A spring of silver, a treasury in the earth: coinage and wealth in archaic Athens. The purpose of the project is to study the impact of locally mined silver on the public treasury of the Athenians, and thus on the developing political economy of this important city-state during the years c.550-480 BC, by examining its employment for the minting of coins.
Settlement sustainability and societal change in the ancient Mediterranean: the case of Zagora. A settlement becomes a community when its physical design supports its social structure and thrives when diversity secures its economic base. Probing the failure of once-prosperous centers like 8th-century BC Zagora will illuminate past approaches to issues of settlement sustainability in the face of environmental, social and economic challenge.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE130101816
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$348,088.00
Summary
Palaeoenvironments and human adaptation in the late quaternary of the semi-arid Murray River Valley, northwestern Victoria. This project involves a multidisciplinary approach to investigating Indigenous settlement and subsistence strategies along the Murray River in northweast Victoria during the last Ice Age. It will examine the palaeoecology and palaeoenvironment of the region, with particular focus on how people and animals responded to climatic varibility.
A new timeline for Human evolution using a pioneer non-destructive direct dating methodology. Knowledge of the timing and distribution of the human lineage is critical for developing and testing evolutionary hypotheses. Unfortunately, many existing chronologies are based on the dating of materials thought to be stratigraphically associated with the fossil, rather than the fossil itself. Significant, recent advances in dating methods allow for the accurate non-destructive direct dating of human r ....A new timeline for Human evolution using a pioneer non-destructive direct dating methodology. Knowledge of the timing and distribution of the human lineage is critical for developing and testing evolutionary hypotheses. Unfortunately, many existing chronologies are based on the dating of materials thought to be stratigraphically associated with the fossil, rather than the fossil itself. Significant, recent advances in dating methods allow for the accurate non-destructive direct dating of human remains. This project offers to establish a reliable and consistent chronology for modern human occurrences. This proposal is significant in addressing fundamental problems in our understanding of modern human expansion, by the application of newly-developed techniques that will allow for the reliable direct dating of key modern human fossils. 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
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE130101560
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$372,600.00
Summary
A world of its own: earliest human occupation of the Maros karsts in Southwest Sulawesi, Indonesia. Excavations at Leang Burung 2, a rockshelter on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, yielded evidence for the initial arrival of modern humans and underlying deposits containing primitive stone tools from earlier inhabitants. This project aims to recover further evidence of early modern humans at the site and the identity of the earlier tool-makers.
From Paddy to Pura: the origins of Angkor. This project explores the origin and rise of the state in ancient Southeast Asia. Through the investigation of sites in Cambodia and Thailand and using an array of innovative technologies, the research will contribute to the global investigation of humankind's trajectory toward ever-increasing complexity.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210100536
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$446,362.00
Summary
The Earliest Australians' Adaptations across Western Australia. This project aims to investigate how the first people to arrive in Australia responded and adapted to diverse environments and changing ecosystems. This project will analyse microscopic remains of human activity from eight key sites in Western Australia, dated between 50,000 and 7,000 years ago. This will generate new evidence on the earliest technology, ecology and landscape management, in relation to environmental changes since th ....The Earliest Australians' Adaptations across Western Australia. This project aims to investigate how the first people to arrive in Australia responded and adapted to diverse environments and changing ecosystems. This project will analyse microscopic remains of human activity from eight key sites in Western Australia, dated between 50,000 and 7,000 years ago. This will generate new evidence on the earliest technology, ecology and landscape management, in relation to environmental changes since the last Ice Age. New understandings on the earliest ecological behaviour and adaptations to diverse ecosystems will be generated through international collaboration, with important outcomes for Australian archaeology and advancing Traditional Owners' engagement in this scientific study of their deep-time heritage.Read moreRead less
Illuminating behavioural and environmental influences on human development. This project aims to investigate prehistoric human population growth by documenting nursing behaviour, developmental stress, and fine-scaled climate variation directly from the teeth of ancient children. Knowledge of the nexus of early childhood growth and ecological variation will shed light on modern human health and fertility, which in turn impact planetary health. Outcomes will provide further insight into humanity’s ....Illuminating behavioural and environmental influences on human development. This project aims to investigate prehistoric human population growth by documenting nursing behaviour, developmental stress, and fine-scaled climate variation directly from the teeth of ancient children. Knowledge of the nexus of early childhood growth and ecological variation will shed light on modern human health and fertility, which in turn impact planetary health. Outcomes will provide further insight into humanity’s unprecedented evolutionary success while augmenting multidisciplinary collaborative networks. This will further strengthen Australia’s pioneering role in the development of innovative technologies, and build key workforce capabilities of benefit for diverse fields such as public health and environmental science.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE160100703
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$346,536.00
Summary
The Drumbeat of Human Evolution: Climate Proxies from Rockshelter Sediments. This project aims to trial new techniques for extracting environmental information from the sediments contained within archaeological rock shelters. Homo sapiens evolved during a period of dramatic climate variation, which almost certainly influenced human development and global dispersal. High-resolution climate records are rarely available for Pleistocene archaeological sites and so it is challenging to quantify the d ....The Drumbeat of Human Evolution: Climate Proxies from Rockshelter Sediments. This project aims to trial new techniques for extracting environmental information from the sediments contained within archaeological rock shelters. Homo sapiens evolved during a period of dramatic climate variation, which almost certainly influenced human development and global dispersal. High-resolution climate records are rarely available for Pleistocene archaeological sites and so it is challenging to quantify the degree of behavioural response to environmental change. This project aims to apply novel geophysical and geochemical techniques to provide new climate records for Indonesia and South Africa, facilitate correlation with other climate archives and thus create a means of directly evaluating the degree of environmental influence on human behavioural evolution.Read moreRead less