[1] He has played a prominent role in the formation of the practice of Australian archaeology and in particular the Academic discipline.
[2] He completed his Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney in 1978, but is best known for his work with John Mulvaney in producing the 1999 revision of the Prehistory of Australia.
[6][7] For example, he prepared the research design in the 1980s, which was later used in Daniel Davenport's 2003 work on rattan processing by Cagayan Valley Negrito hunter gatherers in the Philippines.
[8] Kamminga contributed to the establishment of the great antiquity of Aboriginal occupation in Australia, when stone tools he had excavated in Kakadu National Park in 1973, were dated nearly a decade later by Rhys Jones to more than 30,000 years old at a time when it was assumed aboriginal people had only been in the continent for a few thousand years.
[9] Kamminga is also credited with the discovery of the Malakunanja site and excavations at Nauwalabila where possibly the oldest dates for Aboriginal occupation have been found in Australia.