Dr Mike Smith

Mike Smith

Dr Mike Smith is a pioneering Australian desert archaeologist and a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Historical Research.

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.

Mike's previous appointments include the post of field archaeologist with the Northern Territory Museum in Darwin and Alice Springs, research fellow in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University, and lecturer in archaeology in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University.

Mike joined the National Museum of Australia in 1996, initially as head of the People and Environment section and later as Director of Research and Development. Along with his current role as a Senior Research Fellow at the National Museum's Centre for Historical Research, Mike is also Adjunct Professor in the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University.

Mike is author, co-author or editor of five books and his work is represented in major scientific journals such as Nature, Science, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, Antiquity, Archaeology in Oceania and Quaternary Science Reviews. He has also written for leading literary journals and the print news media and is an editor of the National Museum's scholarly journal, reCollections.

Mike is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and of the Society of Antiquaries in London. In 2006 the Australian Archaeological Association awarded Mike the Rhys Jones Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Australian Archaeology.

Phone +61 2 6208 5335
Fax +61 2 6208 5130
Email m.smith at nma.gov.au

The prehistory and human ecology of the Australian desert (including history of ideas about Australian drylands), the timing, nature and impact of early human colonisation of the Australian continent, and the presentation of environmental history in museums.

• The Human Elements: Climate and Culture in Australia, with industry partners the Bureau of Meteorology and the National Museum of Australia and Tom Griffiths, Tim Sherratt and Kirsty Douglas, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University; and Libby Robin, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University. Australian Research Council Linkage Project 0347378, 2003-2006.
• An archaeology of Australian deserts and drylands. Major publication project.
• The last millennium in central Australia?: Timing, impact, and archaeological signatures. Current field project.
• Archaeology and palaeoecology of Puritjarra rockshelter, central Australia.
• Human-environment interactions in Australian drylands: time-series analysis of archaeological records.
• Asia's first people: the role of East Asia in human evolution during the past half million years, with Alan Thorne and Geoff Hope, Archaeology and Natural History, Australian National University; Paul Tacon, Griffith University; and Colin Pardoe and Darren Curnoe, University of New South Wales. Australian Research Council Development Project 0450837, 2004-2006.

Environmental history in museums; human-environment interactions in Australian drylands; history of ideas and the history of science – Australian drylands, archaeology or Quaternary sciences.

MA Smith, 'Peopling' the Cleland Hills: Aboriginal History in Western Central Australia, 1850-1980, Aboriginal History Monograph 12, Canberra, 2005.

M Martin, L Robin and MA Smith, Strata: Deserts Past, Present and Future, Land and Water Australia, Canberra, 2006.

MA Smith and P Hesse, 23 Degrees South: Archaeology and Environmental History of the Southern Deserts, National Museum of Australia Press, Canberra, 2005.

P Veth, MA Smith and P Hiscock (eds), Desert Peoples: Archaeological Perspectives, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 2005.

MA Smith, M Spriggs and B Fankhauser (eds), Sahul in Review: Pleistocene Archaeology in Australia, New Guinea and Island Melanesia, Occasional Papers in Prehistory 24, Department of Prehistory, Research School of Social Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, 1993.

MA Smith, 'Characterising late Pleistocene and Holocene stone artefact assemblages from Puritjarra rock shelter: a long sequence from the Australian desert', Records of the Australian Museum, 2006, vol. 58, pp. 371-410.

MA Smith, 'A Kind Of Scripture' (review essay for Broken Song: TGH Strehlow and Aboriginal Possession by Barry Hill), Meanjin, 2006, vol. 65, no. 1, pp. 77-82.

MA Smith, 'Palaeoclimates: an archaeology of climate change', in T Sherratt, T Griffiths and L Robin (eds), A Change in the Weather: Climate and Culture in Australia, National Museum of Australia Press, Canberra, 2005, pp. 176-186.

MA Smith, 'The opening chapter of the romance of excavation in Australia: reflections on Norman Tindale's archaeology', Historical Records of Australian Science, 2000, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 151-160.

MA Smith, 'Biogeography, human ecology and prehistory in the sand ridge deserts', Australian Archaeology, 1993, vol. 37, pp. 35-50.

MA Smith, 'The case for a resident human population in the Central Australian Ranges during full glacial aridity', Archaeology in Oceania, 1989, vol. 24, pp. 93-105.

MA Smith, 'Pleistocene occupation in arid Central Australia', Nature, 1987, vol. 328, pp. 710-711.

MA Smith, 'The antiquity of seedgrinding in arid Australia,' Archaeology in Oceania, 1986, vol. 21, pp. 29-39.

RG Roberts, TF Flannery, LK Ayliffe, H Yoshida, JM Olley, GJ Prideaux, GM Laslett, A Baynes, MA Smith, R Jones and BL Smith, 'New ages for the last Australian megafauna: continent-wide extinction about 46,000 years ago', Science, 2001, vol. 292, pp. 1888-1892.

CSM Turney, MI Bird, LK Fifield, RG Roberts, MA Smith, CE Dortch, E Lawson, LK Ayliffe, GH Miller, J Dortch and RG Cresswell, 'Early human occupation at Devil's Lair, southwestern Australia 50,000 years ago', Quaternary Research, 2001, vol. 55, pp. 3-13.

RG Roberts, R Jones and MA Smith, 'Thermoluminescence dating of a 50,000 year-old human occupation site in northern Australia', Nature, 1990, vol. 345, pp. 153-156.