A future for Australian maritime archaeology?

Abstract

For a small sub-discipline of archaeology, maritime archaeology seems to have had a relatively long and glorious history in Australia. Celebratory reviews or overviews of selected parts of the history of Australian maritime archaeology have been published fairly regularly since the 1986 appearance of Graeme Henderson's book Maritime Archaeology in Australia (Henderson 1986). These publications include two articles that were published in the pages of this journal (Hosty and Stuart 1994; McCarthy 1998). While there is obviously much to be celebrated about the history of maritime archaeology in Australia, a self-critical examination of the state of the sub-discipline with some ideas about where it might be going in the next two or three decades is, I suggest, a useful exercise as we enter the 21st century.