The First Polynesians: Their Origins, Lifeways and Environmental Challenges. This project uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine the biological, cultural and environmental factors underpinning the Polynesian people through a study of their ancient homeland in Tonga. Early Polynesian society developed 2650-2350 years ago, but little is known about the people, their culture and how sea-level fall impacted subsistence and settlement. The proposed study’s goal is to fill this gap in human kno ....The First Polynesians: Their Origins, Lifeways and Environmental Challenges. This project uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine the biological, cultural and environmental factors underpinning the Polynesian people through a study of their ancient homeland in Tonga. Early Polynesian society developed 2650-2350 years ago, but little is known about the people, their culture and how sea-level fall impacted subsistence and settlement. The proposed study’s goal is to fill this gap in human knowledge about our Pacific neighbours using a unique skeletal assemblage, excavated cultural remains and advanced mapping of palaeo-sea-level markers that will improve understanding of the impact of environmental change on human societies in our region.Read moreRead less
Warfare and the Archaic State in Oceania. The project aim is to investigate warfare in the ancient Tongan state through a study of earthwork fortifications. The conflict record for an Archaic state in Oceania that survived for 650 years contributes a new perspective to global research on warfare in complex societies. The effect of conflict is a prominent issue for Australia and long-term records of warfare in our region will improve our understanding of it. Intra-state conflict is the most press ....Warfare and the Archaic State in Oceania. The project aim is to investigate warfare in the ancient Tongan state through a study of earthwork fortifications. The conflict record for an Archaic state in Oceania that survived for 650 years contributes a new perspective to global research on warfare in complex societies. The effect of conflict is a prominent issue for Australia and long-term records of warfare in our region will improve our understanding of it. Intra-state conflict is the most pressing threat to political stability in South-East Asia and the Pacific and the project would benefit Australia by showing how changes to political systems are associated with phases of conflict and peace.Read moreRead less
Before, during and after Lapita: 5000 years of cultural continuity and transformation at Caution Bay, southern Papua New Guinea. Australia's closest Indigenous neighbours in southern Papua New Guinea have long been thought to have been in contact with long-distance seafarers only in the last 2000 years. This project will document recent archaeological findings that are causing a radical rethink of ancestral connections between Australia and southern Papua New Guinea.
New Electronic Archives for Australian Literature. Information capacity in Australian literary studies has been dramatically expanded by national investment in electronic archives, while trends in the discipline increasingly demand empirical support for claims about literary history and literary value. At the same time, research about Australian literature remains primarily theoretical, insufficiently informed by newly available data. This project aims to further enrich the new data sets, and to ....New Electronic Archives for Australian Literature. Information capacity in Australian literary studies has been dramatically expanded by national investment in electronic archives, while trends in the discipline increasingly demand empirical support for claims about literary history and literary value. At the same time, research about Australian literature remains primarily theoretical, insufficiently informed by newly available data. This project aims to further enrich the new data sets, and to use them in an innovative return to the classical issues in Australian literary criticism and history. It will provide demonstration applications of data in new electronic archives.Read moreRead less
Our Island Home: The shifting map of Australian literature. This project will provide the first full-length study of the ways Australia's unique status as an island continent has shaped its national literature. Understanding this relationship will re-define the borders of its literature in three ways: it will establish new connections within the national literature between the literature of the mainland and surrounding islands; it will identify why certain regions such as the continental interio ....Our Island Home: The shifting map of Australian literature. This project will provide the first full-length study of the ways Australia's unique status as an island continent has shaped its national literature. Understanding this relationship will re-define the borders of its literature in three ways: it will establish new connections within the national literature between the literature of the mainland and surrounding islands; it will identify why certain regions such as the continental interior and outlying islands capture the literary imagination at particular times; it will bring to light ways for Australian literature to position itself within the shifting geographies of globalised modernity. Read moreRead less
Australian Fiction 1989 to 2005, and its National and Global Infrastructures. This project is a systematic analysis of Australian fiction published between 1989 and 2005: after the Australian Bicentenary and into the new millenium. It will look in particular at the relationship between national literary culture and globalisation. It examines the cultural, social, educational, political and economic aspects of this literary field, and accounts for its production and distribution, as well as the w ....Australian Fiction 1989 to 2005, and its National and Global Infrastructures. This project is a systematic analysis of Australian fiction published between 1989 and 2005: after the Australian Bicentenary and into the new millenium. It will look in particular at the relationship between national literary culture and globalisation. It examines the cultural, social, educational, political and economic aspects of this literary field, and accounts for its production and distribution, as well as the ways in which it is evaluated and put to use. It will be the first study of its kind, an analysis of contemporary Australian literary production in the fullest sense.Read moreRead less
Land and colonial cultures: tracing Indigenous and settler transformation in the Pacific, 1850-1900. This research asks how conversations about land between settlers and Indigenous peoples in Australia, New Zealand, Hawai'i and Fiji shaped radically new landscapes of ownership during the 19th century. Its outcomes will illuminate the shared history of this region, while enhancing our historical foundations for facing postcolonial tensions over land.
Excavating MacGregor: re-connecting a colonial museum collection. Sensing the impacts of colonisation, the first Administrator of British New Guinea William MacGregor made a significant collection of objects specifically for its future citizens. This comprehensive legacy of 13 000 objects did not remain in the country but was dispersed to three Australian and six overseas museums. Our aim is to re-assemble and re-connect this material by 'excavating' its private and official components. This res ....Excavating MacGregor: re-connecting a colonial museum collection. Sensing the impacts of colonisation, the first Administrator of British New Guinea William MacGregor made a significant collection of objects specifically for its future citizens. This comprehensive legacy of 13 000 objects did not remain in the country but was dispersed to three Australian and six overseas museums. Our aim is to re-assemble and re-connect this material by 'excavating' its private and official components. This research aims to focus on the makers and traders to disentangle the social relationships embedded in the objects. Using material-centred, assemblage-based archaeological approaches, we aim to investigate how indigenous groups used objects to negotiate with the new colonial government.Read moreRead less
Pilot study: sourcing basaltic stone artefacts in Hawaii by uranium-series and argon-argon (39Ar-40Ar) dating. This project will develop breakthrough methodology for fingerprinting stone artefacts from Hawaii to reconstruct historic development of Pacific Island societies. Major outcomes will address National Research Priority Goal - Understanding our region and the world, through better understanding of societal development in our geographic neighbourhood.
The archaeology of the Great Papuan Plateau. This project aims to investigate the peopling of the Great Papuan Plateau (GPP), a large karst system situated between Australia and Southeast Asia. Recent discoveries suggest that humans arrived in northern Australia by 65,000 years ago and were in southeast Asia by at least 80,000 years ago. Dating the timing and movement of the human colonisation of the GPP has the potential to reveal evidence of the earliest eastward movement of peoples into Sahul ....The archaeology of the Great Papuan Plateau. This project aims to investigate the peopling of the Great Papuan Plateau (GPP), a large karst system situated between Australia and Southeast Asia. Recent discoveries suggest that humans arrived in northern Australia by 65,000 years ago and were in southeast Asia by at least 80,000 years ago. Dating the timing and movement of the human colonisation of the GPP has the potential to reveal evidence of the earliest eastward movement of peoples into Sahul (now Australia and New Guinea). Through archaeological excavations of limestone caves with rock art and deep cultural floor deposit recorded across the plateau, this project will provide answers to fundamental questions about the early occupation of Sahul by early modern humans.Read moreRead less