In the late 1970s cultural heritage management gained prominence, with the increasing demands by Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups for representation in archaeological research.
At a research level, the focus shifted to cultural change of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through time.
Currently, archaeological research places great importance on Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's viewpoints on the land and history of Australia.
Asian genetic studies have demonstrated that there are similarities between Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, Melanesians and Indians.
Sunda and Sahul had a permanent water-crossing, meaning that the first Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had to make a crossing on the open sea (see Wallace Line).
With the settlement of Australia, it is most probable that Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people first settled on the northern coast, as this is the area closest to Asia.
[10] The finding of a robust skeleton with surprisingly so-called "primitive" features at Kow Swamp was also advocated as proof of an earlier wave of settlers to the continent.
Dating of the Kow Swamp material, however, showed that rather than being earlier, it was in fact a lot more recent than the nearby Mungo gracile skeletons that more closely resembled modern Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Today it is thought that Aboriginal people throughout the continent are descendants of an original founder population, although this does not completely exclude some contribution from later arrivals.
[12] Some researchers, such as Tim Flannery, have put forward the idea that human settlement was responsible for the large climatic and environmental changes that occurred in Australia.
The most extreme theory is that Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were completely responsible for the extinction of these animals through extensive hunting.
The sites of Cuddie Springs in New South Wales, and Keilor in Victoria, display some evidence of associations between Aboriginal stone tools and megafauna remains, but do not prove conclusively the overkill theory.
In the Australian context environmental change did not give rise to the development of agriculture but it may have contributed to the disappearance of populations of animals made even more vulnerable to depletion through hunting and marginalised grazing.
Arguably the oldest human remains in Australia, the Lake Mungo 3 skull was given the age of 60,000 years by Gregory Adcock and his researchers.
Sensitivities to handling Aboriginal remains means that specimens are not available for further research, so reassessment of the date awaits the development of appropriate ethical protocols.
Kent Flannery's model[24] of the broad spectrum revolution in which foragers diversified the types of food sources harvested, broadening their subsistence base outward to include more fish, small game, water fowl, invertebrates likes snails and shellfish, as well as previously ignored or marginal plant sources, would seem to apply to Australian hunters and gatherers.
[26] The degree to which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on the Australian continent practised agriculture has long been debated by archaeologists.
For instance, Australian Aboriginal women in traditional societies often transplanted immature "bush tucker" plants found growing in unfavourable locations to more favourable spots.
Charles Sturt in his 1844 expedition to northwest New South Wales and central Australia reports seeing large haystacks built by Aboriginal people of seed crops.
Australia is the only continent on Earth, which, as a result of the El Nino Southern Oscillation, experiences greater variability between years than it does between the seasons.
Evidence of cultivation at Kuk in Papua New Guinea, from about 10–12,000 years BP (at a time when that island was joined to Australia, suggests crop raising was possible in the Sahul supercontinent when conditions were favourable.
[citation needed] Historical archaeology is the study of the past through material remains such as artefacts (i.e. objects), structures (e.g. standing and ruined buildings, fences, roads), features (e.g. ditches, mounds, canals, landfill), and even whole landscapes modified by human activity and their spatial and stratigraphic contexts.
The origins of historical archaeology in Australia are generally held to lie in archaeological investigations by the late William (Bill) Culican at Fossil Beach in Victoria, in Jim Allen's PhD research at Port Essington in the Northern Territory and in Judy Birmingham's work at Irrawang Pottery in the Hunter Valley of NSW.
[27] Maritime archaeology, the first of these sub-disciplines to emerge in Australia, commenced under the aegis of Jeremy Green in the 1970s after concerns were expressed by academics and politicians over the rampant destruction of Dutch and British East Indian ships lost on the west coast.
While also encompassing the study of port-related structures (e.g. jetties, anchorages), lighthouses, moorings, defences etc., initially the focus in maritime archaeology was solely on shipwrecks.
Historical Archaeology is generally protected by separate legislation, such as the New South Wales Heritage Act 1977, and the various other state counterparts.
In New South Wales, companies such as Casey and Lowe and GML have specialised in large scale historical archaeological salvage.