ABSTRACT
Although the twentieth century is regarded as a century of global war, it left Australia remarkably unscathed. The colonial conquest of Aboriginal Australia had been largely completed and basic cultural survival within white society became a more pressing objective for indigenous people. Two world wars were fought mostly in other parts of the world, with only relatively minor air raids and submarine attacks having a direct impact on Australian soil. The ideological war between Communism and capitalism was fought to the north, but Australia was never a potential domino. One of the paradoxes of the Australian situation therefore is that despite the lack of a direct threat to the land during the past century Australians were so willing to volunteer to fight and die elsewhere. The resulting legacy of a century of war for archaeologists is primarily made up of war memorials (without cemeteries) and coastal defences that never fired in anger.
