Mulvaney D.J. The Prehistory of Australia

New York, Washington: Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, 1969. — 276 p. — (Ancient Peoples and Places series. Vol. 65).Although Australia was the last inhabited continent to be discovered by Europeans, Aborigines have lived in it for perhaps thirty millennia, and, at least during the later centuries of its prehistory, the continent was visited by inhabitants of Southeast Asia. Social theorists have in the past regarded the Australian Aborigines as representing the set type of primeval society and have assumed that their institutions, economic activities, and technology remained static. But this has proved to be a false assumption, as the author of this book makes abundantly clear. Archaeological studies have shown that Aboriginal society had been adapting itself to changing local conditions ever since man entered Australia during the late glacial epoch, at a time when lower seas extended the land mass and the continent was linked with Tasmania and New Guinea. Mr. Mulvaney points out that a variety of giant marsupials certainly coexisted with the earliest hunters, who may indirectly have assisted in bringing about their extinction. After examining the earliest evidence of man’s presence on the continent - sites in Arnhem Land that have yielded stone axes more than 20,000 years old and antedating any other known examples in the world - the author goes on to discuss the new Stone Age technologies that, some 6,000 years ago, began to appear in most of Australia and that made possible the introduction of a great variety of specialized tools. During the past 2,000 years Aboriginal stone technology has waned, especially after the first European penetration into the continent. Since the early 1960’s, there has been a great increase in Australian archaeological studies. While it is likely that, during the next few years, current ideas will be challenged-by further important discoveries, the present volume opens up an exciting new field.Protohistory
Landscape and People
Ethno History
Prehistory
Aboriginal Origins
Field Archaeology
Chronological Table
AnnotationsSources of Illustrations
Notes on The Plates