Review of 'Geoarchaeology of Aboriginal Landscapes in Semi-Arid Australia' by Simon J. Holdaway and Patricia C. Fanning

[Extract] This book reports in detail on a sophisticated geoarchaeological study of stone artefact assemblages and hearths at Fowlers Gap Arid Zone Research Station in western New South Wales and incorporates earlier work undertaken over many years (35 related, individual, jointly, or multi-authored publications are cited). Semi-arid Australia covers around 70% of the continent and is a zone in which archaeologists have struggled to deal with abundant stone artefact scatters and deflated hearths found there. Holdaway and Fanning go a long way to resolving a number of issues.