Darrell Lewis

Darrell Lewis is an archaeologist, historian and bushman who has worked in the Outback for over 40 years. He grew up in a house full of antique firearms, Aboriginal artefacts and other colonial relics, and stories of bushrangers, drovers and ‘wild blacks’. This led to a career in which he has driven, helicoptered, boated or walked into many remote regions to document historic sites, record natural features and photograph galleries of Aboriginal rock art. He has also worked extensively with Aboriginal people, cattle station whites, and other residents in the Northern Territory and elsewhere.

He has published books and articles on Aboriginal rock art, environmental history, cattle station technology, European exploration and settlement of the Northern Territory, and the biographies of Northern Territory cattle station people. He has also produced major reports documenting cattle station and explorer’s historic sites, historic marked boabs, Aboriginal history and Aboriginal rock art. His most recent publication is A Wild History (2012, Monash University Publishing).

The skills Darrell has acquired have given him a unique set of skills with which to assess the findings of the various expeditions sent in search of Leichhardt and the wide variety of ‘evidence’ claimed as relics of Leichhardt’s ill-fated 1848 expedition.