65,000 years ago, modern humans arrived in Australia, having navigated more than 100 km of sea crossing from southeast Asia. Since then, the large continental islands of Australia and New Guinea, together with smaller islands in between, have been connected by land bridges and severed again as sea levels fell and rose. Along with these fluctuations came changes in the terrestrial and marine environments of both land masses. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Indigenous Australia and New Guinea reviews and assembles the latest findings and ideas on the archaeology of the Australia-New Guinea region, the world's largest island-continent. In 42 new chapters written by 77 contributors, it presents and explores the archaeological evidence to weave stories of colonisation; megafaunal extinctions; Indigenous architecture; long-distance interactions, sometimes across the seas; eel-based aquaculture and the development of techniques for the mass-trapping of fish; occupation of the High Country, deserts, tropical swamplands and other, diverse land and waterscapes; and rock art and symbolic behaviour. Together with established researchers, a new generation of archaeologists present in this Handbook one, authoritative text where Australia-New Guinea archaeology now lies and where it is heading, promising to shape future directions for years to come.

Professor Ian J. McNiven (Monash University, and Chief Investigator with the Australian Research Council Centre for Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage) is an anthropological archaeologist who specialises in understanding the long-term development of Australian Indigenous coastal societies with a focus on the archaeology of seascapes and ritual and spiritual relationships with the sea. He is an elected member of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. In addition to over 180 refereed journal papers and book chapters, his 16 books include The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art (OUP, 2018), Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology (AltaMira Press, 2005), and Constructions of Colonialism: Perspectives on Eliza Fraser's Shipwreck (Leicester University Press, 1998).
Professor Bruno David (Monash University, and Chief Investigator with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage) is an archaeologist who specialises in the archaeology of Australia and the western Pacific, landscape archaeology, and rock art. He has long-practiced transdisciplinary approaches to archaeology, investigating the past through multiple disciplinary approaches in partnership research programs requested by local Indigenous communities. He has undertaken field research in Australia, Egypt, Papua New Guinea, the U.S.A., and Vanuatu. He has published hundreds of academic and popular articles on various dimensions of archaeology, and 17 books, the most recent including: The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art (OUP, 2018), Cave Art (Thames & Hudson, 2017), and Hiri: Archaeology of Maritime Trade along the South Coast of Papua New Guinea (University of Hawaii Press, 2017). He currently researches community archaeology with the GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation of East Gippsland, southeastern Australia.

Introduction: Archaeology of Sahul by Ian J. McNiven and Bruno David
The Thick Darkness of Pre-Historic Time: Antiquarian Archaeology in Nineteenth-Century Colonial Victoria by Ian J. McNiven
History of Archaeology in Papua New Guinea: The Early Years Up to 1960 by Glenn R. Summerhayes
Trans-Disciplinary Approaches to the Past in New Guinea by Chris Ballard
Oral Tradition, History, and Archaeohistory of Indigenous Australia by Iain Davidson, Heather Burke, Lynley A. Wallis, Pearl Connelly, Lance Sullivan, Hazel Sullivan, Stephen Porter, and Isabel Tarragó
Cultural Heritage and Contract Archaeology in Australia and New Guinea by Joanna Fresløv
Museum Collections and their Legacies by Lindy Allen
Island Hopping to Sahul by Kasih Norman, Sue O'Connor, and Michael Bird
Australia's First People: Oldest Sites and Early Culture by Chris Clarkson, Kasih Norman, Sue O'Connor, Jane Balme, Peter Veth, and Ceri Shipton
Interactions with Megafauna by Chris N. Johnson, Joe Dortch, and Trevor H. Worthy
What Does DNA Tell Us about Past Connections and the Settlement of Sahul? by Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith and Anna L. Gosling
Fire and the Transformation of Landscapes by Cassandra Rowe, Janelle Stevenson, Simon Connor, and Matthew Adeleye
Beyond Agriculture: Ditch Networks in the New Guinea Landscape by Chris Ballard
Enhanced Ecologies and Ecosystem Engineering: Strategies Developed by Aboriginal Australians to Increase the Abundance of Animal Resources by Ian J. McNiven, Tiina Manne, and Anne Ross
The Coming of the Dingo by Jane Balme and Sue O'Connor
Engaging and Designing Place: Furnishings and the Architecture of Archaeological Sites in Aboriginal Australia by Bruno David, Jean-Jacques Delannoy, Chris Urwin, Joanna Fresløv, Russell Mullett, and Christine Phillips
The Big Flood: Responding to Sea-Level Rise and the Inundated Continental Shelf by Jonathan Benjamin and Sean Ulm
Past Aboriginal Populations and Demographic Change Using Radiocarbon Data and Time-Series Analysis by Alan Williams, Sean Ulm, and M. A. Smith
Persistence of Complexity: Continuation of Intensification, Population Change, and Socio-Structural Change in Current Debates in Australian Archaeology by Harry Lourandos and Anne Ross
Boundaries, Relationality, and Style Provinces in Australian Rock Art by Madeleine Kelly and Liam M. Brady
Australian Indigenous Ochres: Use, Sourcing, and Exchange by Jillian Huntley
Axe Quarrying, Production, and Exchange in Australia and New Guinea by Anne Ford and Peter Hiscock
Shell Valuables and Exchange Systems in New Guinea by Kat Szabó
Language Evolution and Spread by Patrick McConvell and Nick Evans
Stone Tool Manufacture and Use by Chris Clarkson
Mortars and Pestles Make the Mid-Holocene Occupation of New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago Visible by Pamela Swadling
Pottery Exchange Systems in New Guinea by Glenn R. Summerhayes
Coral Sea Cultural Interaction Sphere by Ian J. McNiven
Maritime Coastal and Island Societies of Australia and New Guinea by Michael Rowland, Ben Shaw, and Sean Ulm
Below the Sky, Above the Clouds: The Archaeology of the Australian High Country by Joanna Fresløv and Russell Mullett
The Archaeology of Social Transformation in the New Guinea Highlands by Dylan Gaffney and Tim Denham
Beyond the Barriers: A New Model for the Settlement of Australian Deserts by Peter Veth, Jo McDonald, and Peter Hiscock
Murray River Societies in Australia through the Lens of Bioarchaeology by Judith Littleton, Sarah Karstens, and Harry Allen
Swamp and Delta Societies of the Papuan Gulf, Papua New Guinea by Chris Urwin, James W. Rhoads, and Joshua A. Bell
Historisizing the "Dreaming": An Archaeological Perspective from Arid Australia by M. A. Smith
Dugongs and Turtles as Kin: Relational Ontologies and Archaeological Perspectives on Ritualized Hunting by Coastal Indigenous Australians by Ian J. McNiven
Rock Art Modification and its Ritualized and Relational Contexts by Liam M. Brady, R. G. Gunn, and Joakim Goldhahn
Asian Traders and Macassan Trepangers by Daryl Wesley
Whaling and Sealing in Nineteenth-Century Australia by Martin Gibbs and Lynette Russell
Fatal Frontier: Temporal and Spatial Considerations of the Native Mounted Police and Colonial Violence Across Queensland by Lynley A. Wallis, Heather Burke, Bryce Barker, and Noelene Cole
Missions and Reserves by Jeremy Ash
The Archaeology of Agrarian Australia by Alistair Paterson
Contact Rock Art by Jo McDonald, Ursula K. Frederick
The Development (and Imagined Reinvention) of Australian Archaeology in the Twentieth Century by Chris Urwin and Matthew Spriggs
Approaching Indigenous Archaeologies in Australia by Christopher Wilson
Earth Mounding in the Western District of Victoria by Julian Dunn
Flaked Stone Tools of Holocene Sahul: Case studies from Northern Australia and Papua New Guinea by Tim Ryan Maloney
Plant Exploitation and Long-Term Cultural Change in Sahul: The Archaeobotanical Perspective by Stephanie Florin and Andrew Fairbairn
Stone-Walled Fish Traps of Australia and New Guinea as Expressions of Enhanced Sociality by Ian J. McNiven and Ariana B. J. Lambrides