Sue O''Connor
Biographic Data
| ID | 112968 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sue O''Connor |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sue |
| FAMILY NAME | O''Connor |
| SIGNATURE | CONNOR S O |
| AFFILIATIONS | Australian National University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9381-078X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 183 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1653 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 178 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 5 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1987 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 21 |
Recent archaeological investigations at Widgingarri Shelter 1, northwest Australia
A new sedimentary microfossil type
During recent microfossil analyses of sedimentary deposits from two archaeological sites in Oceania, Carpenters Gap 3 in Western Australia (a rockshelter with a c. 30,000 yr BP record of human occupation) and Pangpang in Vanuatu (an open site assumed of immediately post-Lapita age, c. 2800 yr BP), an unusual type of microfossil was discovered. This comprised layered sheets of epithelial tissue, which had the morphological features of stratified s…
The emergence of pottery-using communities in Lautem District, Timor Leste
The initial use of pottery in Island Southeast Asia has been a much-debated topic prompting researchers to highlight various characteristics to explain its uneven temporal and spatial distribution throughout the region. Many scholars identify the Neolithic associations of pottery and highlight diagnostic qualities such as red-slipping, while others point out that pottery first occurs at many locations during the Metal Age and is characterised by …
Itty-bitty bone points from New Guinea
Taora (RIU), a rockshelter located on the northern coast of New Guinea, was first occupied shortly after sea level stabilisation ~6800 cal BP. Re-excavation of this site in 2004 to investigate claims of early pig domestication and pottery-use uncovered an uncharacteristically large assemblage of bone technology for the region. Here we present the analysis of that osseous artefact assemblage—including some 464 tiny bi- or unipoints alongside six p…
A Mixed Coastal–Terrestrial Model of Adaptation in Isea Reflecting on the Two Southern Routes of Early Modern Human Migration
This study revisits models of early modern human–coastal adaptation in Island Southeast Asia, a region central to understanding two major dispersal events: the initial Out of Africa movement towards southern Asia and the subsequent colonisation of Sahul via Wallacea. We distinguish episodic or opportunistic pre-Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) sea crossings from sustained, year-round coastal subsistence, which appears to have intensified only after the…
Garli
The deliberate burial of dingoes by Aboriginal people is a widespread and significant Late Holocene practice in Australia, yet the details of this practice remain poorly understood, in part due to the scarcity of well-documented archaeological excavations. Here, we report on the excavation of a dingo burial in Kinchega National Park on Barkindji Country, in the Menindee Lakes region of western New South Wales. First identified by Barkindji Elders…
Fluctuating local mobility from the end of the Pleistocene to the end of the Holocene on the north coast of New Guinea
The Watinglo rockshelter provides an occupation record from the central north coast of New Guinea from 13 ka to the last few hundred years, with a hiatus in the later Holocene. Examination of the lithic artefacts from this sequence suggests that within a paradigm of technological continuity and local resource procurement, there were notable fluctuations in the use of particular materials and the intensity with which the site was used. This sugges…
Graman Revisited Once Again
The archaeological site Graman B4 provided one of the first records of substantial dietary change in ancient Australian Aboriginal society. Initial examination of the faunal remains from this site suggested that Late Holocene hunters reduced their focus on high‐ranked kangaroos to increasingly rely on arboreal possums; and that these subsistence changes were concurrent with changes in foragers’ toolkits, namely discontinuation of backed artefacts…
Biometric Analysis of Giant and Large Murid Remains From Matja Kuru 2, Timor‐Leste
Published research on Matja Kuru 2 (MK2) demonstrates its significance for understanding human lifestyle during the terminal Pleistocene and Holocene. Murids represent the most commonly identified taxa in the site, with specimens preliminarily classified as small, large and giant based on size comparisons. However, the identification of the large and giant murid species present in the deposit remains elusive, as the correlation between dental mat…
Recovering a legend
Stable Isotope Variation in East and Southeast Asian Marine Ecosystems and its Relevance for Archaeological Analysis
This paper delves into the utilisation of stable isotope analysis as a tool for understanding ancient human adaptations to diverse marine environments, with a specific geographical focus on Southeast Asia and the Pacific. It analyzes stable isotope data from modern fish bones and tooth enamel, focusing on δ13C, δ15N, and δ18O values. The data confirm the reliability of δ13C as a proxy for marine consumption in archaeological contexts and emphasis…
Microfossil analysis of sediments from Carpenters Gap 1 and 3 archaeological sites, Kimberley, Western Australia, provides evidence for processing cf. Dioscorea transversa and cf. Colocasia esculenta …
Previous palaeo-starch studies in Australia, almost all using stone tool analysis, have yielded a considerable body of information on Indigenous plant processing. Here we build on this work with starch analysis of 58 sedimentary samples from Carpenters Gap 1 and 3 rockshelters, Kimberley, Western Australia. Starch of two species native to the region, supported by calcium oxalate crystal and xylem evidence, was identified at both sites: cf. Diosco…
Holocene subsistence change in eastern Australia
The Holocene in Australia is characterised as a period of dramatic social and economic reorganisation in Aboriginal culture across the continent, with some of the most evident changes visible in the archaeological record of subsistence patterns. The zooarchaeology of key sites suggests that during the Mid- to Late Holocene, hunters switched emphasis away from high-yield large macropods to a diversity of smaller-bodied animals as a response to cha…
Site Formation History of Widgingarri Shelter 1, Northwestern Australia and Investigation of Postdepositional Disturbance With Single‐Grain OSL Dating and Soil Micromorphology
Widgingarri Shelter 1 (WS1) is a rock shelter site within a small escarpment and preserves evidence of late Pleistocene and Holocene human activity. The site was first excavated in 1985 and again in 2022. Here, we present the stratigraphy and chronology following the latter excavation. Site context and stratigraphy were investigated through field observations of the landscape, site and soil micromorphology. A chronological framework was establish…
If trees could talk
Arboreal Alterations
Culturally modified trees (CMTs) were once ubiquitous throughout the Australian landscape but they have been significantly affected by tree‐clearing practices associated with pastoralism, residential expansion and forestry. These, in addition to effects of bushfires and floods have had a massive impact on the survival of both dead and living CMTs. Despite their past ubiquity and current threats, they are probably one of the most under‐researched …
Snake and Moon ‘Right Way Marriage’ Stories on Stone and Bark
In northwest Australia, boab trees hold significant cultural values for First Nations people. Their leaves, bark, roots and nuts are important as traditional resources for food, medicine, fibre, water and shade and serve as reference points in the landscape. Some of the tree trunks are inscribed with images and symbols which tell of events and narratives that took place during the time when the landscape was created. One boab tree, at Karunjie St…
A recent date for the dog ( Canis familiaris ) from Mapala Rockshelter and implications for associated mammal community changes in subalpine Highland West New Guinea
The arrival of the dog (Canis familiaris) in Australasia is believed to have had major impacts on the region’s ecosystems as well as human society and organisation. Very little is known about the antiquity of the dog in New Guinea due to a paucity of fossil specimens of secure antiquity, particularly in the Highlands. Here, we report the direct dating of a partial dog cranium from Mapala Rockshelter, a subalpine site at ∼4000 m asl in the Sudirma…
Staple or delicacy
Sea urchins are consumed in many parts of the world today. Human consumption of these marine invertebrates can be traced back to at least the Late Pleistocene in various archaeological sites from Island Southeast Asia. Makpan Cave, on Alor Island in Indonesia, is one of the earliest Wallacean prehistoric sites with an occupation record beginning ∼43,000 years ago. Coastal resources (i.e., shellfish, barnacle, crab, and sea urchin) play a dominant…
Late Holocene hunting economies in coastal southeastern Australia
Curracurrang 1 (1CU5) is a rockshelter site located in the Royal National Park (RNP) on the coast south of Sydney. Excavated from 1962 to 1966, the site's rich Holocene cultural deposit has become important for understanding regional Late Holocene developments in Australian lithic and shell technologies. Our comprehensive analysis of 1CU5's faunal remains is presented here, accompanied by new AMS radiocarbon dates and a reinterpretation of the si…
Living Seaward
Natar Fampompar is a stone boat ceremonial structure (natar) in the village of Sangliat Dol on Yamdena Island, Tanimbar Islands, Island Southeast Asia. Located in the village center, it is the only Tanimbarese natar that continues to be used for clan meetings and ceremonial events. As such, it arguably represents the most significant cultural site for understanding Tanimbarese tradition. This article documents the Natar Fampompar and six associat…
Inland fishing by Homo sapiens during early settlement of Wallacea
Homo sapiens were adept at fishing in a range of aquatic habitats by the time they left Africa and reached Southeast Asia ca . 73 kya. In the insular region of Wallacea, humans adapted to a significant maritime environment with sophisticated marine fishing methods and technology by at least 42 kya. However, despite a growing array of evidence suggesting an early inland terrestrial adaptation on large islands in this tropical region, there was pre…
Landscapes created by millennia of cultural land use in the Fleurieu Group of Islands, Tasmania—a knowledge baseline for current and future land management under changing climates
Aboriginal peoples have managed Australian landscapes for millennia; however, deep-time paleoecological evidence of the nature of landscape modification remains rare. The Fleurieu Group of islands in Bass Strait was one of the areas actively used by Aboriginal people in lutruwita (Tasmania), until forced dispossession of their lands due to European colonization occurred over 230 years ago, with subsequent land use including leaseholder pastoralis…
Years of Ochre Utilization in Timor-Leste
With both rock art and ochre-stained marine shell ornamentation identified at the four Timor-Leste sites of Jerimalai, Lene Hara, Matju Kuru 1, and Matja Kuru 2, it should not be surprising that almost one kilogram of colorants were also recovered from these same sites. Pieces displaying clearly identifiable use wear (grinding, scraping, rubbing) were collected from the earliest levels of Jerimalai dating to around 40,000 cal. BP, and continued u…
Bead Making in Aboriginal Australia From the Deep Past to European Arrival
This paper reviews the raw materials used by Indigenous Australians to make beads. It includes beads recovered from archaeological sites, as well as beads collected before 1940 held in museum collections, and those that are described in pre-1940 literature and other archival material. All three sources of information indicate that people were highly selective in their choice of materials for bead production and that availability and abundance onl…
New evidence from East Timor contributes to our understanding of earliest modern human colonisation east of the Sunda Shelf
New dates by which modern humans reached East Timor prompts this very useful update of the colonisation of Island Southeast Asia. The author addresses all the difficult questions: why are the dates for modern humans in Australia earlier than they are in Island Southeast Asia? Which route did they use to get there? If they used the southern route, why or how did they manage to bypass Flores, whereHomo floresiensis, the famous non-sapienshominin kn…
Carpenter’s Gap Rockshelter 1
Carpenter's Gap Rockshelter 1: 40,000 years of Aboriginal occupation in the Napier Ranges, Kimberley, WA." Australian Archaeology, 40(1), pp. 58–59
Are osseous artefacts a window to perishable material culture? Implications of an unusually complex bone tool from the Late Pleistocene of East Timor
Excavation at Lene Hara Cave establishes occupation in East Timor at least 30,000-35,000 years ago
Reinvestigations of the cave of Lene Hara in East Timor have yielded new dating evidence showing occupation from before 30,000 BP. These will further fuel the debates on early colonization of the region
Serpent’s Glen Rockshelter
In this paper we present the initial report for the first Pleistocene occupation sequence to be excavated in the Western Desert of Australia, from the site of Serpent's Glen. We identify a three phase sequence with an earliest unit dating to before 23,500 BP, an intermediate unit comprising culturally sterile sediments and an upper unit dating to less than 4700 BP. Previous excavations within the Western Desert have only provided Holocene assembl…
Hominin Dispersal and Settlement East of Huxley's Line
The thousands of islands east of Huxley's Line have never formed a single land mass or been connected to Sunda or Sahul. The earliest records of hominins in this area are stone tools recovered from Pleistocene deposits on Flores and Sulawesi. Subsistence by these hominins as well as the later subsistence patterns exhibited by Homo floresiensis suggest that exploitation of marine resources was, at best, rare and opportunistic. Likewise, the fragme…
Early modern human lithic technology from Jerimalai, East Timor
Year-old worked and pigment-stained Nautilus shell from Jerimalai (Timor-Leste)
The morphology, function and antiquity of Australian grinding implements
This paper critiques a number of core assumptions about the age, form and function of grinding implements from Australia. Distinctions which have been drawn between so‐called amorphous versus formal grindstones and their associated functions are questioned given the effects of low sample size in earlier assemblages, me general lack of independent studies of grindstone function and the need to consider more thoroughly the use‐life cycles of this c…
Nine New Painted Rock Art Sites from East Timor in the Context of the Western Pacific Region
Few rock art sites are known for the islands of Wallacea. This paper reports nine new painted rock art sites located in East Timor during archaeological reconnaissance in 2000 to 2001; bringing the total number of painted rock art sites in East Timor to 15. Both the new and previously known rock art sites in East Timor are reviewed in the context of painted rock art elsewhere in the western Pacific region. They are also evaluated in terms of the …
World’s earliest ground-edge axe production coincides with human colonisation of Australia
We report evidence for the world’s earliest ground-edge axe, 44–49,000 years old. Its antiquity \ncoincides with or immediately follows the arrival of humans on the Australian landmass. \nGround/polished axes are not associated with the eastward dispersal of Homo sapiens across \nEurasia and the discovery of axes in Australia at the point of colonisation exemplifies a diversification \nof technological practices that occurred as modern humans dis…
A new 44,000-year sequence from Asitau Kuru (Jerimalai), Timor-Leste, indicates long-term continuity in human behaviour
New Directions in Archaeological Science
Archaeological Science meetings will have a personality of their own depending on the focus of the host archaeological fraternity itself. The 8th Australasian Archaeometry meeting follows this pattern but underlying the regional emphasis is the continuing concern for the processes of change in the landscape that simultaneously effect and illuminate the archaeological record
Year record of food plants in the Southern Kimberley Ranges, Western Australia
An important Pleistocene-Holocene sequence was discovered when Carpenter's Gap Site 1 was excavated in  1992 and 1993 by Sue O'Connor (O'Connor 1995). The site is located in Windjana Gorge National Park, in the Napier Range, which lies at the southern edge of the Kimberley region. Carpenter's Gap Shelter 1 has an archaeological sequence spanning at least 40,000 years, from the late Pleistocene to the present. A unique feature of this site is the…
A Matter of Balance
This paper explores the subsistence records from cave sites with Pleistocene‐aged deposits in East Timor and the Aru Islands during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), and discusses these records within the context of the limited archaeological evidence for LGM occupation from elsewhere in the Indonesian Archipelago. Although Timor and the Aru Islands are at similar latitudes, the onset of aridity had markedly different impacts on the settlement and …
Continuity in Tropical Cave Use
The Aru Islands and East Timor fall within the biogeographic region known as Wallacea and have lain within the tropics for the known history of human occupation. Recent research has identified archaeological sequences that parallel the older radiocarbon chronologies from Australia. Terminal Pleistocene huntergatherer assemblages recovered from at least six caves register the introduction of a Neolithic technocomplex after ca. 4000 B.P. in the for…
Occupation at Carpenters Gap 3, Windjana Gorge, Kimberley, Western Australia
Carpenters Gap 3 (CG3), a limestone cave and shelter complex in the Napier Range, Western Australia, was occupied by Aboriginal people intermittently from over 30,000 years ago through to the historic period. Excavations at CG3 provide only slight evidence for occupation following first settlement in the late Pleistocene. Analysis of the radiocarbon dates indicates that following this there was a hiatus in occupation during the Last Glacial Maxim…
New dates for point technology in the Kimberley
New data from Bunuba country in the southern Kimberley provide more robust dates for point technology in the Kimberley than have been previously available. Direct percussion points have been recovered from three sites in the southern Kimberley associated with radiocarbon dates of ∼5000 calBP, whereas the earliest pressure‐flaked points are consistently associated with dates within the past 1000 years. This suggests that pressure‐flaked point tech…
The global implications of the early surviving rock art of greater Southeast Asia
The rock art of Southeast Asia has been less thoroughly studied than that of Europe or Australia, and it has generally been considered to be more recent in origin. New dating evidence from Mainland and Island Southeast Asia, however, demonstrates that the earliest motifs (hand stencils and naturalistic animals) are of late Pleistocene age and as early as those of Europe. The similar form of the earliest painted motifs in Europe, Africa and Southe…
Cultural versus natural explanations for lacunae in Aboriginal occupation deposits in northern Australia
Long‐term obsidian use at the Jerimalai rock shelter in East Timor
We report new evidence from East Timor for the long‐term prehistoric use of a single high‐silicate obsidian source. Ten artefacts from Jerimalai shelter in East Timor analysed with SEM/EDXA and LA‐ICPMS demonstrate the exploitation of this source began in the Pleistocene by 42,000 cal. BP, and continued to be used periodically into the mid to late Holocene. The data supports previous results suggesting that a high‐silicate obsidian of unknown loc…
Cave Archaeology and Sampling Issues in the Tropics
New evidence from Lene Hara Cave, East Timor, demonstrates that it was first occupied by modern humans by 42,454±450 cal BP at approximately the same time as nearby Jerimalai shelter. Together these sites constitute the earliest evidence for modern human colonisation of Island Southeast Asia east of the Sunda Shelf. Here we report on the dating and stratigraphy from the 2000 and 2002 test excavations at Lene Hara, as well as new dates obtained by…
The timing and nature of prehistoric island use in northern Australia
This paper presents new data for island use in the north west of Australia. The data from High Cliffy Shelter indicate that there are significant similarities in the prehistoric use of islands between northeast and northwest Australia. These findings have implications for previous theories regarding the impetus for initial offshore island use in north east Australia. Furthermore, it is argued that the pattern of offshore island use in northern Au…
Kisar and the Archaeology of Small Islands in the Wallacean Archipelago
The occupation of small islands presents particular challenges for people largely related to limited terrestrial resources and susceptibility to natural disasters. Nevertheless, the challenges and risks inherent in maintaining stable populations on small islands can be offset or overcome through the use of maritime technologies and exchange networks. The archaeology of Here Sorot Entapa rockshelter (HSE) on Kisar Island in the Wallacean Archipela…
The effect of retouch intensity on mid to late Holocene unifacial and bifacial points from the Kimberley
Stone points have provided key data for studies of hunter gatherer lifeways in several parts of the world. Point technologies occur widely across northern Australia, appearing around the mid-Holocene and persisting into the European Contact period. These points exhibit high-morphological variation, and include bifacial, unifacial and other forms. In the Northern Territory and north Queensland, points have been shown to form part of a reduction co…
The Stone House Structures of High Cliffy Island, North West Kimberley, WA
High Cliffy Island, a small island in the north west Kimberley, is the location of hundreds of stone structures which I began to record in the dry season of 1985. One of these was subsequently excavated. This paper examines the origin of the structures, their function and the implications for changes in social relations in this area in the recent prehistoric past. Some of the features unique to this group of islands which may account for the pres…
New Radiocarbon Dates from Koolan Island, West Kimberley, WA
This paper presents a series of new radiocarbon dates from Koolan Shelter 2, a large rockshelter in the coastal west Kimberley. These dates establish Koolan Shelter 2 as the oldest dated site in coastal northern Australia and provide firm evidence for a well established coastal economy by the terminal Pleistocene/early Holocene
Detection of amorphous alumino‐silicate by X‐ray diffraction and chemical analysis to detect firing in archaeological sediments
Fire modifies sediments and soil by converting some crystalline clay minerals to amorphous alumino‐silicate minerals that can be determined using a combination of X‐ray diffraction and chemical analysis procedures. Recognition of these materials provides a test for occupation that is independent of, and complementary to, criteria based on the occurrence of cultural or magnetic properties of sediments. This novel procedure has been evaluated for a…
The timing and nature of prehistoric island use in northern Australia
This paper presents new data for island use in the north west of Australia. The data from High Cliffy Shelter indicate that there are significant similarities in the prehistoric use of islands between northeast and northwest Australia. These findings have implications for previous theories regarding the impetus for initial offshore island use in north east Australia. Furthermore, it is argued that the pattern of offshore island use in northern Au…
Middens and cheniers
In watery places people prefer to live where they can keep their feet dry, and an elevation of a metre or two can make a difference. The simple distinction between humanly created middens and naturally built features does not easily apply in the Australian tropics, where the natural causes include cyclones, shellfish die-off and the building of mounds by scrub turkeys, and where foragers are not directed in where they choose to camp by concern fo…
Coastal Archaeology In Australia; Developments And New Directions
Having been asked to provide a retrospective review of coastal archaeology in Australia after 20 years, we asked ourselves the obvious questions: what major changes have taken place in the last 20 years in Australian midden studies? what were the burning issues then and now? This seemed a particularly appropriate time to ask such questions as Australian midden studies may be having something of a renaissance after a fairly long Dark Age. This yea…
A 6700 Bp Date For Island Use In The West Kimberley, Western Australia
In a recent paper on island use around Australia I drew a series of broad comparisons between northeast and northwest Australia (O'Connor 1992). It was suggested that although dated sites for island use in the northwest were currently of an order of magnitude younger than those in the northeast (see Barker 1989, 1991) future research in northwest Australia was likely to prove that occupation in the two regions was of a similar order of antiquity.…
Distinguishing middens and cheniers
A common phenomenon in northern Australia is the geographically overlapping occurrence of Aboriginal shell mounds or middens, and cheniers. Cheniers are tropical coastal landforms comprising shell or shelly‐sand ridges, developed on wetlands which are referred to as chenier plains. Chenier plains are widely distributed along the low wave energy coastline of northern Australia. The record of prehistoric human occupation of chenier plains in Austra…
Carpenter’s Gap Rockshelter 1
Carpenter's Gap Rockshelter 1: 40,000 years of Aboriginal occupation in the Napier Ranges, Kimberley, WA." Australian Archaeology, 40(1), pp. 58–59
A preliminary analysis of basal grindstones from the Carnarvon Range, Little Sandy Desert
Australian prehistorians have devised morphological categories for grindstones in order to separate those assumed to be of a generalised function from those used more specifically for grinding seeds (cf. Cane 1984; Smith 1985, 1986). This division is a functional one, with grindstones, or 'arnorphous grindstones', being multipurpose tools used to grind not only plants but also other materials such as animals and minerals. In contrast, seedgrindin…
Where are the middens
Year record of food plants in the Southern Kimberley Ranges, Western Australia
An important Pleistocene-Holocene sequence was discovered when Carpenter's Gap Site 1 was excavated in  1992 and 1993 by Sue O'Connor (O'Connor 1995). The site is located in Windjana Gorge National Park, in the Napier Range, which lies at the southern edge of the Kimberley region. Carpenter's Gap Shelter 1 has an archaeological sequence spanning at least 40,000 years, from the late Pleistocene to the present. A unique feature of this site is the…
The morphology, function and antiquity of Australian grinding implements
This paper critiques a number of core assumptions about the age, form and function of grinding implements from Australia. Distinctions which have been drawn between so‐called amorphous versus formal grindstones and their associated functions are questioned given the effects of low sample size in earlier assemblages, me general lack of independent studies of grindstone function and the need to consider more thoroughly the use‐life cycles of this c…
Serpent’s Glen Rockshelter
In this paper we present the initial report for the first Pleistocene occupation sequence to be excavated in the Western Desert of Australia, from the site of Serpent's Glen. We identify a three phase sequence with an earliest unit dating to before 23,500 BP, an intermediate unit comprising culturally sterile sediments and an upper unit dating to less than 4700 BP. Previous excavations within the Western Desert have only provided Holocene assembl…
Archaeological evidence for the extinction of a breeding population of elephant seals in Tasmania in prehistoric times
Southern elephant seals, Mirounga leonina L., do not inhabit the northwest coast of Tasmania today, but archaeological evidence indicates that they did so in prehistoric times, when they constituted an important food resource to the Aboriginal tribes of the region. Skeletal remains of at least 300 elephant seals were present in one midden alone. There is distinct sexual dimorphism in the canine teeth of elephant seals, and regular seasonal variat…
Cultural versus natural explanations for lacunae in Aboriginal occupation deposits in northern Australia
Perspectives on ecological approaches in Australian archaeology
In this postmodern World the evocation of ecological approaches in archaeology conjures up visions of banal environmental determinism and passive human actors receiving their cues from terrifying landscapes. And yet anything but the most superficial critique of the myriad approaches that have been labelled ecology easily illustrates that social and cognitive factors may be given voice at both the individual and group level. As Pardoe (1994:182) h…
Spatial and compositional variations within finely laminated mineral crusts at Carpenter's Gap, an archaeological site in tropical Australia
Mineralogical and geochemical variations in ten rock surface crusts are described from a large rock shelter known as Carpenter's Gap 1 in the southern Kimberley, formed at the junction between a sandstone floor and an overlying limestone roof. The finely laminated crusts, containing quartz, clays, oxalate and phosphate minerals, and sulfate salts (bassanite, gypsum, epsomite), formed over quartz‐rich sandstones. Mineralogical analyses of crusts, …
Bones of Contention
A recent critique by Walshe of taphonomic analyses made at three key arid zone sites is addressed. We defend our position that the extreme reduction of bone elements in these sites during the Holocene is most likely the product of Aboriginal behaviours rather than natural processes. We argue that the Tasmanian Devil, Sarcophilus , is not implicated in the reduction of bone; indeed there is no convincing evidence that Devils were even present in t…
Excavation at Lene Hara Cave establishes occupation in East Timor at least 30,000-35,000 years ago
Reinvestigations of the cave of Lene Hara in East Timor have yielded new dating evidence showing occupation from before 30,000 BP. These will further fuel the debates on early colonization of the region
Nine New Painted Rock Art Sites from East Timor in the Context of the Western Pacific Region
Few rock art sites are known for the islands of Wallacea. This paper reports nine new painted rock art sites located in East Timor during archaeological reconnaissance in 2000 to 2001; bringing the total number of painted rock art sites in East Timor to 15. Both the new and previously known rock art sites in East Timor are reviewed in the context of painted rock art elsewhere in the western Pacific region. They are also evaluated in terms of the …
Dating oxalate minerals 20–45 ka
Migration and complexity in Holocene Island Southeast Asia
Mapping the spread of Austronesian languages and its associated Neolithic culture forms the backbone of the orthodox model of the Island Southeast Asian Neolithic. The linguistic thrust of the narratives has tended to reduce the importance and independence of the archaeological record. In this paper we investigate how archaeological evidence has been used to support linguistic interpretations. Our own fieldwork and analysis suggest that reliance …
Arid Paradises or Dangerous Landscapes
This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Depicting the Archaeological Changes Explanations for Backed Artifact Efflorescence Research Programs as Reflections of Desert Images References
Teaching archaeological excavation at the University of Queensland
Effective teaching and learning of archaeological excavation at university is a complex and difficult task for various pedagogical, logistical, practical, financial and ethical reasons. TARDIS, a simulated multi-component archaeological site, was built on the University of Queensland campus in 1996 as an experiment designed to overcome growing concerns associated with teaching field research discipline on 'real' sites to undergraduate students. T…
Archaeology (163 works) · Geography (162 works) · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies (130 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (124 works) · History (80 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (79 works) · Geology (75 works) · Biology (53 works) · Pleistocene (53 works) · Holocene (51 works)