Description
In this video, filmed in October 2012, Professor Alistair Paterson and Dr Mike Smith engage in a professional conversation.
Mike Smith is a veteran desert archaeologist, with years of fieldwork under his belt. He has an intellectual passion for the detective work of archaeological research, and has spent much of his career peeling back the skin of the Australian desert to painstakingly reconstruct its human and environmental history.
He trained at ANU and UNE, before taking up the post of field archaeologist with the Northern Territory Museum from 1980-88. At the end of the 1980s, Mike joined the (then) Department of Prehistory RSPacS ANU, as a Research Fellow. There Mike developed his desert research into a fine-grained study of the archaeology of Puritjarra rock shelter, then the only Australian desert site with a long cultural and environmental sequence extending back to 30,000 years, well into the last ice-age.
After a stint as a university lecturer, Mike joined the National Museum of Australia in 1996, initially as head of the People and Environment section and later as Director of Research and Development. In 2007, he set up the Centre for Historical Research at the Museum, where he is now a Senior Research Fellow.
Mike is an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and of the Society of Antiquaries of London. In 2006 the Australian Archaeological Association awarded him the Rhys Jones Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Australian Archaeology and in 2010 the Royal Society (South Australia) awarded Mike the Verco Medal for research in science.
Professor Alistair Paterson is based at the Centre for Rock Art Research and Management at The University of Western Australia.
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