experience of teaching at the Australian National University. Lucidly written, it shows the diversity and colourfulness of the history of humanity in the southern continent. "The Archaeology of Ancient Australia" demonstrates, with an array of illustrations and clear descriptions of key archaeological evidence from Australia, a thorough evaluation of Australian prehistory. Readers are shown how this human past can be reconstructed from archaeological evidence, supplemented by information from genetics, environmental sciences, anthropology, and history. The result is a challenging view about how varied human life in the ancient past has been.