Objects have many stories to tell. The stories of their makers and their uses. Stories of exchange, acquisition, display and interpretation. This book is a collection of essays highlighting some of the collections, and their object biographies, that were displayed in the Uncovering Pacific Pasts: Histories of Archaeology in Oceania (UPP) exhibition. The exhibition, which opened on 1 March 2020, sought to bring together both notable and relatively unknown Pacific material culture and archival collections from around the globe, displaying them simultaneously in their home institutions and linked online at www.uncoveringpacificpasts.org. Thirty‑eight collecting institutions participated in UPP, including major collecting institutions in the United Kingdom, continental Europe and the Americas, as well as collecting institutions from across the Pacific.

“This edited volume of invited chapters honours the four decades of fundamental research by archaeologist Glenn Summerhayes into the human prehistory of the islands of the western Pacific, especially New Guinea and its offshore islands. This area helped to shape and direct many ancient dispersal events associated with Homo sapiens, initially from Africa more than 50,000 years ago, through the lower latitudes of Asia, into Australia, New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, and possibly the Solomon Islands. Around 3000 years ago, coastal regions of northern and eastern New Guinea, and the islands of Melanesia beyond, played a major role in the Oceanic migrations of Austronesian-speaking peoples from southern China and Southeast Asia, migrations that have recently attained new levels of genetic complexity through the analysis of ancient DNA from human remains. For the first time, humans of both Southeast Asian and New Guinea/Bismarck genetic origin reached the islands of Remote Oceania, beyond the Solomons. Many of the chapters in this book deal with archaeological aspects of this Austronesian maritime expansion (which never seriously impacted the populations of the New Guinea Highlands), especially as revealed through the analysis of Lapita pottery and associated artefacts. Other chapters offer archaeological perspectives on trade and exchange, and on related topics that extend into the ethnographic era. The research of Glenn Summerhayes stands centrally amongst all these offerings, ranging from the discovery of some of the oldest traces of Pleistocene human settlement in Papua New Guinea to documentation of the remarkable phenomenon of Lapita expansion through Melanesia into western Polynesia around 3000 years ago. This volume is a fitting celebration of a remarkable career in western Pacific archaeology and population history.” ­— Emeritus Professor Peter Bellwood, The Australian National University

The Oxford Handbook of the History of Archaeology offers comprehensive perspectives on the origins and developments of the discipline of archaeology and the direction of future advances in the field. Written by thirty-six archaeologists and historians from all over the world, it covers a wide range of themes and debates, including biographical accounts of key figures, scientific techniques and archaeological fieldwork practices, institutional contexts, and the effects of religion, nationalism, and colonialism on the development of archaeology.

The 36 chapters in this collection have been selected to give an overview ofrecent research into prehistoric and early historic archaeology in SoutheastAsia. In the first chapter Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhornof Thailand comments on the significance of the inscriptions from the important Khmer temple, Prasat Phnom Rung in northeastern Thailand. Following this, Professor Charles Higham gives an original and insightful survey of the prehistoric threads linking south China and the countries of modern Southeast Asia.

Keeping Time: Dialogues on music and archives in Honour of Linda Barwick explores current issues in ethnomusicology and the archiving and repatriation of ethnographic field recordings. The 19 chapters by 36 authors consider archiving practices as a site of interaction between researchers and cultural heritage communities; cross-disciplinary approaches to understanding song; and the role of musical transcription in non-Western music. This volume is international in scope with case studies with Indigenous and minority peoples from Papua New Guinea, China, India, the Torres Strait and mainland Aboriginal Australia; the latter being the focus of the majority of chapters. Topics include the revival of songs from early written sources, creation of new songs based in old genres, the concept of “sing” in other languages, spirits as the origin of song knowledge, and how to manage ethnographic records over time. Keeping Time approaches Indigenous practices from a range of disciplines, including linguistics, history and performing arts, as well as Indigenous Studies, cultural revitalisation (including reclamation of Indigenous languages), Indigenous knowledge and application to climate change. Offered in honour of Emeritus Professor Linda Barwick, the founder of the Indigenous Music, Language and Performing Arts series, Keeping Time offers a diverse range of opinions on ethnographic research practices and their value to society. There are 3 audio examples available to be listened to here: https://open.sydneyuniversitypress.com.au/keeping_time.html

Socio-Anthropological Approaches to Religion: Environmental Hope interprets the fundamental functions of spirituality through the theories and practices of hope and understanding the futuristic aspiration of new religious movements. The book portrays a neutral notion of hope that can be either religious or humanistic in the face of the suffering or despair of present reality. The concept of hope (or hopelessness) is demonstrated in each chapter under the global circumstance of health risk. Part One represents the various theories of hope in Christian history, ecology and climate, the Sabbath and surveillance, and the triune God. The insecure situation that creates the expectation of hope is demonstrated in Part Two, where the case studies of terrorist attacks, immigration, volunteering behavior, religious education, and medieval Islamic tradition indicate social unbalance. The last section illustrates the cultural anthropology of hope through the activities of different native new religious movements including the Moonies’ Unification movement, Yoruba Nigerian indigenous spirituality, and Cosmovisions of Sepik New Guinea. This book examines hope as a crucial element of human’s internal healing beyond medical technology.

People would have known about Australia before they saw it. Smoke billowing above the sea spoke of a land that lay beyond the horizon. A dense cloud of migrating birds may have pointed the way. But the first Australians were voyaging into the unknown. Soon after Billy Griffiths joins his first archaeological dig as camp manager and cook, he is hooked. Equipped with a historian’s inquiring mind, he embarks on a journey through time, seeking to understand the extraordinary deep history of the Australian continent. Deep Time Dreaming is the passionate product of that journey. It investigates a twin revolution: the reassertion of Aboriginal identity in the second half of the twentieth century, and the uncovering of the traces of ancient Australia. It explores what it means to live in a place of great antiquity, with its complex questions of ownership and belonging. It is about a slow shift in national consciousness: the deep time dreaming that has changed the way many of us relate to this continent and its enduring, dynamic human history. John Mulvaney Book Award: Winner Ernest Scott Prize: Winner NSW Premier's Literary Awards: Winner - Book of the Year NSW Premier's Literary Awards: Winner - Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards: Highly Commended Queensland Literary Awards: Shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards: Shortlisted Educational Publishing Awards: Shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards: Longlisted CHASS Book Prize: Longlisted ‘What a revelatory work! If you wish to hear the voice of our continent's history before the written word, Deep Time Dreaming is a must read. The freshest, most important book about our past in years.’ —Tim Flannery ‘Once every generation a book comes along that marks the emergence of a powerful new literary voice and shifts our understanding of the nation’s past. Billy Griffiths’ Deep Time Dreaming is one such book. Deeply researched, creatively conceived and beautifully written, it charts the expansion of archaeological knowledge in Australia for the first time. No other book has managed to convey the mystery and intricacy of Indigenous antiquity in quite the same way. Read it: it will change the way you see Australian history.’ —Mark McKenna, historian ‘Billy Griffiths’ Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia is a remarkable book, and one destined, I believe, to become a modern classic of Australian history writing. Written in vivid, evocative prose, this book will grip both the expert and the general reader alike.’ —Iain McCalman, author of The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change

Scientific reportage on what we know and don’t know about the mega-earthquake predicted to hit the Pacific Northwest Scientists have identified Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver as the urban centers of what will be the biggest earthquake—the Really Big One—in the continental United States. A quake will happen—in fact, it’s actually overdue. The Cascadia subduction zone is 750 miles long, running along the Pacific coast from Northern California up to southern British Columbia. In this fascinating book, The Seattle Times science reporter Sandi Doughton introduces readers to the scientists who are dedicated to understanding the way the earth moves and describes what patterns can be identified and how prepared (or not) people are. With a 100% chance of a mega-quake hitting the Pacific Northwest, this fascinating book reports on the scientists who are trying to understand when, where, and just how big The Big One will be.

Perhaps no scholar has done more to reveal the ancient history of Polynesia than noted archaeologist Patrick Vinton Kirch. For close to fifty years he explored the Pacific, as his work took him to more than two dozen islands spread across the ocean, from Mussau to Hawai'i to Easter Island. In this lively memoir, rich with personal—and often amusing—anecdotes, Kirch relates his many adventures while doing fieldwork on remote islands. At the age of thirteen, Kirch was accepted as a summer intern by the eccentric Bishop Museum zoologist Yoshio Kondo and was soon participating in archaeological digs on the islands of Hawai'i and Maui. He continued to apprentice with Kondo during his high school years at Punahou, and after obtaining his anthropology degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Kirch joined a Bishop Museum expedition to Anuta Island, where a traditional Polynesian culture still flourished. His appetite whetted by these adventures, Kirch went on to obtain his doctorate at Yale University with a study of the traditional irrigation-based chiefdoms of Futuna Island. Further expeditions have taken him to isolated Tikopia, where his excavations exposed stratified sites extending back three thousand years; to Niuatoputapu, a former outpost of the Tongan maritime empire; to Mangaia, with its fortified refuge caves; and to Mo'orea, where chiefs vied to construct impressive temples to the war god 'Oro. In Hawai'i, Kirch traced the islands' history in the Anahulu valley and across the ancient district of Kahikinui, Maui. His joint research with ecologists, soil scientists, and paleontologists elucidated how Polynesians adapted to their island ecosystems. Looking back over the past half-century of Polynesian archaeology, Kirch reflects on how the questions we ask about the past have changed over the decades, how archaeological methods have advanced, and how our knowledge of the Polynesian past has greatly expanded.