconsidering the global story of human migration.īut Griffiths warns us not to be 'dazzled' by Australian archaeology's big numbers. The successful campaign to save Tasmania's Franklin River, which swung the 1983 Federal election in Bob Hawke's favour, depended upon the work of archaeologists dating local sites back to the last Ice Age.Īnd in 2017, the team at the Madjedbebe rock shelter near Kakadu confirmed that the first Australians arrived 65,000 years ago. 'You have been here 200 years, we for 40,000,' read placards protesting the Australian Day celebrations in 1988. Jim Bowler's almost-accidental 1969 discovery in the Willandra Lakes district of the 40,000 year-old remains of Mungo Lady was a watershed for international science, the Australian public and Indigenous people. Uncovering Australia's deep past has influenced national politics, policies and identities. I gasped in disbelief when Mulvaney calls the ABC to report that his northern Queensland dig had had a date of more than 14,000 years, only to be told it was of 'no interest' to the public! As Griffiths shows us, nothing could be further from the truth. The journey begins in 1956 with John Mulvaney, then Australia's only trained archaeologist, struggling to form a team and even to fund a vehicle to get them into the field. From Tasmania to the Top End, we are swept up in their passionate endeavours, achievements and occasional failures. Archaeology, as Griffiths put it, has made deep time dreamers of us all.Įach of Griffiths' chapters follows an individual archaeologist's relationship with a region or site across Australia.

And as Griffiths ably shows us, the reverse is also true: the revelation of deep time has indeed meant a profound shift in how Australians relate to their country. So it is that personalities, politics and culture have shaped how archaeologists have read Australia's ancient past. This approach has been integral to the 60 years of collective research that has uncovered 65,000 years of Australian Indigenous continuity and change.

Billy griffiths deep time dreaming