Disrupting paradise: Has Australian archaeology lost its way?

The opening keynote session at the 2019 Australian Archaeological Association (AAA) annual conference on the Gold Coast was designed to allow reflection on how archaeology has developed in the 50 years since John Mulvaney (1969) published his landmark Prehistory of Australia (Clarkson 2019; David and Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation 2019; Hodgetts and Ross 2019; Jacobs 2019; McDonald 2019). In reflecting on that issue myself, I wonder whether the kind of generalist practitioner that John and others (including his contemporary Isabel McBryde) epitomised, is endangered, or perhaps even extinct? In this paper, which is an expanded version of the spoken comments I offered in response to the AAA keynote presentations (Wallis 2019), I contemplate our current position as Australian archaeological practitioners in the broader context of shrinking research funding, increasing bureaucratisation of universities, an unhealthy attention to metrics as the primary measure of research value, and increasing levels of specialisation, offset against a burgeoning cultural heritage management (CHM) sector. In keeping with the 2019 conference theme, I suggest we require some conscious and deliberate 'disruption' of the discourse if we hope to have another productive 50 years.