AustLit

'Billy Griffiths begins this thoughtful, nuanced and beautifully written work with an admission: it is written by an outsider. The book is a reflection on the archaeology of Australia and its significance, but it is the product of a fringe-dwelling onlooker; a historian. In a similar spirit of full disclosure, I should warn the reader that I too am an outsider; neither historian nor archaeologist, but a philosopher of science. Worse still, an unreconstructed and unapologetic positivist. That is relevant, for Griffiths thinks of archaeology has having aspects of both a science and a humanity. Moreover, without quite saying so explicitly, it is clear that he thinks both intellectual traditions are of equal standing. Both essential; neither privileged. In contrast, in the project of uncovering and understanding Australia’s deep past—human, biological, geological, climatic—I think science, fallible though it is, is privileged. More on that shortly.' (Introduction)