Basic Biographical Information
Fred McCarthy was a pioneering Australian archaeologist/anthropologist throughout the twentieth century. He was born in 1906 in Petersham, Sydney. At the age of fourteen, McCarthy left schooling and took a position as a library clerk at the Australian Museum, Sydney. In 1930 McCarthy was transferred to the Department of Birds and Reptiles where he stayed for 18 months (Kahn 1993). In 1931 he produced his first research paper, “Lake Burrill and How Our Coastal Lakes Were Formed” (McCarthy 1931). In 1932 McCarthy was offered a position as Assistant Curator of Anthropology under W.W. Thorpe (Khan 1993). Thorpe died within months of taking the position and subsequently McCarthy took over curatorship of the entire anthropology collection. In 1933 McCarthy enrolled at Sydney University and undertook a Diploma of Anthropology under Professor A. P. Elkin. His first published excavation was on a rockshelter near Emu Plains in 1934. In 1935 his thesis, The Material...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
AIAS Newsletter. 1965. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies Newsletter 2(1): 1.
Attenbrow, V. 1998. Frederick David McCarthy Obituary. Australian Archaeology 46: 40-2.
Khan, K. 1993. Frederick David McCarthy: an appreciation, in J. Specht (ed.) F. D. McCarthy commemorative papers (Archaeology, anthropology, rock art). Records of the Australian Museum 17: 1-5.
McBryde, I. 1998. Frederick David McCarthy: 13 August 1905 – 18 November 1997. Australian Aboriginal Studies 1: 51.
McCarthy, F.D. 1931. Lake Burrill and how our coastal lakes were formed. Australian Museum Magazine 4(7): 233-7.
- 1934. A rock-shelter near Emu Plains: Result of excavation. Mankind 1(10): 240-1.
- 1935. Material culture of eastern Australia. Mankind 1(11): 264-5.
- 1938a. A comparison of the prehistory of Australia and that of Indo-China, the Malay Peninsula and the Netherlands East Indies, in Proceedings of the Third Congress of Prehistorians of the Far East: 30-50. Singapore: Australian Museum.
- 1938b. Aboriginal relics and their preservation. Mankind 2(5): 120-26.
- 1948. The Lapstone Creek excavation: two culture periods revealed in eastern New South Wales. Records of the Australian Museum 22(1): 1-34.
- 1964. The archaeology of the Capertee Valley, NSW. Records of the Australian Museum 26(6): 197-246.
McCarthy, F.D. & M. McArthur. 1960. The food quest and the time factor in Aboriginal economic life, in C.P. Mountford (ed.) Records of the American-Australian scientific expedition to Arnhem Land 1948 2: 145-94. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
McCarthy, F.D., E. Bramell & H.V.V. Noone. 1946. The stone implements of Australia. Australian Museum Memoir 19.
Sheils, H. 1963. Australian Aboriginal studies: a symposium of papers presented at the 1961 research conference. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Further Reading
Mulvaney, D.J. 1980. Two remarkably parallel careers. Australian Archaeology 10: 99.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this entry
Cite this entry
Adams, S.J. (2014). McCarthy, Frederick D.. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_2155
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_2155
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-0426-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-0465-2
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law