Histories of Australian Rock Art Research

backdrop. To summarise, this is one of the most detailed reports of an excavation I have ever read. Reading it, you will know exactly what they found in 6m of the PNG south coast and where it was found. Whether we need to know this with such precision might be debated. Now for a couple of more general comments. Although it is clear from the photos and acknowledgments that many Papua New Guineans were involved in the work, only one, the late Hermann Mandui, is an author. The first Caution Bay volume (Richards et al. 2016) says that many University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) students and some others were trainees on site, but there does seem to be something of a hierarchy in presenting the results. Perhaps the meticulousness of this excavation results from being partly seen as a field school? In terms of production, this is a 350-page book of which well over 200 pages are data tables. In the twenty-first century these should be online, or otherwise available in an electronic repository; printed, or even as a pdf, they are very difficult to manipulate and use. This seems an extraordinary oversight. Otherwise, the presentation is fine: my pdf had many excellent colour photos, well organised text and only a couple of minor problems (e.g. the size of sherd in Square N, XU2, #2: compare p.80 with Figures 3.15 and 3.18). It is not clear (Richards et al. 2016:6) how many other Caution Bay monographs there will be, but this project has already made a considerable contribution to the history of Papua New Guinea.