Mike Smith is a pioneering Australian desert archaeologist. For more than 30 years Mike has worked extensively across the Australian desert attempting to piece together a picture of the human and environmental histories of this diverse and fascinating region. Australia is the driest inhabited continent – and our distinctive drylands make up the largest of the continent’s biomes. Mike’s recent book, The Archaeology of Australia’s Deserts (Cambridge 2013), reviews and synthesizes the deep history of Australia’s deserts, charting the development of distinctive Aboriginal societies over 30 millennia.
Read Tom Griffith’s review of Mike’s book in Inside Story.
Mike’s profile at the Centre for Historical Research, NMA.
Projects: The Archaeology of Australia’s Deserts and Drylands, IHOPE Project.