"This monograph presents a model of the artistic traditions and associated petroglyph production, suggesting five major phases for the Dampier Archipelago, and providing insights into a world that existed for Indigenous Australians over many thousands of years.".

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Explores the variety of ways in which hunter-gatherer societies have responded to external stressors while maintaining their core identity.

Hunters and Collectors is about historical consciousness and environmental sensibilities in European Australia from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. It is in part a collective biography of amateur antiquarians, archaeologists, naturalists, journalists and historians: people who shaped the Australian historical imagination. Dr Griffiths illuminates the way these avid collectors and investigators of the Australian land and of its indigenous inhabitants contributed a sense of identity at colony-wide and eventually nationwide level. He also considers the rise of professional history, anthropology and archaeology in the universities, which ignored the efforts of the amateurs. Griffiths shows how the seemingly trivial activities of these hunters and collectors feed into the political and environmental debates of the 1990s. This book is outstanding in its originality, interpretative insight and literary flair.