Overpaid, Over-Sexed and Over Here: O'Connell in Australia

Summary

Jim O'Connell arrived in Australia in 1973 to take up a five year research fellowship at the Australian National University in Canberra. Although he returned to the US in 1978, O'Connell has not only maintained diverse interests in Australia and its archaeological record but has also returned there perhaps 25 times to carry out fieldwork, present papers at conferences and to interact with colleagues. It is clear that some of O'Connell's major contributions to world anthropology have been directly informed by his Australian experiences, but that equally he has remained a serious player in the development of Australian archaeology for the last 40 years.

This paper reviews some of the major themes of O'Connell's interaction with Australia, Australians and Australian archaeology, including his early influence in a Cambridge (UK) dominated archaeology department, his promotion of the discipline and his practical and intellectual contributions to it. In parts irreverent, the paper acknowledges the unique role O'Connell continues to play in Australian archaeology.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• A Sense of Question: Papers in Honor of James F. O'Connell

Keywords

Spatial Coverage