Claire Smith

Claire Smith
Born (1957-07-15) 15 July 1957
Sydney, Australia
Nationality Australian
Education B.A, First Class Hons, 1990; PhD, 1996
Alma mater University of New England,
Occupation Archaeologist
Employer Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia
Organization World Archaeological Congress, President from 2003-2008 & 2008-2014
Known for Work in indigenous archaeology, especially rock art

Claire Smith (born 15 July 1957) is an Australian archaeologist. She is a Professor with the Department of Archaeology[1] at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. She served two terms as President of the World Archaeological Congress, from 2003-2008 and from 2008-2014.

She obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree with First-Class Honours in Archaeology and University Medal from the University of New England in 1990, and a PhD on the "social and material context in an Australian Aboriginal artistic system" from the same university in 1996. After that she held an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Professor Smith specialises in Indigenous archaeology, especially rock art. She works with her anthropologist husband, Gary Jackson. They have conducted long-term fieldwork with Aboriginal people in the Barunga region, Northern Territory, and with the Ngadjuri in South Australia. Smith is politically active within Australia, especially in terms of Indigenous rights.[2]

Claire Smith's books include Indigenous Archaeologies: decolonising theory and practice,[3] co-edited by H. Martin Wobst (de), published by Routledge, 2005, The Archaeologist's Field Handbook,[4] co-authored by Heather Burke, published by Allen and Unwin, 2004, Archaeology to Delight and Instruct: Active Learning in the University Classroom,[5] published by Left Coast Press,[6] 2007, and Digging it Up Down Under,[7] co-authored by Heather Burke, published by Springer, 2007.[8]

Claire Smith is the Editor of the 11-volume Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology,[9] published by Springer in 2014. She conceived of this work with three principal innovations. The first was that scholars were able to submit entries in their own language. This meant that the best expertise could be accessed, irrespective of whether the scholar was an English-language speaker. Around 140 entries were translated from French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. In addition, many more entries were submitted by authors whose first language is Chinese, German, Japanese, or Turkish. A second innovation was the inclusion of multiple perspectives on key topics within the environment of an encyclopaedia. A third innovation was to combine print and eReference publication. The continuous augmentation allowed by an online environment should ensure that this encyclopaedia becomes a definitive reference work.

Selected publications

References

External links

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