The origin of cumulative culture in human evolution. Humans accumulate knowledge and use cumulative culture to transfer it across generations, and identifying the origin of this unique ability is a significant research priority for the study of archaeology and human evolution. This project aims to discover the emergence of cumulative culture by using experiments to evaluate stone tool-making, a technology passed between humans for 3.3 million years. Expected outcomes include international collab ....The origin of cumulative culture in human evolution. Humans accumulate knowledge and use cumulative culture to transfer it across generations, and identifying the origin of this unique ability is a significant research priority for the study of archaeology and human evolution. This project aims to discover the emergence of cumulative culture by using experiments to evaluate stone tool-making, a technology passed between humans for 3.3 million years. Expected outcomes include international collaborations that improve our evolutionary understanding of teaching and learning, and produce new data on early stone artefacts in Indonesia and Australia. This should provide significant benefits for collaborative research and scholarly insight into human evolution and Indigenous knowledge in our region.Read moreRead less
Out of Africa: human prehistory in southwestern China. This project aims to establish the timing and processes of human settlement in East Asia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene. Through studying a series of key archaeological sites in southwest China using the most recent innovative scientific approaches in luminescence dating, sedimentary DNA and lithic analysis, we expect to provide new insights into the human prehistory of East Asia over the last 300,000 years. This should provide signi ....Out of Africa: human prehistory in southwestern China. This project aims to establish the timing and processes of human settlement in East Asia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene. Through studying a series of key archaeological sites in southwest China using the most recent innovative scientific approaches in luminescence dating, sedimentary DNA and lithic analysis, we expect to provide new insights into the human prehistory of East Asia over the last 300,000 years. This should provide significant contribution to addressing major debates about the timing, rate and route of dispersal of modern humans out of Africa, across south Asia and into Australia. Read moreRead less
Earliest Village People: the shift to sedentary life in the Natufian period. This project aims to investigate the shift to sedentary life by excavating one of the earliest villages, founded by hunter-gatherers around 12,500 BCE. Of key interest are foundational burials at Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan and their role in the establishment of this new kind of settlement. Well-preserved deposits present a rare opportunity to track a community in the act of settling down so significant knowledge about the ....Earliest Village People: the shift to sedentary life in the Natufian period. This project aims to investigate the shift to sedentary life by excavating one of the earliest villages, founded by hunter-gatherers around 12,500 BCE. Of key interest are foundational burials at Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan and their role in the establishment of this new kind of settlement. Well-preserved deposits present a rare opportunity to track a community in the act of settling down so significant knowledge about the transition to sedentism should be generated. An interdisciplinary approach combining archaeology, bioanthropology and archaeogenetics may provide new explanations of early social organisation. Potential benefits include the building of international collaborations and the development of Australia’s role in the Middle East.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE180101288
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$384,983.00
Summary
Strategic resources and human cooperation in the rise of social complexity in Arabian archaeology. This project will conduct the first systematic archaeological analysis of the behavioural strategies humans adapted following metal resource depletion and trade in southeastern Arabia. It will examine how social complexity in metal production records of several sites within Oman compares with other regions in Cyprus and Turkey. This will provide greater knowledge of how people settled this region a ....Strategic resources and human cooperation in the rise of social complexity in Arabian archaeology. This project will conduct the first systematic archaeological analysis of the behavioural strategies humans adapted following metal resource depletion and trade in southeastern Arabia. It will examine how social complexity in metal production records of several sites within Oman compares with other regions in Cyprus and Turkey. This will provide greater knowledge of how people settled this region and subsequently responded to dynamic environmental changes over the past 5,000 years.Read moreRead less
Aboriginal rock art and cultural heritage management in Cape York Peninsula. 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. Th ....Aboriginal rock art and cultural heritage management in Cape York Peninsula. 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.Read moreRead less
Early art, culture and occupation along the northern route to Australia. This project aims to uncover archaeological evidence for early humans in Indonesia's northern island chain (from Borneo to West Papua). This poorly known region harbours the world's earliest known figurative cave art (>45,500 years old), and it is also the most likely maritime route used by modern humans during the initial peopling of Australia ~65,000 years ago. The project aims to use cave excavations and rock art dating ....Early art, culture and occupation along the northern route to Australia. This project aims to uncover archaeological evidence for early humans in Indonesia's northern island chain (from Borneo to West Papua). This poorly known region harbours the world's earliest known figurative cave art (>45,500 years old), and it is also the most likely maritime route used by modern humans during the initial peopling of Australia ~65,000 years ago. The project aims to use cave excavations and rock art dating to fill the 20,000 year gap between the earliest known archaeological evidence from these islands and the oldest human site in Australia. Expected outcomes include new insight into the ancient past of Indonesia and a greatly improved understanding of the art and cultural lifeways of the ancestors of the First Australians.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE200100502
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$427,116.00
Summary
The hobbit's tools and the evolution of human behaviour in Southeast Asia . This project aims to investigate the behavioural evolution of the extinct Homo floresiensis (the 'hobbit') and modern humans on Flores, Indonesia. Using innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to integrate stone tools with simulation modelling, this project expects to generate new understanding about the behavioural strategies of the two human species and their interactions with the Flores environment over the past 190, ....The hobbit's tools and the evolution of human behaviour in Southeast Asia . This project aims to investigate the behavioural evolution of the extinct Homo floresiensis (the 'hobbit') and modern humans on Flores, Indonesia. Using innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to integrate stone tools with simulation modelling, this project expects to generate new understanding about the behavioural strategies of the two human species and their interactions with the Flores environment over the past 190,000 years. Anticipated outcomes include refined knowledge of human evolution and interaction in island Southeast Asia, and innovative experimental methods for the study of stone tools. This will emphasise Australia's role in international human evolution research, and inform the study of comparable stone tools in Australia.Read moreRead less
The evolution of landscape use among modern humans. This project aims to understand the evolution of humans’ adaptive landscape use. The dispersal of modern humans from Africa occurred relatively late in our evolutionary history, which suggests a complex pattern of behavioural evolution in our species. Flexible systems of landscape use underpin human adaptation to different environments resulting in our late expansion and modern global distribution. The project will use a configuration of archae ....The evolution of landscape use among modern humans. This project aims to understand the evolution of humans’ adaptive landscape use. The dispersal of modern humans from Africa occurred relatively late in our evolutionary history, which suggests a complex pattern of behavioural evolution in our species. Flexible systems of landscape use underpin human adaptation to different environments resulting in our late expansion and modern global distribution. The project will use a configuration of archaeological and environmental information recovered from around the Doring River, South Africa. The project is expected to open a new avenue of research into the evolution of human behaviour, and address key scientific and general-interest questions about humanity’s emergence.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210101384
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$440,244.00
Summary
Investigating complex mortuary practices in the Neolithic Near East. The main aim of this project is to investigate complex multi-stage mortuary practices through the integration of archaeo-anthropology, forensic science and ethnology. The methodological principles of funerary archaeology will be expanded by experiments at the only Australian and Canadian body farms, and integrated into the study of Neolithic Near Eastern burials. Combined with ethno-archaeological research in Indonesia, anticip ....Investigating complex mortuary practices in the Neolithic Near East. The main aim of this project is to investigate complex multi-stage mortuary practices through the integration of archaeo-anthropology, forensic science and ethnology. The methodological principles of funerary archaeology will be expanded by experiments at the only Australian and Canadian body farms, and integrated into the study of Neolithic Near Eastern burials. Combined with ethno-archaeological research in Indonesia, anticipated outcomes include new methods for the study of multi-stage mortuary processes, together with refined knowledge about social differentiation and ideology in the world’s first proto-urban settlements. This study will emphasise Australia’s pioneering role in combining archaeo-anthropology with forensic science.
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Proxies of power: ceramics and the Anatolian Iron Age. This project aims to understand the economic and political dynamics of emerging, competing polities during the Early and Middle Iron Age (~1200-600 BCE) in central and west Anatolia. It deploys a new protocol that combines mineralogical with geologically high resolution stable and radio-isotopic techniques for in-hand ceramics and sediments. This project will establish a definitive, spatially-discrete model of ceramic exchange between the ce ....Proxies of power: ceramics and the Anatolian Iron Age. This project aims to understand the economic and political dynamics of emerging, competing polities during the Early and Middle Iron Age (~1200-600 BCE) in central and west Anatolia. It deploys a new protocol that combines mineralogical with geologically high resolution stable and radio-isotopic techniques for in-hand ceramics and sediments. This project will establish a definitive, spatially-discrete model of ceramic exchange between the centres of three contemporary Anatolian polities: Phrygia, Lydia, and Tabal. The project will develop a new understanding of the economic and political transformations of Iron Age history, and expand the capabilities of a range of analytic techniques in archaeological contexts.Read moreRead less