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Maritime archaeologists carried out excavations of several wrecks around the Australian coast in the 1980s and early 1990s. This research built on the skills and frameworks developed during earlier excavation of the Dutch VOC (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, Dutch East India Company) wrecks in Western Australia carried out by the Western Australian Maritime Museum in the 1970s (Hosty and Stuart 1994). Underwater archaeologists trained in Western Australia began to investigate more recent wrecks, including the Sydney Cove, which sank in 1791 while on a voyage to supply the infant colony at Sydney (Nash 1997; Strachan 1986), and the Pandora, which sank off Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef while returning to England with some of the Bounty mutineers (Gestner 1991). Other important studies include the work done on the James Matthews in Western Australia and the William Salthouse in Melbourne, both of which were bringing supplies (Staniforth 1987, 1995). The Hive, a convict transport wrecked off the New South Wales coast (Nutley 1995), and the Litherland, a whaling ship cum coastal trader that sank in Bass Strait (Nash 1990), have also been investigated.

In the 1990s, debate continued about the future of historical archaeology in Australia (Connah 1998; Egloff 1994; Mackay and Karskens 1999). Although the decline of historical archaeology in the traditional strongholds of the Universities of Sydney and New England was cause for concern, at the same time historical archaeology was also able to claim a truly nationwide distribution. New appointments at Flinders University in Adelaide, James Cook University in Townsville, the Northern Territory University in Darwin, and the University of Western Australia in Perth, in addition to existing appointments at La Trobe University in Melbourne, meant that for the first time programs in historical archaeology were being taught at the university level around the country. In addition, a spate of doctoral dissertations effectively doubled the number of practitioners with Ph.D.s in historical archaeology, and there are sufficient numbers presently completing their Ph.D. to double that number again in the next few years. The fact that practitioners are increasingly seeking postgraduate qualifications suggests that the theoretical sophistication of research carried out, both inside the academy and in public archaeology, will continue to develop.

The impact of this third generation of historical archaeologists in Australia is gradually being felt. Four major monographs, the first of their kind to find commercial publishers, have recently been published, making work available to a broader audience within Australia and overseas. This work, and other studies also being undertaken, draw from a wide range of theoretical approaches. Resistance theory and feminist approaches shaped the study of the female convict site of Ross Factory (Casella 1996, 1997), while postcolonial theory has been influential in shaping studies such as Jane Lydon’s nuanced analysis of the Chinese in the Rocks (Lydon 1999) and Tracey Ireland’s (Ireland forthcoming) study of historical archaeology and Australian identity. Other studies have made use of the fine-grained historical ethnographic approach pioneered by Rhys Isaac and Greg Dening (Karskens 1999; Lawrence 2000). H. Burke’s (1999) analysis of architectural form in Armidale, New South Wales, represents the most fully articulated application of Marxist theory yet seen in Australian historical archaeology. In his 1994 review of the field, Brian Egloff (1994) argued that for historical archaeology to continue, it needed to demonstrate its engagement with issues of concern to issues of general concern. Although the field in Australia is still developing, there are signs that wider relevance is being sought and that the field will continue to increase in strength and diversity.

Susan Lawrence