The Australian National University

Faculty Member, Archaeology and Anthropology

Professor of Archaeology

College of Arts and Social Sciences

About

I am an archaeologist at the Australian National University. My research involves syntheses of Australian prehistory, studies of Palaeolithic transitions in Europe and Africa,  creation of methods for inferring lithic artefact reduction, and studies of the public image of archaeology.

Currently I am engaged in  a number of large research projects:
1) Explorations of Middle to Late Stone Age technological shifts in Southern Africa [with Alex Mackay]. This project is funded by the ARC (Australian Research Council) for 2010-2013 and will involve excavations and assemblages studies.
2) Investigation into the technology of Neanderthals in southern France [with Chris Clarkson]. This project was funded by the ARC and involved almost two years studying the Combe Grenal collection in the Dordogne. Although the funding has ended the work continues.
3) Experimentation into the methods by which archaeologists can reliably reconstruct and measure retouched flake reduction. There are many strands to this work and it involves a number of my graduate students and colleagues.
4) The Eastern Sequence Project, which is reassessing technological structure and change in the Sydney Basin during the Holocene [with Val Attenbrow and Gail Robertson].
5) Exploration of the depiction of archaeology in cinema. My main concern is the way archaeologists are represented, their character and impact on narrative within theatrical release films.

At this moment: I am working on syntheses of evidence about the colonization of Australia by modern humans, and watching a lot of films dealing with archaeology and the human past.

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