The Long-term Dynamics of Higher Order social Organisation in Aboriginal Australia

该项目的两个主要目的是表明：澳大利亚的全新世史前是动态的，涉及语言群体的显著扩张和迁移；在这种扩张、迁移和对它们的抵制中，形成了更高级别的社会群体：早期人类学报告的‘国家’和近代人类学的‘文化集团’。证据将来自比较语言学、人类学和地理在社会群体分布中的作用，主要是在亚热带的东澳大利亚，但也在维多利亚河地区和北领地的塔纳米沙漠。这个项目挑战了殖民前静态的澳大利亚土著的主导观点，并将使土著头衔人类学受益。

The two principal aims of the project are to show: that the Holocene prehistory of Australia was dynamic, involving significant expansion and migration of language groups; and, that in such expansion, migration, and resistance to them, higher-order social groupings were formed: the ‘nations’ reported by earlier anthropology and the ‘cultural blocs’ of recent anthropology. Evidence will come from comparative linguistics, anthropology, and the role of geography in the distribution of social groupings, principally in subtropical Eastern Australia but also in the Victoria River district and Tanami Desert, Northern Territory. This project challenges the dominant view of static Indigenous Australia pre-colonially, and will benefit Native Title anthropology.