ORCID Profile
0000-0002-8938-8974
Current Organisation
Australian National University
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Archaeology | Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Archaeology | Anthropology | Migration | Biological (Physical) Anthropology | Archaeology of Europe the Mediterranean and the Levant | Archaeology of Australia (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) | Archaeology of Asia, Africa and the Americas | Archaeology Of Hunter-Gatherer Societies (Incl. Pleistocene | Archaeology of Asia Africa and the Americas | Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander archaeology | Archaeology | Archaeology And Prehistory Not Elsewhere Classified |
Understanding Australia's Past | Preserving movable cultural heritage | Effects of Climate Change and Variability on Australia (excl. Social Impacts) | Understanding Asia's Past | Climate change | Social Impacts of Climate Change and Variability | Expanding Knowledge in History and Archaeology
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Date: 24-02-2012
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2012
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 11-09-2014
DOI: 10.1002/ARCO.5039
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 17-02-2020
DOI: 10.1038/S41467-020-14723-0
Abstract: There is little evidence for the role of plant foods in the dispersal of early modern humans into new habitats globally. Researchers have hypothesised that early movements of human populations through Island Southeast Asia and into Sahul were driven by the lure of high-calorie, low-handling-cost foods, and that the use of plant foods requiring processing was not common in Sahul until the Holocene. Here we present the analysis of charred plant food remains from Madjedbebe rockshelter in northern Australia, dated to between 65 kya and 53 kya. We demonstrate that Australia’s earliest known human population exploited a range of plant foods, including those requiring processing. Our finds predate existing evidence for such subsistence practices in Sahul by at least 23ky. These results suggest that dietary breadth underpinned the success of early modern human populations in this region, with the expenditure of labour on the processing of plants guaranteeing reliable access to nutrients in new environments.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2012
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2019
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 26-07-2023
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2006
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2014
Publisher: Research Square Platform LLC
Date: 25-04-2023
DOI: 10.21203/RS.3.RS-2843483/V1
Abstract: The authors have requested that this preprint be removed from Research Square.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2014
Publisher: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Date: 28-07-2009
Abstract: Genetic studies of South Asia's population history have led to postulations of a significant and early population expansion in the subcontinent, dating to sometime in the Late Pleistocene. We evaluate this argument, based on new mtDNA analyses, and find evidence for significant demographic transition in the subcontinent, dating to 35–28 ka. We then examine the paleoenvironmental and, particularly, archaeological records for this time period and note that this putative demographic event coincides with a period of ecological and technological change in South Asia. We document the development of a new diminutive stone blade (microlithic) technology beginning at 35–30 ka, the first time that the precocity of this transition has been recognized across the subcontinent. We argue that the transition to microlithic technology may relate to changes in subsistence practices, as increasingly large and probably fragmented populations exploited resources in contracting favorable ecological zones just before the onset of full glacial conditions.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2012
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2011
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 06-06-2013
Publisher: University of Queensland Library
Date: 1994
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2018
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 25-03-2010
DOI: 10.3109/03014461003639249
Abstract: The dispersal of Homo sapiens out of Africa is a significant topic in human evolutionary studies. Most investigators agree that our species arose in Africa and subsequently spread out to occupy much of Eurasia. Researchers have argued that populations expanded along the Indian Ocean rim at ca 60,000 years ago during a single rapid dispersal event, probably employing a coastal route towards Australasia. Archaeologists have been relatively silent about the movement and expansion of human populations in terrestrial environments along the Indian Ocean rim, although it is clear that Homo sapiens reached Australia by ca 45,000 years ago. Here, we synthesize and document current genetic and archaeological evidence from two major landmasses, the Arabian peninsula and the Indian subcontinent, regions that have been underplayed in the story of out of Africa dispersals. We suggest that modern humans were present in Arabia and South Asia earlier than currently believed, and probably coincident with the presence of Homo sapiens in the Levant between ca 130 and 70,000 years ago. We show that climatic and environmental fluctuations during the Late Pleistocene would have had significant demographic effects on Arabian and South Asian populations, though indigenous populations would have responded in different ways. Based on a review of the current genetic, archaeological and environmental data, we indicate that demographic patterns in Arabia and South Asia are more interesting and complex than surmised to date.
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 19-11-2012
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-01-2021
DOI: 10.1038/S41559-020-01379-8
Abstract: Little is known about the Pleistocene climatic context of northern Australia at the time of early human settlement. Here we generate a palaeoprecipitation proxy using stable carbon isotope analysis of modern and archaeological pandanus nutshell from Madjedbebe, Australia’s oldest known archaeological site. We document fluctuations in precipitation over the last 65,000 years and identify periods of lower precipitation during the penultimate and last glacial stages, Marine Isotope Stages 4 and 2. However, the lowest effective annual precipitation is recorded at the present time. Periods of lower precipitation, including the earliest phase of occupation, correspond with peaks in exotic stone raw materials and artefact discard at the site. This pattern is interpreted as suggesting increased group mobility and intensified use of the region during drier periods.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2023
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2010
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-02-2020
DOI: 10.1038/S41467-020-14668-4
Abstract: India is located at a critical geographic crossroads for understanding the dispersal of Homo sapiens out of Africa and into Asia and Oceania. Here we report evidence for long-term human occupation, spanning the last ~80 thousand years, at the site of Dhaba in the Middle Son River Valley of Central India. An unchanging stone tool industry is found at Dhaba spanning the Toba eruption of ~74 ka (i.e., the Youngest Toba Tuff, YTT) bracketed between ages of 79.6 ± 3.2 and 65.2 ± 3.1 ka, with the introduction of microlithic technology ~48 ka. The lithic industry from Dhaba strongly resembles stone tool assemblages from the African Middle Stone Age (MSA) and Arabia, and the earliest artefacts from Australia, suggesting that it is likely the product of Homo sapiens as they dispersed eastward out of Africa.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2014
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2013
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2011
DOI: 10.1016/J.JHEVOL.2011.03.002
Abstract: Our knowledge of early Australasian societies has significantly expanded in recent decades with more than 220 Pleistocene sites reported from a range of environmental zones and depositional contexts. The uniqueness of this dataset has played an increasingly important role in global debates about the origins and expression of complex behaviour among early modern human populations. Nevertheless, discussions of Pleistocene behaviour and cultural innovation are yet to adequately consider the effects of taphonomy and archaeological s ling on the nature and representativeness of the record. Here, we investigate the effects of preservation and s ling on the archaeological record of Sahul, and explore the implications for understanding early cultural ersity and complexity. We find no evidence to support the view that Pleistocene populations of Sahul lacked cognitive modernity or cultural complexity. Instead, we argue that differences in the nature of early modern human populations across the globe were more likely the consequence of differences in population size and density, interaction and historical contingency.
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 25-11-2011
Abstract: Abundant fish remains from a shelter in East Timor imply that humans were fishing the deep sea by 43,000 years ago.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2002
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 29-04-2021
DOI: 10.1038/S41467-021-21551-3
Abstract: The peopling of Sahul (the combined continent of Australia and New Guinea) represents the earliest continental migration and settlement event of solely anatomically modern humans, but its patterns and ecological drivers remain largely conceptual in the current literature. We present an advanced stochastic-ecological model to test the relative support for scenarios describing where and when the first humans entered Sahul, and their most probable routes of early settlement. The model supports a dominant entry via the northwest Sahul Shelf first, potentially followed by a second entry through New Guinea, with initial entry most consistent with 50,000 or 75,000 years ago based on comparison with bias-corrected archaeological map layers. The model’s emergent properties predict that peopling of the entire continent occurred rapidly across all ecological environments within 156–208 human generations (4368–5599 years) and at a plausible rate of 0.71–0.92 km year −1 . More broadly, our methods and approaches can readily inform other global migration debates, with results supporting an exit of anatomically modern humans from Africa 63,000–90,000 years ago, and the peopling of Eurasia in as little as 12,000–15,000 years via inland routes.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2015
Publisher: Springer New York
Date: 2010
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2009
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2013
DOI: 10.1016/J.JHEVOL.2013.03.007
Abstract: The Acheulean to Middle Palaeolithic transition is one of the most important technological changes that occurs over the course of human evolution. Here we examine stone artefact assemblages from Patpara and two other excavated sites in the Middle Son Valley, India, which show a mosaic of attributes associated with Acheulean and Middle Palaeolithic industries. The bifaces from these sites are very refined and generally small, but also highly variable in size. A strong relationship between flake scar density and biface size indicates extensive differential resharpening. There are relatively low proportions of bifaces at these sites, with more emphasis on small flake tools struck from recurrent Levallois cores. The eventual demise of large bifaces may be attributed to the curation of small prepared cores from which sharper, or more task-specific flakes were struck. Levallois technology appears to have arisen out of adapting aspects of handaxe knapping, including shaping of surfaces, the utilization of two inter-dependent surfaces, and the striking of invasive thinning flakes. The generativity, hierarchical organization of action, and recursion evident in recurrent Levallois technology may be attributed to improvements in working memory.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2018
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2005
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2019
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Start Date: 2016
End Date: 2019
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2009
End Date: 2011
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2011
End Date: 2015
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2007
End Date: 2009
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2011
End Date: 2015
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 08-2023
End Date: 08-2026
Amount: $441,909.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2011
End Date: 12-2016
Amount: $753,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 07-2011
End Date: 12-2015
Amount: $500,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2007
End Date: 12-2009
Amount: $304,090.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2009
End Date: 12-2013
Amount: $170,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 06-2017
End Date: 12-2023
Amount: $965,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity