It is difficult to know where to start with thanks for a book like this. Its existence is owed to the many researchers in ethnobotany, anthropology, zoology and many other disciplines that enabled me to recreate the world of so long ago, as well as the dedication and empathy of the many people who have worked with and studied dingoes. Thanks are due not just for the research this book is based on, but for opening the ever-fascinating complexities of the world to others.
As always, enormous thanks to Lisa Berryman, for giving me the freedom to follow my inspiration, even when it isn’t for the book that was on the schedule, and for her ever-wonderful assessments, encouragement and insistence that each manuscript reach its highest possible potential.
Kate Burnitt has worked and reworked this book, picking up errors and inconsistencies. If Loa no longer gets into a canoe twice without getting out of it — and many similar mistakes — it is entirely due to Kate, with her endless perfectionism and patience.
Angela Marshall as always performed the miracle of turning what many might find gibberish into a properly spelled manuscript, as well as giving her own extraordinary depth of knowledge both to Loa’s world and the intimacies of canine behaviour. Again — and again — much love and so many, many thanks. I hope that your students will find that this book speaks to them too.
To my husband Bryan, who probably will read neither these acknowledgements nor the book (he prefers books with diagrams, and preferably submarines), my love and gratitude always, for letting me expound my theories of the ancient world while you pretend to listen, your eyes almost imperceptibly flicking over your New Scientist or computer screen.
And finally — this book, and at least two others, wouldn’t have been written without the loving inspiration of Hank Huffington, to whom this book is dedicated.