[1] Robert Layton studied anthropology at University College London under the famous Australian anthropologist Phyllis Kaberry.

[7] In particular, Layton focuses on Gell's definition of art as defined by the distinctive function it performs in advancing social relationships through 'the abduction of agency'.

[10] He has revisited Australia several times, working on the Hodgson Downs land claim in 1993-4 and helping to prepare the Australian Government's submission to UNESCO to place the Uluru National Park on the World Heritage List as a cultural landscape of universal value.

He was the senior author of the Australian Government's successful renomination of the Uluru-Katatjuta National Park to the World Heritage List[11] as an indigenous landscape of Universal Significance.

[13] Layton's 2006 book, Order and Anarchy: Civil Society, Social Disorder and War (CUP), examines the role of violence in human evolution.