Peter Hiscock facts for kids

Peter Dixon Hiscock (born on March 27, 1957) is an Australian archaeologist. He was born in Melbourne and later earned his PhD from the University of Queensland. From 2013 to 2021, he was a special professor of Australian Archaeology at the University of Sydney. Before that, he worked at the Australian National University.

Professor Hiscock is an expert in ancient stone tools, also known as lithic technologies. He has worked on archaeological sites in Australia, France, and Southern Africa. He is a respected member of several important groups, including the Society of Antiquaries of London and the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Museum. His research explores how people made and used stone tools, the history of Indigenous Australia, how modern humans spread across the world, and the study of ancient human relatives like Homo neanderthalensis.

Archaeological Discoveries

Studying Stone Tools

Professor Hiscock has always believed in using careful measurements and scientific methods to study stone tools. He has created important ways to understand how much stone tools were shaped and used over time.

Australian History

Besides his work on stone tools, Professor Hiscock has helped us understand the ancient history of Indigenous Australia in new ways.

Early Settlers and the Desert

Working with Lynley Wallis, he developed the "Desert Transformation" idea. This idea suggests that about 50,000 years ago, the first people to arrive in Australia spread across most of the continent. At that time, the deserts were not as harsh as they are today. These early settlers then slowly learned to live in the tougher environments that appeared after about 35,000 years ago.

Small Stone Tools and Climate Change

With Val Attenbrow and Gail Robertson, he looked again at when, where, and why small stone tools called backed artefacts were used by ancient Indigenous Australian societies. They suggested that these tools became very common along Australia's east coast because the climate was changing more often. This happened during the middle of the Holocene period, when the El Niño-Southern Oscillation weather pattern began. Later, he also suggested that making many backed artefacts might have been a way for groups to show who they were, like a form of social signalling.

Rethinking Ancient Societies

One of Professor Hiscock's biggest contributions to understanding Indigenous Australia's past is his book, Archaeology of Ancient Australia. In this book, he argued that there isn't much proof that ancient Australian societies always "progressed" in one direction. Instead, he believes the archaeological evidence shows a long series of changes as people adapted to different situations. These changes might have happened in many different ways, not just towards more "intense" ways of life, as some other archaeologists thought.

He also strongly believes that we should be careful when using information about recent Indigenous Australians' lives (called ethnography) to understand their very distant ancestors. He thinks that sometimes, ideas about modern life have been wrongly applied to the ancient past.

Professor Hiscock has also written about the development of Aboriginal Australian religious beliefs and how the arrival of the British in 1788, along with Christian beliefs, affected them.

He also pointed out that much of the archaeological evidence from the very old Pleistocene period might not have survived. This means that early times might seem simpler than they actually were, just because we don't have all the evidence. By looking at the available archaeological and genetic evidence this way, Professor Hiscock presented a new story of Australia's ancient past. In his view, the number of people living in Australia changed over time depending on how much food and resources were available. People's physical features also changed as the climate and gene flow (people moving and mixing) altered. And their ways of life, social rules, and beliefs adjusted to fit the conditions of each time period.

Other Interests

Professor Hiscock has also written about how archaeology and archaeologists are shown in movies and other popular media.

Awards

In 2008, Professor Hiscock received the John Mulvaney Book Award from the Australian Archaeological Association. This award was for his book The Archaeology of Ancient Australia. The book was praised for focusing on the archaeological evidence itself and looking at long periods of time, which fits well with how ancient Australian sites are dated and formed. He also received an honorary Doctor of Science (DSc) degree from the Australian National University.

Selected Publications

Books

• Hiscock, P. (2008) Archaeology of Ancient Australia. Routledge: London.
• Veth, P., Smith, M. and Hiscock, P. (2005) Desert Peoples: archaeological perspectives. Blackwell.

Articles and chapters

• Hiscock, P. and T. Maloney (2017). "Australian lithic technology: evolution, dispersion and connectivity." Routledge handbook of archaeology and globalization: 301–318.
• Hiscock, P., S. O’Connor, J. Balme and T. Maloney (2016). "World’s earliest ground-edge axe production coincides with human colonisation of Australia." Australian Archaeology 82(1): 2–11.
• Hiscock, P. (2014). "Geographical variation in Australian backed artefacts: trialling a new index of symmetry." Australian Archaeology 74: 124–130.
• Hiscock, P. and A. Tabrett (2010). "Generalization, inference and the quantification of lithic reduction." World Archaeology 42(4): 545–561.
• Hiscock, P. and Faulkner, P. (2006) "Dating the dreaming? Creation of myths and rituals for mounds along the northern Australian coastline". Cambridge Archaeological Journal 16:209–22.
• Hiscock, P. and O’Connor, S. (2006) "An Australian perspective on modern behaviour and artefact assemblages", Before Farming, online version 2006/1 article 5.
• Hiscock, P. and Clarkson, C. (2005) "Measuring artefact reduction: an examination of Kuhn's Geometric Index of Reduction". In Clarkson, C. and L. Lamb (eds) Rocking the Boat: Recent Australian Approaches to Lithic Reduction, Use and Classification. British Archaeological Reports. International Monograph Series 1408. Oxford: Archaeopress.
• Hiscock, P. and Wallis, L. (2005) "Pleistocene settlement of deserts from an Australian perspective". In P. Veth, M. Smith and P. Hiscock (eds) Desert Peoples: archaeological perspectives. Blackwell. pp. 34–57.
• Hiscock, P. and Attenbrow, V. (2003) "Early Australian implement variation: a reduction model". Journal of Archaeological Science 30: 239–249.
• Hiscock, P. (2002) "Pattern and context in the Holocene proliferation of backed artefacts in Australia". In Robert G. Elston and Steven L. Kuhn (eds) Thinking Small: Global Perspectives on Microlithization. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association (AP3A) number 12. pp. 163–177.
• Hiscock, P. (1994) "Technological responses to risk in Holocene Australia". Journal of World Prehistory 8:267–292.