Profile

Prof Robert H. Layton

Professor in the Department of Anthropology

Member of the Centre for the Coevolution of Biology and Culture

Biography

Robert Layton is an anthropologist interested in social change and social evolution, indigenous rights and non-Western art. He has carried out fieldwork in rural France and with a number of Australian Aboriginal communities.

His Ph.D. (1973) was a study of social change on the Plateau of Levier, in the French province of Franche Comté, bordering Switzerland. In 1995 he returned to the Plateau, twenty-five years after his original fieldwork, and carried out a restudy, collecting new contemporary and historical data. This research is published in his book Anthropology and history in Franche Comté: a critique of social theory (Oxford University Press, 2000).

Robert Layton lived in Australia from 1974 to 1981, working for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra, and the Northern [Aboriginal] Land Council, Darwin.During this time he studied Australian rock art and helped prepare a number of Aboriginal Land Claims, of which the first was the claim to the Uluru (Ayers Rock) National Park.

This research has been published in his books Uluru: An Aboriginal history of Ayers Rock (Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 1986 reissued 2001) and Australian rock art, a new synthesis (Cambridge University Press 1992). He has revisited Australia several times, working on the Hodgson Downs land claim in 1993-4 and helping to prepare the Australian Government's submission to UNESCO to place the Uluru National Park on the World Heritage List as a cultural landscape of universal value. The Uluru National Park was one of the first two indigenous landscapes to be so recognized.

Robert Layton also works on the evolution of hunter-gatherer society and culture. He is interested in the co-evolution of genes and culture, and in tracing the emergence of modern human forms of social organisation.

Research Groups

Research Interests

Anthropology and archaeology of art in non-literate societies
Evolution of social behaviour
Indigenous land rights
Social change, especially among French peasants and Australian Aborigines

Selected Publications

Books: authored

Layton, R.H. 2006. Order and anarchy: civil society, social disorder and war. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Additional information) (View publication online)
Stone, R.P., Layton, R.H. & Thomas, J. 2000. Destruction and conservation of cultural property. London: Routledge.
Layton, R.H. 1997. An introduction to theory in anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Layton, R.H. 1994. Conflict in the Archaeology of Living Traditions. London: Routledge.

Books: sections

Layton, R.H. 2008. Crisp snapshots and fuzzy trends. In Time and change: archaeological and anthropological perspectives on the long term. Papagianni, D., Layton, R. & Maschner, H. Oxford: Oxbow. 1-13. (Additional information)
Layton, R.H. 2005. Are immediate-return strategies adaptive? In Property and equality volume 1: ritualisation, sharing, egalitarianism. Widlok, T. & Tadesse, W. New York: Berghahn. 1: 130-150. (Additional information) (View publication online)
Layton, R.H. 2004. The politics of indigenous 'Creationism' in Australia. In The cultures of creationism. Anti-evolutionism in English-speaking countries. S. Coleman & L. Carlin Aldershot: Ashgate. 145-164.
Layton, R.H. 2003. What creates village democracy in (Western) Europe? A comparative study. In Distinct inheritances: property, family and community in a changing Europe. H. Grandits & P. Heady Münster: LIT. 97-113.
Layton, R.H. 1997. Representing and translating people's place in the landscape of northern Australia. In After writing culture. James, A., Hockey, J. & Dawson, A. London: Routledge. 1: 122-143. (Additional information)
Layton, R.H. 1995. Relating to the Country in the Western Desert. In The Anthropology of Landscape: Prespectives on Place and Space. E. Hirsch & M. O'Hanlon Oxford: Clarendon Press. 210-231.

Articles: magazine

Aureli, F., Schaffner, C., Boesch, C., Bearder, S., Call, J., Chapman, C., Connor, R., di Fiore, A., Dunbar, R., Henzi, P., Holekamp, K., Korstjens, A., Layton, R., Lehmann, J., Manson, J., Ramos-Fernandez, G., Strier, K., van Schaik & C. 2008. Fission-fusion dynamics: new research frameworks. Current Anthropology 49(4): 627-654. (Additional information)

Journal papers: academic

Sauvet, G., R. Layton, T. Lenssen-Erz, P. Taçon & A. Wlodarczyk 2006. La structure iconographique d'un art rupestre est-elle une clef pour son interprétation? Zephyrus 59: 97-110. (Additional information) (View publication online)
Layton, R.H. 2003. Agency, structuration and complexity. Complex systems and archaeology. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press (Foundations of Archaeological Enquiry series) 103-109.
Layton, R.H. 2003. Art and agency - a reassessment. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 9(3): 447-464. (Additional information) (View publication online)

Book chapters: online

Layton, R.H. 2008. Aboriginal versus western creationism. In The edge of reason? Science and religion in modern society. Bentley, R.A. London: Continuum Press. 31-38. (Additional information)
Layton, R.H. 2008. What can ethnography tell us about human social evolution? In Early human kinship: from sex to social reproduction. Allen, N., Callan, H., Dunbar, R. & James, W. Malden, MA (USA): Blackwell. 113-127. (Additional information)

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Media Contacts

Available for media contact about:

Europe: Business, economy & development: agricultural policy and family farms, especially France
International: Language, literature, culture: Australia, Aboriginal art
International: Language, literature, culture: anthropology of art
International: Language, literature, culture: indigenous rights
Modern History: Rest of the World: Australia
Modern History: Rest of the World: indigenous rights
Art: Australia, Aboriginal art
Art: prehistoric cave art
Art: anthropology of art
Anthropology: social change and conflict in Europe
Evolution: social evolution
Anthropology: social evolution
Conflict and resolution: Indigenous rights
Anthropology: Indigenous rights
Conflict and resolution: social change and conflict in Europe