Contacts between Indigenous Australians and outsiders Macassans, Portuguese, Dutch, English, French, Americans and others are known to have occurred for 400 years. This book explores these diverse, subtle, dynamic and volatile first encounters from Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives. It also looks at the myriad elements of these crosscultural exchanges, which resulted in profound outcomes for the First Australians.

This unique guide provides an artistic and archaeological journey deep into human history, exploring the petroglyphic and pictographic forms of rock art produced by the earliest humans to contemporary peoples around the world.Summarizes the diversity of views on ancient rock art from leading international scholarsIncludes new discoveries and research, illustrated with over 160 images (including 30 color plates) from major rock art sites around the worldExa...

It is commonly agreed by linguists and anthropologists that the majority of languages spoken now around the globe will likely disappear within our lifetime. The phenomenon known as language death has started to accelerate as the world has grown smaller. This extinction of languages, and the knowledge therein, has no parallel in human history. K. David Harrison's book is the first to focus on the essential question, what is lost when a language dies? What forms of knowledge are embedded in ...

This authoritative guide offers readers a comprehensive look into the world of anthropology and its related sciences. The book covers the essential areas of the field, including its history. The major branches of the field are also discussed, including cultural and social anthropology as well as archaeology. It also explores the study of the discipline around the world through urban, medical, and applied anthropology. This is a perfect resource for anyone interested in world cultures and t...

Exploring the endings of species, languages, cultures, and ways of life, this collection "provocatively makes one think about extinction in novel ways." — Biological ConservationWe live in an era marked by an accelerating rate of species death, but since the early days of the discipline, anthropology has contemplated the death of languages, cultural groups, and ways of life. The essays in this collection examine processes of—and our understanding of—extinc...

Paul G. Bahn provides a richly illustrated overview of prehistoric rock art and cave art from around the world. Summarizing the recent advances in our understanding of this extraordinary visual record, he discusses new discoveries, new approaches to recording and interpretation, and current problems in conservation. Bahn focuses in particular on current issues in the interpretation of rock art, notably the 'shamanic' interpretation that has been influential in recent years and that he refu...

From two of the best-known archaeological writers in the trade, this outstanding resource provides a thorough survey of the key ideas in archaeology, and how they impact on archaeological thinking and method.Clearly written, and easy to follow, Archaeology: The Key Concepts collates entries written specifically by field specialists, and each entry offers a definition of the term, its origins and development, and all the major figures involved in the area.The entrie...

Now in a revised and updated second edition, this volume provides an authoritative account of the current status of archaeological theory, as presented by some of its major exponents and innovators over recent decades. It summarizes the latest developments in the field and looks to its future, exploring some of the cutting-edge ideas at the forefront of the discipline.The volume captures the diversity of contemporary archaeological theory. Some authors argue for an approach close t...

Over the past three decades, “landscape” has become an umbrella term to describe many different strands of archaeology. From the processualist study of settlement patterns to the phenomenologist’s experience of the natural world, from human impact on past environments to the environment’s impact on human thought, action, and interaction, the term has been used. In this volume, for the first time, over 80 archaeologists from three continents attempt a comprehensive definition of the ideas a...

A study of urban nature that draws together different strands of urban ecology as well as insights derived from feminist, posthuman, and postcolonial thought.Postindustrial transitions and changing cultures of nature have produced an unprecedented degree of fascination with urban biodiversity. The “other nature” that flourishes in marginal urban spaces, at one remove from the controlled contours of metropolitan nature, is not the poor relation of rural flora and fa...

-- Robert W. Harms, Yale University

Cryptozoology is best understood as the study of animals which, in the eyes of Western science, are extinct, unclassified or unrecognised. In consequence, and in part because of its selective methods and lack of epistemological rigour, cryptozoology is often dismissed as a pseudo-science. However, there is a growing recognition that social science can benefit from engaging with it, for as as social scientists are very well aware, ’scientific’ categorisation and explanation represents just ...