Investigators:

Associate Professor Liam Brady, Associate Professor John Bradley (Monash University), Dr Emilie Dotte-Sarout (University of Western Australia), Professor Amanda Kearney (University of Melbourne), Dr Jeremy Ash (Monash University), Dr Cassandra Rowe (James Cook University), Dr Daryl Wesley (Flinders University), Mr Shaun Evans (li-Anthawirrayarra Sea Rangers), Mr David Barrett (li-Anthawirrayarra Sea Rangers)

Summary:

This project is investigating the archaeological landscape of Limmen National Park, the traditional Country of the Marra people, and to inform the creation of a cultural heritage management plan.

It builds on a long-standing relationship with the Marra and the urgency to preserve their cultural knowledge associated with the Park.

The project will use a two-way thinking methodology, combining contemporary Aboriginal knowledge with archaeological and anthropological data to understand the meaning of the archaeological record for Aboriginal people today.

Key outcomes include data for continent-wide archaeological narratives, a holistic blueprint to help manage the Park’s cultural heritage, and an archive for Traditional Owner research.

Grants:

• ARC Linkage Funding – LP220100143
• Flinders cash contribution

Partners:

• Parks & Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory ($329,440 in kind support for the Nathan River Ranger Station, vehicles, ranger time, fuel etc.)
• McArthur River Mine Community Benefits Trust ($320,000 cash)
• Mabunji Aboriginal Resource Indigenous Corporation ($185,000 in kind support for their li-Anthawirrayarra Sea Rangers)

Category:

Indigenous archaeology

Rock art research

Investigators:

Associate Professor Sally May (University of Adelaide), Professor Paul S.C. Taçon (Griffith University), Associate Professor Liam Brady (Flinders University), Dr Daryl Wesley (Flinders University), Dr Laura Rademaker (ANU), Dr Andrea Jalandoni (Griffith University), Dr Luke Taylor (Griffith University), Professor Joakim Goldhahn (University of Western Australia)

Summary:

This project investigates historical Aboriginal responses to ‘contact’ with newcomers to their land.

We are generating new knowledge using recordings of rock art and bark paintings created during the last 400 years in western Arnhem Land, focusing on the area known as Awunbarna (Mount Borradaille).

Analysis of these visual, first-hand records of Australia’s history, together with documentation from archives and other media, is leading to new ways of understanding Aboriginal history.

Drawing on this data, we are examining how Aboriginal people used graphic systems to navigate threats and opportunities in northern Australia, with the main benefit to Australia being a more comprehensive and inclusive written history.

Grants:

• Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative SRI200200062

Category:

Indigenous archaeology

Rock art research

Investigators:

Associate Professor Liam Brady, Budadee Aboriginal Corporation

Summary:

This project is developing new insights into Australia’s past by telling the story of Aboriginal people’s extraordinary long-term connections and changing relationships with prominent places.

The project builds on new deep-time discoveries in the northwest arid zone by conducting archaeological research at highly prominent and distinctive landforms in the eastern Pilbara.

The project is analysing rock art and excavated materials from key sites to learn how these places acted as beacons through time to structure and shape people's movements, encounters and connections with others.

This project is contributing new data on Aboriginal connections to Country and assist with developing future tourist industries in the Pilbara.

Grants:

• Australian Research Council Future Fellowship FT180100038

Categories:

Indigenous archaeology

Rock art research

Investigators:

Associate Professor Liam Brady, Associate Professor John Bradley (Monash University), Professor Amanda Kearney (University of Melbourne), li-Anthawirrayarra Sea Rangers

Summary:

This research addresses a major challenge facing rock art studies today: how do researchers develop a greater awareness and understanding of the present-day significance, meaning and relevance of rock art to Indigenous communities?

The project draws on a combined 70+ years of collaborative research involving the Yanyuwa Aboriginal community, anthropologists and an archaeologist to tell the unique story of rock art from Yanyuwa Country in the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria.

The project explores how a “painting is not just a painting”, nor is it an isolated phenomenon or a static representation.

Results from the project thus far show how Yanyuwa rock art is an active social agent in the landscape, capable of changing according to different circumstances and events, connected to the epic travels and songs of Ancestral Beings (Dreamings), and related to various aspects of life such as ceremony, health and wellbeing, identity, and narratives concerning past and present-day events.

Grants:

• Australian Research Council (DP170101083)
• Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
• McArthur River Mine’s Community Benefits Trust
• Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research

Category:

Indigenous archaeology

Rock art research

Investigators:

Associate Professor Lynley Wallis, Professor Heather Burke, Dr Billy Griffiths, Mr Nicholas Hadnutt, Mr Vincent Wall

Summary:

Focussing on oral histories held by a prominent Aboriginal family whose history is deeply enmeshed with the Queensland Native Mounted Police, this project aims to consider family history in the broader context of colonial settlement and the complexities of frontier conflict.

Through a collaboration of Indigenous peoples, archaeologists, historians, anthropologists, museum curators and educators, the expected outcome will be the first sustained history of a hitherto elusive Aboriginal experience of the frontier.

In doing so it will provide fresh insights into a contentious period in Australia’s past. Its chief benefit will be to contribute in a practical way to reconciliation.

Grants:

• ARC—Special Research Initiative (SR200200157)

Category:

Indigenous archaeology

Historical archaeology

Investigators:

Associate Professor Jane Haggis, Associate Professor Tully Barnett, Professor Heather Burke, Professor Penelope Edmonds, Professor Claire Smith, Emeritus Professor Margaret Allen, Dr Ania Kotarba, Ngadjuri Elders Heritage and Land Care Council incorporated

Summary:

This project aims to investigate how community history, heritage, and cultural collections can be better preserved and made accessible through slow digitisation techniques.

The project will generate new interdisciplinary knowledge about Martindale Hall, SA, the historically significant objects it contains, and digitisation.

Expected outcomes include a new method that embeds digitisation in historical and cultural knowledge, and assists organisations to make sustainable decisions about when and how to digitise.

Benefits include improved public access to significant cultural heritage assets, return on investment for local history organisations, and protection of cultural heritage places and objects by the communities that care for them.

Grants:

• ARC—Special Research Initiative (SR200200900)

Categories:

Digital heritage

Historical archaeology

Community heritage

Australian history

Social history

Investigators:

Dr Lynley Wallis, Professor Heather Burke, Dr Jillian Huntley, Dr Jonathan Osborn, Professor Bryce Barker, Professor Maxime Aubert, Dr Tristen Jones, Professor Nigel Spooner, Dr Noelene Cole

Summary:

The Laura Sandstone Basin of Cape York Peninsula hosts one of the richest bodies of rock art in Australia and the world.

It documents the life-ways of generations of Aboriginal Australians from their original settlement, through major environmental changes, to European invasion.

This vast area, much of which is now jointly managed as National Parks by Traditional Owners, remains virtually unexplored archaeologically.

This project aims to record this unique rock art so that its testimony remains for future generations.

This will provide a framework for its sustainable management and findings will have profound implications for our understandings of the cultural behaviour and dispersal of the earliest modern humans to colonise Australia.

Grants:

• ARC—Linkage (LP190100194)

Categories:

Indigenous archaeology

Investigators:

Dr John McCarthy

Summary:

The aim of this project is to explore the value of machine learning to locate and map submerged ancient archaeological sites.

This will be developed at known archaeological sites and in areas considered to have archaeological potential. 

Grants:

• DE220100550

Category:

Digital humanities

Investigators:

Professor Rachel Popelka-Filcoff, Professor Claire Lenehan, Professor Claire Smith, Professor Amy Roberts, Professor Robert Edwards, Dr Shanan Tobe

Summary:

This project aims to identify the origins and movements of Australian archaeological ochre through the development of a novel tool combining genomic and chemical analysis.

This novel archaeomicrobiological technique could help answer significant questions about past human behaviour, in terms of trade, cultural interactions, territoriality and colonisation.

It could also be used to reconnect Indigenous communities with cultural artefacts.

The knowledge generated could form the basis of a new, globally applicable method for establishing the provenance of displaced artefacts.

Grants:

• ARC DP190102219

Category:

Indigenous archaeology

Archaeological science

Investigators:

Professor Amy Roberts, Associate Professor Ian Moffat, Associate Professor Mike Morley, Professor Richard Fullagar

Summary:

This project, undertaken in partnership with the River Murray and Mallee Aboriginal Corporation, aims to explore Aboriginal rock art and rock shelter occupation deposits in the Upper Murray River Gorge, South Australia.

The project will conduct the first archaeological excavations of stratified rock shelter sites in this region in more than 50 years and record a threatened and rapidly diminishing corpus of rock art.

The cultural importance of the located sites will be considered in conjunction with their archaeological significance to produce meaningful narratives.

New understandings about Holocene societal and environmental changes will be generated. Traditional owners will benefit from a range of socio-economic capacity-building measures.

Grants:

• ARC LP200200803

Category:

Indigenous archaeology

Rock art research

Investigators:

Professor Amy Roberts, Associate Professor Mick Morrison, Professor Heather Burke, Associate Professor Ian Moffat

Summary:

This project aims to deliver the first comprehensive study of the colonial frontier in South Australia’s Riverland: a region that was the scene of nationally significant colonial endeavours coupled with terrible violence towards Aboriginal people.

While previous studies have focused on discrete events from the historical record, this project plans to use a multi-layered strategy to explore this past and its tendrils in the present.

By coalescing archaeological, anthropological and oral history evidence through a new theoretical lens this project expects to generate meaningful narratives for and with Aboriginal descendants.

These insights should substantially contribute to understandings about the colonial frontier in Australia and globally.

This project is undertaken in collaboration with the River Murray and Mallee Aboriginal Corporation.

Grants:

• ARC LP170100479

Category:

Indigenous archaeology

Colonialism

Frontier conflict

Investigators:

Associate Professor Alice Gorman, Flinders University, Associate Professor Justin Walsh, Chapman University, California, Professor Erik Linstead, Chapman University, California, Associate Professor Fred Scharmen, Morgan State University, Baltimore

Summary:

The International Space Station Archaeological Project (ISSAP) is the first large-scale space archaeology study.

We investigate how the crew of the International Space Station use material culture to adapt to the challenging conditions of a confined habitat in microgravity.

In January 2022, we performed the first archaeological fieldwork ever to take place outside Earth by training astronauts to photographically record six sample squares on board the ISS.

To date, the project has revealed previously unknown aspects of crew behaviour, such as the use of wall displays to create social identity.

ISSAP’s results can be applied to design new generations of space habitats in orbit or on the Moon and Mars.

Grants:

• ARC Discovery Project: DP190102747 

Category:

Space archaeology

Investigators:

Associate Professor Jonathan Benjamin, Dr John McCarthy, Dr Chelsea Wiseman

Summary:

The aims of this project are to analyse human response to climate change according to the archaeological record, and to evaluate changes in the use of coastal landscapes over the course of habitation of prehistoric settlements.

In this project, we will characterise changes to settlement patterns in prehistory on the Carmel Coast, excavate and record a submerged site as a case study, and compare the excavated site to similar submerged sites, in addition to sites found further inland, to develop a better understanding of adaptations specific to the coastal margins.

Grants:

• Allen Bolaffi Future Fund

The funding covers Dr Chelsea Wiseman full-time as the Bolaffi Postdoctoral Research Associate, travel to Israel and fieldwork expenses for an archaeological excavation in partnership with the University of Haifa. The project funded by the ABFF and facilitated through our partnership agreement through the UNESCO UNITWIN Network for Underwater Archaeology (in which both Flinders and Haifa are full members).

Category:

Maritime archaeology

Investigators:

Associate Professor Alice Gorman (Flinders University), Dr Jonathon Ralston (CSIRO), Dr Jane Hodgkinson (CSIRO), Dr Mark Dunn (CSIRO)

Summary:

Lunar heritage places are under threat from human activity as new missions to the Moon are planned. One feature of these sites has made a lasting impact in the public imagination: the imprints of the Apollo astronauts’ boots, particularly the first footstep by Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969. Rocket plumes can erase them, but there is little data to predict the impacts.

At CSIRO’s In Situ Resource Utilisation Facility, we will test the effects of rocket plumes using 3D-printing and lunar soil simulant to replicate astronaut bootprints. This will enable better definition of protective buffer zones around lunar heritage sites. We also examine heritage management strategies to enable these unique features to survive for the benefit of future generations. 

Category:

Space archaeology

Investigators:

Associate Professor Ian Moffatt

Summary:

This project will undertake the first detailed investigation of the archaeology, landscape history and paleoenvironment of dryland lakes in the Simpson, Strzelecki and Stuart Stony Deserts in Central Australia.

Using cutting edge methods, the project expects to discover new archaeological sites, provide a new climate record for inland Australia and develop innovative new analytical and field techniques.

Expected benefits also include the development of new cutting-edge methodologies for the investigation of Australian desert landscapes, comprehensive baseline data of how this region has evolved prior to European colonization and resolving why no Pleistocene aged archaeological sites have been found in the region.

Grants:

• ARC Future Fellowship Grant #FT220100184

Category:

Archaeological science

Investigators:

Associate Professor Ian Moffat, Professor Patrick Hesp, Associate Professor Graziela Miot da Silva

Summary:

This project will examine the history and evolution of the Sir Richard-Younghusband Peninsula (SRYP) complex barrier in SA.

The aims are to derive a understanding of how the influences of relative sea-level changes, neotectonics, and sediment supply, can produce remarkably different responses in barrier development.

No complex barrier (i.e. foredune ridges in one portion, transgressive dunefields in another) has ever been comprehensively drilled, dated, modelled, or examined in the context of Indigenous occupation and oral histories in Australia.

The study provides excellent analogues for barrier and dune response, and shoreline translation to varying rates of sea level rise, paralleling pressures facing all coastlines today.

Grants:

• Australian Research Council Discovery Grant

Category:

Geomorphology

Investigators:

Associate Professor Ian Moffat, Professor Patrick Hesp, Professor Amy Roberts, Associate Professor Martin Polkinghorne, Dr Eddie Banks

Summary:

This project has established a National Facility for the 3D Imaging of the Near Surface. It will provide Australian researchers with access to next-generation geophysical instruments for high-resolution landscape scale mapping of the shallow subsurface. 

The expansive size and impressive density of this data will fundamentally change the research questions that can be asked in the fields of archaeology, earth, environmental and forensic science.

This integrated suite of equipment is currently not available in the Southern Hemisphere and will position Australia at the forefront of the exciting field of near surface geophysics and facilitate collaboration with partner institutions in Asia, Africa and Oceania.

Grants:

• ARC Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities Grant #LE210100037

Category:

Archaeological science

Investigators:

Dr Ania Kotarba-Morley, Dr Daryl Wesley, Associate Professor Wendy van Duivenvoorde, Dr Jarrad Kowlessar, Ms Siena Gwillim

Summary:

Rock art depictions of watercraft (>100 known examples) offer the greatest opportunity to understand the complex technological, social, and cultural context of watercraft used across Australia.

The objective of this pilot project is to create and interrogate, using Machine Learning, a digital database of all known examples of Indigenous watercraft depictions and associated ethnographic examples to assess spatial and temporal trends and patterns across Australia and help decolonize narratives around Australian maritime heritage.

Category:

Maritime archaeology

Investigators:

Professor Alistair Paterson, Professor Susan Broomhall, Associate Professor Wendy Van Duivenvoorde, Associate Professor Shino Konishi, Dr Jeremy Green, Professor Andrea Witcomb, Associate Professor Daniel Franklin, Dr Killian Quigley, Dr Kristie Flannery, Dr Alexandra Suvorova, Assistant Professor Arvi Wattel, Associate Professor Andrew Woods, Associate Professor Jacqueline Van Gent, Dr Paul Uhlmann, Dr John McCarthy, Dr Widya Nayati, Dr Toby Burrows, Associate Professor Charles Jeurgens, Professor Dr Ben Krause-Kyora, Dr Jette Linaa, Ms Erica Persak, Ms Catherine Belcher, Ms Corioli Souter, Dr Ross Anderson, Dr Deb Shefi, Dr James Hunter, Ms Agata Rostek-Robak, Ms Maggie Patton, Mr Jaco Boshoff, Dr Frederick Hocker, Dr Anna Maria Forssberg, Dr Martijn Manders, Dr Jeremy Hill, Ms Lidwien Jansen, Ms Tamar Davidowitz, Mr Jeroen ter Brugge, Mr Alec Ewing

Summary:

Australia has a rich legacy of archives, art and artefacts, including 4 shipwrecks in WA, from its history of encounters with the Dutch East India Company (VOC).

Through comparative research in Australian and overseas museums and archives we aim to situate Australian collections in a global context, creating new stories about Australia as part of the VOC global network.

An interdisciplinary team will train 3 ECRs and 7 HDRs and forge partnerships with the Netherlands, Britain, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Africa, strengthening national capacity.

Our analysis will enrich the value of collections, provide narratives for museums and sites, and revitalise content for international and domestic tourism markets.

Grant:

• LP210300960

Category:

Maritime archaeology

Investigators:

Dr Martin Polkinghorne, Associate Professor Wendy Van Duivenvoorde, Dr Natali Pearson, Professor Craig Forrest, Dr Widya Nayati, Dr Noel Tan, Professor Rachel Popelka-Filcoff, Dr Pakpadee Yukongdi, Ms Yuni Sato, Dr Tom Chandler, Associate Professor Mark Staniforth

Summary:

Beginning in the mid 1400s the Maritime Silk Route witnessed the largest known expansion of global trade. But the legacy of artefacts retrieved from this time has not been appropriately understood because the objects were mostly salvaged and dispersed without recording the archaeological details of their find-spots.

Our multilateral consortium aims to discover the cultural value of the largest Southeast Asian ceramic collections in Indonesia and Australia with archaeological science.

By employing and enhancing international conventions, the project will generate new knowledge about this decisive epoch in world history and build capacity to preserve the underwater cultural heritage of our region for future generations.

Grant:

• LP210200165

Category:

Underwater cultural heritage

Investigators:

Dr Daryl Wesley, Associate Professor Wendy Van Duivenvoorde, Emeritus Professor Michael Smith, Dr Fanny Veys, Dr Mirani Litster, Professor Peter Monteath, Professor Rachel Popelka-Filcoff, Dr Kellie Pollard, Dr Widya Nayati

Summary:

The narrative of culture contact in Australia is dominated by British colonisation, yet Indigenous Australians in Northern Australia had a much earlier connection with global explorers and traders.

We aim to conduct the first systematic maritime and terrestrial archaeological investigations of the Tiwi Islands, alongside the study of material culture, oral history and archival materials associated with early Dutch explorers, British colonists, and Macassans.

This multi-disciplinary approach will broaden our understanding of long-term race relations in Australia, the past presence of foreign visitors to Northern Australia, develop cultural heritage public policy and consolidate Tiwi cultural identity and history into the historical record.

Category:

• ARC DP200100559

Category:

Maritime archaeology

Investigators:

Associate Professor Wendy van Duivenvoorde, W., Dr Daryl Wesley, F. Weys, and V. Post

Summary:

This research project investigates the maritime landscape of the north Australian coast at the time of the 1705 Maarten van Delft expedition.

It focuses on the archaeological footprint and hydrogeological aspects of places, specifically the two areas west and east of the Karslake Penninsula and Karslake Island on the Tiwi Islands where the Dutch expedition crew members anchored, went on land, interacted with Tiwi peoples and collected food and drinking water. Several wells in these areas are said to have been dug by the Dutch expedition and the Tiwi still use them today.

The research project mainly sets out to investigate and survey for the archaeological evidence of contact and exchange, the anchors lost by the vessels in this region, etc, and hydrogeological research of the water sources (wells) and the quality of the drinking water.

Grant:

• Dutch-Australian Cultural Heritage Initiatives scheme, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, CAN-GCE-2021-05
• Dutch-Australian Cultural Heritage Initiatives scheme, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, CAN-GCE-2017-03

Category:

Maritime archaeology

Investigators:

Associate Professor Wendy van Duivenvoorde, W., Hitchcock, G. & de Ruyter, M.

Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia

Summary:

Archaeological and history investigation into the possible archaeological remains of the La Pérouse expedition survivor shipwreck and cultural material related to the shipwreck survivors in the Torres Strait.

This project aims to prospect for the first archaeological evidence of the La Pérouse expedition survivor voyage that was reported to have ended in shipwreck and tragedy in Torres Strait in 1789. When the two ships of the French exploratory expedition under the command of Jean-François Galaupe, comte de La Pérouse, L’Astrolabe and La Boussole, were wrecked in the Solomon Islands in 1788/1789, the survivors assembled another vessel and attempted to sail back to France.

They never made it, and the expedition was lost without trace until the original two shipwrecks were discovered at Vanikoro in 1827. The fate of the survivors who escaped Vanikoro and their improvised craft has been theorized since, but no confirmed traces have been found.

Recently uncovered documentary evidence suggests that the survivor craft may have been wrecked on the Barrier Reef near Murray Island (Mer) in Torres Strait while attempting to reach the Dutch East Indies. The survivor craft shipwreck and other signs of the expedition should be detectable on the shallow reef.

These archaeological signatures have the potential to enlighten this early and prominent example of European survivor contact in Australia and possibly the only shipwreck in Australian waters from the 18^th and 19^th century French exploration voyages.

This project investigates a topic of significant national interest to both Australia and France, as the potential sites in the Torres Strait, should they be proven, represent the only extensive physical remains of French voyages of exploration in Australia. It would also be the earliest known shipwreck on Australia’s east coast.

Grant:

• 2022 Australia-France Social Science Collaborative Research Program, Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Research Project: Tracing the La Pérouse expedition survivor voyage to Torres Strait

Category:

Maritime archaeology

Investigators:

Associate Professor Wendy van Duivenvoorde, W., Laina Swiny, and Susan W. Katzev

Summary:

Fifty years ago this year, Michael Katzev led the excavation of a 3rd-century B.C. ship wrecked near Kyrenia, Cyprus. From 1968–1969, the team excavated in its entirety the well-preserved remains of a Mediterranean merchant ship and its cargo.

The Kyrenia Ship Project currently is collecting data and undertaking research for publication of the results of years of study by an international team of scholars. This project focuses on the publication of the Kyrenia Ship’s hull, rigging, ballast and equipment in a peer-reviewed volume, and includes and will finalize for publication the life work of J. Richard Steffy.

Steffy reassembled the ship’s well-preserved hull remains in the medieval castle at Kyrenia during the early 1970s and continued to study the ship’s construction method and assembly until his death in 2007. He completed a draft manuscript of the chapters for this publication, but never had the chance to return to Cyprus to check his work against the actual archaeological remains and make appropriate adjustments to his text and drawings

In 2005, the Kyrenia Ship Project, comprising a group of international scholars working under the auspices of Susan W. Katzev and Helena Wylde (Laina) Swiny, commenced the comprehensive study of the archaeological material recovered from the Kyrenia Ship site.

The project is significant and unique in that all of the material groups related to the ship itself have been examined or studied in detail, and all have been replicated for the purpose of experimental archaeology. This has allowed researchers in the team to better understand how the ancient mariners, shipbuilders, metalworkers and craftsmen manufactured, used and handled the ship and its equipment, rigging and cargo.

The project will lead to new and comparative information on Classical- and Hellenistic-period Eastern Mediterranean merchant ships, shipbuilding, maritime trade and seafaring.

Grant:

• George and Ann Bass Endowment for Nautical Archaeology Publications, The Kyrenia Ship Publication: The Hull, Rigging, and Equipment, 2020 
• Honor Frost Foundation Maritime Archaeology Research Grant 2019

Category:

Maritime archaeology

Investigators:

Associate Professor Mike Morley, HDR students: Meghan McAllister (PhD), Vito Hernandez (PhD), Declan Miller (Masters)

Summary:

‘Disperscapes’ is an Australian Research Council (ARC)-funded, multi-disciplinary project led by ARC Future Fellow A/Prof Mike Morley. The overarching aim of this project is to reconstruct the ancient landscapes (palaeoenvironments) and cave settings occupied and experienced by our species (Homo sapiens) and other co-existing hominins when they first arrived in - and migrated through - Southeast Asia (SEA) and Australia during the Pleistocene. The project focusses on archaeological and fossil records that span a time-period encompassing ~200,000–20,000 years ago.

The scientific approach used for this project falls under the archaeological science discipline Geoarchaeology, utilising a suite of techniques largely borrowed and modified from the Earth Sciences. Much of the analytical work is undertaken on sediment samples collected from archaeological cave settings and from the environments in the catchment areas of these sites.

We generate data that holds information about the use of a site by humans and other animals, as well as providing critical contextual information to place the archaeological narrative against an environmental backdrop.  

Our findings will offer novel insights into the site formation processes and palaeoenvironmental conditions of archaeological sites in these regions. Our project is currently conducting research in northeastern Laos (Tam Pà Ling cave), the Lenggong Valley (Malaysia), northern Vietnam, Thailand, Timor Leste (Laili Rockshelter), and Australia (Cloggs Cave, Victoria).

We are proud that our project contributes data to better understand of the migratory pathways and human adaptations early humans encountered and refining level influence of the environment on their migration and settlement patterns.

Comprehending how these early humans navigated and adapted to new and unpredictable climatic conditions is imperative as our current civilisation moves into unprecedented global climate change. 

Grants:

• ARC Future Fellowship (FT180100309)
• Flinders Co-Investment

Category:

Archaeological science

Investigators:

Associate Professor Mike Morley; PhD candidates Meghan McAllister and Vito Hernandez

Primary collaborators:

Associate Professor Fabrice Demeter (Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; Eco-anthropologie, MNHN, CNRS, Université de Paris, Musée de l'Homme, 75016 Paris, France), Professor Anne-Marie Bacon (Université Paris Cité, BABEL UMR8045, CNRS, 75012 Paris, France)

Summary:

Tam Pà Ling (TPL) is a cave situated in northeastern Laos that holds some of the earliest evidence for H. sapiens presence in mainland SEA, suggesting the presence of Homo sapiens in the region to late MIS 5-early MIS 4 (~70 ka). While research is ongoing at TPL and the fossil record is expanding, understandings of site formation processes and the palaeoenvironment these early humans experienced are significantly lacking.

Disperscapes PhD candidates Meghan McAllister-Hayward and Vito Hernandez are currently conducting isotope geochemistry and micromorphological analysis, on sediment samples from the site.

Micromorphological analyses (Vito) will provide new insights and a deeper understanding of the site formation processes of TPL, as well as refining periods of environmental change in the surrounding site environment as well as if and when there may have been anthropogenic influences in or around the site. Geochemical analysis of plant wax biomarkers (Meghan) will ultimately develop a high resolution palaeovegetation proxy record.

This will lead to a better understanding of the palaeoenvironmental dynamics of the surrounding ecosystem and enable researchers to determine if and to what extent major climatic events (i.e., glacials and interglacials) influenced the vegetation dynamics of the local landscape and if/how this led to changes in human behaviour.

This project falls under the wider Disperscapes project. ‘Disperscapes’ is an Australian Research Council (ARC)-funded, multi-disciplinary project led by ARC Future Fellow A/Prof Mike Morley. The overarching aim of this project is to reconstruct the ancient landscapes (palaeoenvironments) and cave settings occupied and experienced by our species (Homo sapiens) and other co-existing hominins when they first arrived in -and migrated through - Southeast Asia (SEA) and Australia during the Pleistocene. The project focusses on archaeological and fossil records that span a time-period encompassing ~200,000–20,000 years ago.

Grants:

• ARC Future Fellowship (FT180100309)
• Flinders Co-Investment

Category:

Archaeological science

Investigators:

Associate Professor Mike Morley

Primary collaborators:

Professor Sue O’Connor (ANU), Associate Professor Ceri Shipton (UCL, UK)

Summary:

Laili Rockshelter is a situated in Timor Leste and contains a very rich archaeological record that demonstrates a long history of human presence in eastern Southeast Asia. Laili contains some of the earliest evidence of human occupation in Southeast Asia, dating back as far as ~45,000 years ago.

Archaeologists have found stone tools and bones in the lowest levels of the cave. Our work focusses on understanding the nature and origin of the sediments which show a very strong human-made imprint from even the lowest levels.

This project falls under the wider Disperscapes project. ‘Disperscapes’ is an Australian Research Council (ARC)-funded, multi-disciplinary project led by ARC Future Fellow A/Prof Mike Morley. The overarching aim of this project is to reconstruct the ancient landscapes (palaeoenvironments) and cave settings occupied and experienced by our species (Homo sapiens) and other co-existing hominins when they first arrived in - and migrated through - Southeast Asia (SEA) and Australia during the Pleistocene. The project focusses on archaeological and fossil records that span a time-period encompassing ~200,000–20,000 years ago.

Grants:

• ARC Future Fellowship (FT180100309)
• Flinders Co-Investment

Category:

Archaeological science

Investigators:

Associate Professor Mike Morley; HDR student: Declan Miller (Masters)

Primary collaborators:

Professor Bruno David (Monash University), Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation (GLaWAC)

Summary:

Cloggs Cave is a cave in Victoria which is an important site in our understanding of the early occupation of Australia. It has significant archaeological deposits and was used by the Krowathunkooloong clan of the Gunaikurnai nation. Bones from megafauna and extinct marsupials were found in the cave and dated to be between 27,500 and 24,500 years old. A new phase of work at the site includes geoarchaeological investigation of the sediments preserved with the cave.

This project falls under the wider Disperscapes project. ‘Disperscapes’ is an Australian Research Council (ARC)-funded, multi-disciplinary project led by ARC Future Fellow A/Prof Mike Morley. The overarching aim of this project is to reconstruct the ancient landscapes (palaeoenvironments) and cave settings occupied and experienced by our species (Homo sapiens) and other co-existing hominins when they first arrived in—and migrated through—Southeast Asia (SEA) and Australia during the Pleistocene. The project focusses on archaeological and fossil records that span a time-period encompassing ~200,000–20,000 years ago.

Grants:

• ARC Future Fellowship (FT180100309)
• Flinders Co-Investment

Category:

Archaeological science

Investigators:

Associate Professor Mike Morley

Primary collaborators:

Professor Bruno David (Monash University), Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation (GLaWAC)

Summary:

This project is directed by A/Prof Michael Westaway (University of Queensland). A/Prof Mike Morley has been involved in the project since 2020, and is tackling the landscape history and site occupational signatures through the use of micromorphology and other geoarchaeological techniques.

The overarching aims of the project is to undertake transdisciplinary research on the economy of the Mithaka by exploring landscape management and food production, including a) using modern plant genomics to establish if there is domestication/cultivation of important food, narcotic and medicinal plants, and b) archaeobotanic approaches to reconstructing plant economy, including cultivation and domestication, and c) investigation of the use of animal resources.

The geoarchaeological component will first look at i) the microstratigraphy of Mithaka heath structures, and ii) occupation surfaces associated with surviving gunyah structures.

Grants:

• ARC Discovery Project (DP220100561)

Category:

Archaeological science

Investigators:

Associate Professor Mike Morley, Associate Professor Brian Stewart (University of Michigan); Associate Professor Genevieve Dewar (University of Toronto)

Summary:

Working in close collaboration with A/Profs Brian Stewart (University of Michigan) and Genevieve Dewar (University of Toronto), and with a current phase funded by the National Science Foundation (USA), A/Prof Morley is exploring the sandstone rockshelter record from various sites across these montane environments in Lesotho, southern Africa.

Grants:

• National Science Foundation (NSF), USA: Senior Researcher Grant

Primary collaborators:

Professor Bruno David (Monash University), Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation (GLaWAC)

Category:

Archaeological science

Investigators:

Associate Professor Mike Morley; Andrew Chua (PhD candidate, University of Adelaide)

Primary collaborators:

Associate Professor Lee Arnold (University of Adelaide), Dr Liz Reed (SA Museum; University of Adelaide)

Summary:

A/Prof Morley is working with collaborators at the University of Adelaide and the South Australian Museum to investigate sediments at the UNESCO World Heritage caves at the microscopic level.

This work aims to better understand how the sediments were deposited and under what conditions, and also to gain a clearer appreciation of the context of the important fossils that have been recovered from the site.

Category:

Archaeological science

Investigators:

Dr Giles Hamm, Professor Claire Smith, Dr Christopher Wilson, Associate Professor Mike Morley, Professor Gavin Prideaux, Emeritus Professor Mike Smith (deceased), Adnyamathanha Land Council and Iga Warta Community Trust

Summary:

This project aims to determine the role of cultural innovation in the Indigenous settlement of Australia's arid zone 50,000 years ago. Using innovative methods, it will produce new data on key technologies, symbolic behaviours and human interactions with animals and environment to identify the cultural innovations needed to overcome the challenges of Australia's deserts.

Expected outcomes include new understandings of the settlement of the arid zone to inform global debates relating to the dispersal, settlement and lifestyles of early humans in marginal environments. Expected benefits include new information for cultural tourism and education and to support South Australia’s World Heritage nomination for the Flinders Ranges.

Grant:

Australian Research Council, DP220101522

Category:

Indigenous archaeology

Investigators:

Dr Kellie Pollard, Professor Claire Smith, Associate Professor Liam Brady, Dr Nic Bullot, Associate Professor Craig Taylor, Ngadjuri Elders Heritage and Land Care Council incorporated

Summary:

This project aims to explore how Indigenous Australian worldviews can transform archaeological practice and understandings of the past. Archaeological research practice has typically relied on Western science, theories and interpretive frameworks. As an alternative approach, we will develop a new epistemological conceptualisation for how archaeology can be practiced.

Based on surveys and interviews with six Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and South Australia, and using Indigenous theories and concepts, the project will identify and explore how Aboriginal ways of knowing (epistemology), being (ontology) and doing (axiology) can be integrated into a new model for archaeological research that we call “Indigenist Archaeology”.

Domestic and international audiences interested in the archaeology of Indigenous Australia will benefit from an enhanced learning experience, where the complexity of Indigenous knowledges will be showcased alongside western knowledge to create richer understandings of Australia’s past.

Grant:

Australian Research Council, IN220100079

Category:

Indigenous archaeology

Investigators:

Professor Roland Fletcher (The University of Sydney), Professor Dan Penny (The University of Sydney), Associate Professor Martin Polkinghorne (Flinders University), Dr Damian Evans (École française d'Extrême-Orient), Associate Professor Christophe Pottier (École française d'Extrême-Orient), Associate Professor Mitch Hendrickson (University of Illinois at Chicago), Professor Miriam Stark (University of Hawai’i at Manoa), Louise Cort (Smithsonian Institution), Professor Ashley Thompson (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) 

Partners:

Royal Government of Cambodia, Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts

Summary:

Recognising the emergence of new urban forms after the demise of Angkor as the capital of Cambodia challenges the global “Collapse of Civilisation” trope and redefines the Middle Period of Cambodian history (15^th - 19^th century).

This research proposes that continuity, renewal, and variety are as apparent in Cambodia’s Middle Period as loss and failure. Applying a multi-disciplinary landscape archaeology approach to this ‘dark age’ of Southeast Asian history allows the demise of low-density urbanism and the development of new towns to be embedded within a dynamic environmental context. Understanding the transformations that followed the breakdown of low-density urbanism has global implications.

This project is changing perceptions Cambodian history after the demise of Angkor, from depictions of defeat and loss toward recognition of adaptation and regeneration. The generic and pejorative notion of “collapse” will be replaced with a recognition of cultural transformations in response to systemic endogenous and exogenous forces.

Grant:

Australian Research Council (DP170102574)

Category:

Archaeology of Asia