This chapter questions the notions that professional Australian archaeology developed as an atheoretical discipline and that a distinctively Australian archaeology might have been built on the Australian continuity of prehistory and ethnography, both early claims. Using the evidence of my personal experiences this chapter draws attention to the theoretical influences present in archaeology in both Sydney and Canberra in the 1960s. It proposes that the often touted ‘Cambridge connection’ provided only one line of intellectual inheritance and that American theoretical influences were as early and as important as those from the Old World. The chapter argues that the failure of ethnoarchaeology to forge a distinctly Australian theoretical base reflects a parochial approach that did not pursue the necessary comparative and theoretical studies to seek more general theories of behavior. Australian archaeology developed at the time of the world-wide transition from culture history to the new archaeology, which formed the most widespread theoretical basis of local archaeological research. Content with exploring the relationships between humans, environment, and economy in a continent of hunter-gatherers, archaeology in Australia has seen no need to continue engaging with archaeological theory from elsewhere, seeking instead a dubious relevance in ‘science.’