Humanities and Social Sciences

Archaeology Program

Research Projects

>> Dr Richard Cosgrove

>>Dr Peter Davies

>>Dr Mark Eccleston

>>Dr Phillip Edwards

>>Professor David Frankel

>>Dr Jillian Garvey

>>Dr Susan Lawrence

>>Professor Li Liu

>>Professor Peter Mathews

>>Professor Tim Murray

>>Dr Nicola Stern

>>Dr Sheijiang Wang

>>Dr Jenifer Webb

Dr Richard Cosgrove

China Research - Chinese Middle and Late Pleistocene cultural variability

This ARC Discovery project DP0665250 is investigating Chinese Middle and Late Pleistocene cultural variability through a regional study of archaeological site chronology, stone technology, faunal analyses and site formation processes. This is in collaboration with Dr Shejiang Wang (Institute of Archaeology, Xian), Dr Chen Shen (Royal Ontario Museum, Canada), Dr. Huayu Lu (State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xian).

French Research - comparative late Pleistocene human behaviour

Collaborative research with Dr Jean-Michel Geneste on comparative late Pleistocene human behaviour. Funded by the Australian Academy of Science and Australian Research Council.

North Queensland Research - Light Islands in a sea of dark rainforest: Human influence on fire, climate and biodiversity in the Australian tropics

Collaborative research with Dr SG Haberle, Professor PT Moss, Professor JF O'Connell and Ms Asa Ferrier. Funded by the Australian Research Council, a key outcome will be an informed framework for protecting and enhancing biodiversity in the face of global warming. This research will build on previous archaeological and palaeoecological studies into plant processing practices; provides mediation between different approaches to rainforest management and further an understanding of the antiquity of rainforest occupation in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Zone. Aboriginal communities see the collection of archaeological data as pivotal in gaining control over their cultural sites, which leads to partnerships between universities and communities. Furthermore, close institutional and community relationships have increased the flow of knowledge about past Indigenous rainforest management.

Tasmanian Research - Seasonal human use of Tasmanian and Franco-Cantabrian Palaeolithic ice age sites
and skeletrochronological analyses in collaboration with Dr Anne Pike-Tay, Department of Anthropology, Vassar College, New York. Funded by Vassar College’s Priscilla Collins Environmental Sciences Fund, Faculty Research funds, and by the URSI program.

Direct dating of megafauna bone in Tasmania
The project aims to identify coexistence of humans & megafauna. The team consists of Dr Jillian Garvey, La Trobe University, Professor Jim O’Connell, Dr Joan Coltrain, Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Dr Albert Goede, Department of Geography, University of Tasmania, Dr Judith Field, University of Sydney, Mr Tony Brown, Curator, Indigenous Collections, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart. Funded by ANSIE and Research Enhancement Funds, School of Historical and European Studies

Dr Peter Davies

An Archaeology of Institutional Confinement: the Hyde Park Barracks 1848-1886

The Hyde Park Barracks was built in 1819 to house convicts, but between 1848 and 1886 it served as a depot for immigrant women, and as a refuge for destitute women. These two groups lost or stashed large amounts of material in the floor spaces below the second and third levels of the building. The archaeological assemblage recovered from the Hyde Park Barracks is a globally and nationally significant resource for writing the historical archaeology of emigration, and the institutional care of the sick and destitute in the nineteenth century. It is the largest, most comprehensive, most securely dated and best preserved of all institutional assemblages from the period. This project will complete the cataloguing and analysis of this assemblage, and in doing so will provide significant new information that will be used in public programs at the Barracks Museum, and in the publication of a book interpreting the historical archaeology of the site.

Hyde Park Barracks Museum

Dr Mark Eccleston

Amarna Project, Egypt
This project is located at Amarna (Akhetat 5 January, 2009 dating to ca 1350 – 1325 BCE. The overall project is directed by Professor Barry Kemp (University of Cambridge) under the auspices of the Egypt Exploration Society and the Amarna Trust. My involvement in the project is as a specialist on high-temperature industries, specifically to study the organisation of the metalworking industry at the site. In addition to compiling a complete catalogue of metal objects and metalworking debris from the site, I am particularly interested in trying to understand how the industry functioned within society and how it was organised into larger workshops and household workshops. The degree to which there was overlap between ceramics, faience, glass and metals will also be an area that is explored via close study of the objects and replication of materials by experimental archaeology.

Dakhleh Oasis Project, Egypt
My involvement in the Dakhleh Oasis Project was part of the Monash University excavations in the area before and during my PhD (1996 – 2002). My main involvement in the project was to excavate and study areas of industrial activity, specifically evidence for the production of ceramics, metals, glass and faience. In addition to the excavation of workshops and the recording of material in the field I also undertook thin section analysis of ceramics from various periods and reflected light microscopy, SEM and XRD analysis of metallurgical debris. I am currently preparing my PhD, Technological and Social Aspects of High-Temperature Industries in the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt, during the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods, for publication in the Dakhleh Oasis Project Monographs Series.

Dr Phillip Edwards

Archaeology and Environment of the Dead Sea Plain’ project: ZAD 2
The joint La Trobe University / Arizona State University ‘Archaeology and Environment of the Dead Sea Plain’ project is currently investigating the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A site of Zahrat adh-Dhra‘ 2 (ZAD 2) (JPG 490Kb), located on the southeastern shore of the Dead Sea in Jordan. ZAD 2 belongs to the latter part of the ‘Pre-Pottery Neolithic A’ period, first discovered in the 1950s at ancient Jericho, which witnessed the introduction of the world’s first farming villages. The site is dated to 9,600-9,300 b.p. (uncalibrated), and has clarified the chronological transition from the PPNA to the PPNB in the southern Levant dated late PPNA The site contains a single phase of large, curvilinear stone houses. Most attention has focused on the large 'teardrop'-shaped Structure 2 and the adjoining Structure 3 (JPG 487Kb). The floors of Structure 2 have revealed several interesting features, such as a plastered hearth and an inset cuphole mortar (JPG 768Kb). Structure 4 (JPG 381Kb) located toward the periphery of the site is a large curvilinear structure. The site has yielded a rich flaked stone industry (including a large number of Hagdud truncations (JPG 22Kb)) which has analysed by La Trobe doctoral graduate, Ghattas Sayej. La Trobe doctoral graduate John Meadows has analysed the charred plant remains from the site, producing evidence that the site occupants were practicing what is now known as ‘pre-domestication cultivation.’ The occupants of ZAD 2 engaged in far-flung contacts, as witnessed by the presence of exotic materials: Dentalium shells from the Mediterranean Sea, copper ore (JPG 142Kb) (from south Jordan, and obsidian (JPG 528Kb) from central Turkey, procured from a distance of nearly 1,000 kilometres to the north. The site is notable for its fine working of stone and bone tools. Its assemblage includes several small stone incised plaques (JPG 559Kb) and incised pebbles (JPG 78Kb) covered with intricate geometric designs.

Excavations at Wadi Hammeh 27, near Pella in Jordan
Wadi Hammeh 27 (JPG 121Kb) is one of the richest sites of the Natufian culture (ca. 12/800-10.300 b.p. (uncalibrated) in the Levant, an important juncture in the transition to early farming and village life. The site is located near ancient Pella in the East Jordan Valley, and was excavated under the auspices of the University of Sydney in the 1980s. It contains several superimposed stratigraphic phases featuring oval limestone huts, with human burials underlying, mingled with, and overlying these. The huts are provided with a variety of small stone facilities such as hearths, postholes and pavements. They are also crammed with massive amounts of artefacts and refuse (JPG 66Kb) - hundreds of thousands of items including rock-art (ranging from large-scale incised slabs (JPG 84Kb) to small plaques); artefact types in flint, limestone, siltstone, basalt, animal bone, ochre and shell; a taxonomically diverse fauna; and botanical remains including wild barley and legumes. The site is notable for its deposits or clusters of artefacts, mostly ranged against interior walls or near the opening of Structure 1. These include Cluster 11 (JPG 41Kb) (comprising a pestle lodged in a mortar, a second mortar, second pestle, and two grinding stones) and Cluster 9 (JPG 44Kb) (comprising a sickle with inset bladelets, 21 lunates, 5 gazelle phalanges, 7 polished stones, 1 bladelet core, a broken bone haft, a fragmentary bone bead, and a fragmentary bone pendant) - items involved in a wide variety of tool manufacture and maintenance, hunting and gathering, and food processing activities. The sickle (JPG 11Kb) discovered in Cache 9 proved to be unique double-sickle, inset with two ranges of five retouched bladelets.

Epipalaeolithic sites in Wadi Hisban, Jordan
A sequence of three Epipalaeolithic sites, situated in perched terraces on the banks of Wadi Hisban (JPG 63Kb) on the edge of the eastern Jordan Valley, were excavated in 1989 and in 1992 on behalf of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan and as a La Trobe University project. From lowermost to uppermost the three sites are designated Wadi Hisban 2 (JPG 91Kb), Wadi Hisban 5 and Wadi Hisban 6. The lithic assemblages of the three sites exhibit a remarkable degree of cultural change over a relatively small period of time. Wadi Hisban 2 (estimated date of 16-15,000 b.p.) is notable for its array of 'tiny triangles' (JPG 28Kb), a kind of geometric microlith fashioned by the microburin technique. A reduction sequence (JPG 17Kb) can be reconstructed in which blades were initially selected for microburin production, with the first step being the production of concave-truncated bladelets. The tips of these were then broken off by microburin technique, leaving long microburins and the resultant trihedral piece, which was further retouched to form a small triangle. Wadi Hisban 5 (JPG 83Kb) (estimate date ca. 14,000 b.p.) is a Geometric Kebaran site overlying Wadi Hisban 2, which yielded a small stone hearth . It continues the same technique of bladelet core reduction known from Wadi Hisban 2, but otherwise its microlithic component is quite different, featuring a variety of elongate trapezes (JPG 43Kb), and straight and obliquely-truncated bladelets. Microburin technique, so frequent in the lower site, is virtually absent here. In addition to the flaked stone, a small pebble with a grooved waist was found. The uppermost site small area, associated with a hearth of burnt pebbles. Retouched forms included truncated and backed bladelets and backed lunates (JPG 53Kb). Evidence for heat treatment (JPG 33Kb) of flint exists in the form of dual surface lustre - both matt and shiny – occurring on individual artefacts, indicating flaking of the piece before and after heat treatment.

Early geology and archaeology in the East Jordan Valley : Mashari'a 1
The Late Acheulian site of Mashari‘a 1 (JPG 87Kb), located near ancient Pella, is stratified in the Tabaqat Fahl Formation. Essential to the initial recognition of Mashari‘a 1 was the key discovery by Phillip Macumber that the 100-meter thick Tabaqat Fahl Formation was not Cretaceous in age, as previously thought, but Middle Pleistocene. Judging by its stratigraphic position, and the technology and typology of its lithic assemblage, the Mashari’a 1 site is thought to date between 400,000 - 250,000 years ago. The Tabaqat Fahl Formation looms over the village of Mashari‘a lying below it. Within this formation, the Mashari'a 1 site is contained in an 80-meter thick travertine unit, which comprises large numbers of fossil reeds and the freshwater Melanopsis gastropods cemented in a calcareous matrix. The deposits were formed by massive spring deposition in the past, involving a larger version of the modern and adjacent Wadi Jirm. Mashari'a 1 extends in cliff section for several hundred meters along the southern edge of the Tabaqat Fahl plateau. At this level, and over the face below, numerous bifaces and flakes erode from the deposit. There are also artefacts embedded in solid rock (JPG 83Kb) including discrete clusters of flakes. Excavations confirmed the good preservation of the site, finding numerous fine lithics and small flakes (JPG 21Kb) and a refitting flake core (JPG 24Kb). Bifaces (JPG 24Kb) from Mashari'a 1 include pointed artefacts of Micoquian type, and cordiform to ovate types. There are also numerous notches on thick flakes, many of which appear to have been formed through use rather than by formal tool patterning. Mashari’a 1 has proved to be the only clearly in situ Lower Palaeolithic archaeological site yet known from the east Jordan Valley.

Professor David Frankel

The Social Archaeology of Bronze Age Cyprus. Excavations at Marki Alonia
This ARC-funded project, undertaken jointly with Dr Jenny Webb, is built on the extensive excavations at the site of Marki Alonia, a prehistoric Bronze Age settlement in central Cyprus. The settlement was occupied for five or six hundred years from about 2400 BCE. Substantial architectural remains from the earliest phase of the Early Bronze Age to the early Middle Bronze Age provide the opportunity for exploring issues of household structure, settlement growth and demography, as well as economy and technology. The earliest occupation provides crucial evidence of the Philia facies of the Early Bronze Age, providing new data for developing models of migration and ethnicity as the keys to explaining the transition from the Chalcolithic to the Bronze Age in Cyprus. Preliminary reports on each excavation season have been published in the Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus. A comprehensive study of the first phase of fieldwork is D. Frankel and J.M. Webb, Marki Alonia. An Early and Middle Bronze Age Town in Cyprus. Excavations 1990–1994, Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology Volume CXXIII:1, Paul Åströms Förlag, Jonsered 1996. The final site report appeared in 2006 as D. Frankel and J.M. Webb, Marki Alonia. An Early and Middle Bronze Age Settlement in Cyprus. Excavations 1995–2000. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology Volume CXXIII:2, Paul Åströms Förlag, Sävedalen.

Deneia: A study of regionalism, population and society in Bronze Age Cyprus
This is a collaborative project funded by the Australian Research Council, co-directed with Jenny Webb and Maria Iacovou (University of Cyprus). The cemetery complexes at Kafkalla and Mali, near the village of Deneia in Cyprus, were in use for around 1000 years, from the beginning of the Early Bronze Age (2,400 BCE) to the end of the Late Bronze Age. A survey season carried out in 2003 identified over 1000 tombs, all of which have been partially looted. In 2004 a number of these were sampled in order to assess the changing size and structure of the cemeteries during their long period of use. Comparative studies of contemporary sites provide the basis for monitoring and explaining local, regional and island-wide relationships, viewed in a context of expanding population and increasing interaction with the wider Mediterranean world. A volume reporting the survey, excavation and finds will be submitted for publication in late 2007.

Politiko Kokkinorotsos. A Chalcolithic cite in central Cyprus
This project, jointly directed with Jenny Webb, involves the excavation and publication of a Chalcolithic settlement in central Cyprus. It acquires particular importance as the material culture of this period is very poorly known in this region of the island. A preliminary field season was carried out in 2006 and a major excavation in 2007. The latter produced over one tonne of pottery, over 150 kg of animal bone and large quantities of ground and chipped stone artefacts.

Aboriginal Archaeology of Western Victoria
This ARC-funded Collaborative Research Project with Aboriginal Affairs Victoria involved the analysis and assessment of largely unpublished excavations carried out by the Victoria Archaeological Survey in the 1970s. Work carried out together with Dr Caroline Bird has shown that some rockshelter sites in the Grampians-Gariwerd ranges were used from at least 20,000 years ago, rather than only in the last few thousand years, as had been previously thought. Analysis of stone tools from these and other sites provides the basis for re-assessing the nature of variation in Pleistocene and later assemblages in south-eastern Australia. This evidence, and equivalent studies of material from mounds are important in addressing issues of change and development in the region. An important component of this research project has been the active involvement of representatives of Aboriginal communities in the area, and outcomes include the preparation of material for them.

Dr Jillian Garvey

Taphonomic analysis of the fauna from Kutikina Cave, SW Tasmania
This is an AIATSIS funded project studying the faunal assemblage excavated from Kutikina Cave excavated in 1981 by Rhys Jones and colleagues. Radiocarbon dates of 14,840 + 930 and 19,770 + 850 years BP from Kutikina were the first evidence of people in the harsh, mountainous south-west region of Tasmania during the last ice age. During 2005 and 2006 approximately 270,000 bones weighing more than 46kg were analysed at the Tasmanian Museum and art Gallery (TMAG), Hobart. Twenty-two animals were identified including 19 mammal species, two birds and a fish.

The Economic Utility of the Bennett’s wallaby (Macropus rufogriseus)
This project aims to explore the economic potential of the Bennett’s wallaby via the development of a meat utility index based on the associated flesh weight per skeletal element. The results will be compared to the distribution of wallaby body parts found in the zooarchaeological record of late Pleistocene southwest Tasmania. This research is funded by a La Trobe University Research Grant.

Nutritional Analysis of the Bennett’s wallaby (Macropus rufogriseus)
This project will study physiological changes in the seasonal fatty acid composition of wallaby marrow, brain and flesh tissue between males and females, juvenile and adults, across a range of environments and altitudes. The project aims to establish if the marrow quality, quantity, or a combination of both were important in predicting human decision-making in the selection of specific wallaby body parts in late Pleistocene southwest Tasmania. This research is funded by a La Trobe University Research Grant.

Direct dating of megafauna bone in Tasmania
The project aims to identify coexistence of humans & megafauna. The team consists of Dr Richard Cosgrove, La Trobe University, Professor Jim O’Connell, Dr Joan Coltrain, Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Dr Albert Goede, Department of Geography, University of Tasmania, Dr Judith Field, University of Sydney, Mr Tony Brown, Curator, Indigenous Collections, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart. Funded by ANSIE and Research Enhancement Funds, School of Historical and European Studies, La Trobe University.

Dr Susan Lawrence

Pre-Gold Rush Settlement in South Gippsland, Victoria
(with Alasdair Brooks and Jane Lennon)
This project uses a community studies approach to develop archaeological perspectives on British settlement in Victoria before the upheavals of the gold rush in the 1850s. A number of households in Tarraville will be excavated and the artefact assemblages analysed to investigate the role of goods in the formation of culture on a British frontier.

York Town Archaeology Project
York Town was the first British settlement in northern Tasmania, establishing a European presence in the Tamar valley in 1804. With the West Tamar Historical Society and PhD student Adrienne Ellis, this project is investigating the archaeological evidence of one of the best-preserved sites of early British settlement in Australia.

Archaeologies of the British
Material culture from the UK and from former British colonies around the world is being used to challenge historical and contemporary understandings of Britishness. The evidence includes a diverse array of sources, such as pottery, houses, landscapes, maps, images, and texts. Through four centuries of change, vernacular architecture, landscapes, and the objects of everyday life have been powerful tools for defining, expressing, and manipulating Britishness both at home and abroad.

Archaeology of Whaling in Southern Australia and New Zealand
Whaling was Australia's first export industry and had a prominent role in colonial economies before the gold rush. AWSANZ is an ARC-Linkage project between the university and a number of heritage organisations around Australia and in New Zealand, including Heritage Victoria, the New South Wales National Parks Service, and the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service. Together they are developing a number of initiatives that address the industry in an inter-national perspective. Sites in Victoria and New South Wales have been surveyed and two sites in Tasmania (Adventure Bay, Bruny Island, and Lagoon Bay, Forestier Peninsula) have been excavated.

Studies in Victoria's Goldfields Heritage
The Mount Alexander Diggings, 1851-1901 This project explores the history and archaeology of the greatest shallow alluvial goldfield in world history: the Mount Alexander Diggings in central Victoria. Using a comparative perspective, it examines social life on the goldfield from discovery to Federation. Particular attention is paid to Chinese settlers, the largest group of non-British immigrants on the goldfields. The project's findings are being used by the the Mount Alexander Shire and Parks Victoria to assist tourism and heritage management in the central Victorian goldfields region. The project is being run jointly with Ass. Prof. Alan Mayne (History, Melbourne University), and is funded by an ARC-Linkage grant with Parks Victoria, Heritage Victoria, and the Mount Alexander Shire. Two PhD students (Keir Reeves, History, Melbourne University, and Zvonka Stanin, Archaeology, La Trobe University) are supported by the project.

Professor Li Liu

Settlement Patterns, Craft Production, and the Rise of Early States in China
Li Liu is the chief investigator of this large-scale international and multidisciplinary archaeological research project. Other international institutions involved in the project include the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Harvard University, the University of Michigan, and University College London. Since 1997 the research has been supported by grants from the Australian Research Council (ARC), the National Geographic Society, La Trobe University, and Harvard University. More recently, the project has been awarded a five year ARC Discovery Grant which supports the work until the end of 2008.

This study probes processes which led to the rise of these states in the Yiluo River Valley in western Henan Province. Regional survey programs examine settlement patterns in core areas of the early states. Reconstruction of climate using isotope analysis on stalagmites from local caves and understanding craft production of goods, such as stone tools and fine ceramics, have involved geologists and postgraduate students from La Trobe University and the University of Queensland. Investigations of plant and animal remains from 6000 to 200 BC by specialists at La Trobe and other universities have provided crucial information about the development of agriculture, land use, and exchange. Research into population and land use is assisted by computerised Geographic Information System (GIS) studies. Li Liu’s role as chief investigator is to integrate results from all these scientific programs to explain social, ecological and environmental changes in the emergence of Chinese civilisations.

The wide scope of the work has provided opportunities for students from Australia, USA, Canada, and Poland to study Chinese archaeology in China, and will continue to do so. It has also enabled archaeologists in China to test and evaluate Western archaeological theory and method through fieldwork experience.

The recent results from the Yiluo project have been published in seven articles as a special section in the first fully online issue of Bippa (Volume 27, 2007) at http://ejournal.anu.edu.au/index.php/bippa/

The origins of Asian domestic buffalo and its role in the development of agriculture technology
Since 2003 Li Liu has also led an internationally collaborative interdisciplinary research project on wild and domestic buffaloes in China, involving researchers from Australia, China, Canada, the USA, and Taiwan. This examines buffalo remains from the Middle Pleistocene to the Holocene, and uses methods including zooarchaeology, ancient DNA tests, ethnohistory, ethnography and art history. This project is intended to clarify whether the domesticated buffalo was developed indigenously in China or introduced to China from elsewhere. Answering this question will help us understand cultural interaction and the dispersal of rice agriculture technology in China, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. This project has been awarded a three year ARC Discovery Grant (2007-2009).

Professor Peter Mathews

Proyecto Arqueológico Naachtun (the Naachtun Archaeological Project)
Naachtun is a major Maya site in the far north of Guatemala , Central America . One of the few large sites to survive the social and political disruption in the region shortly after the time of Christ, Naachtun went on to become the capital of a Classic Maya kingdom between AD 250 and 850. The site was swept up by the power politics of that time: it was situated directly between the two ‘superpowers' of the Classic Maya world, Tikal and Calakmul. Although there are indications that Naachtun was conquered by Tikal in the 5th century, the kingdom appears to have lasted until the end of the Classic period some 400 years later. The Proyecto Arqueológico Naachtun is investigating the process by which the Naachtun kingdom survived the political turmoil of the centuries around the time of Christ (the so-called Late Preclassic-Classic transition as well as how it managed to negotiate its survival during the Classic period.

This project is funded by a large grant from Canada 's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (2003-2006) and smaller grants from La Trobe University and Canadian private and corporate donors.

Who's Who in the Classic Maya World
This project is one which documents the numerous historical individuals recorded in ancient Maya hieroglyphic texts and art. Most are from the Maya Classic period (AD 250-900), from sites in southern Mexico , Guatemala , Belize and Honduras . References to several thousand individuals have survived, from powerful kings to lowly captives. In the case of some individuals there are almost 100 references and over a dozen portraits, and so we can reconstruct fairly detailed biographies. In other cases we have just one or two fleeting references—a poignant reference to a captive about to be sacrificed, for example. The Who's Who project was commissioned by a major foundation involved in funding research into ancient Mesoamerica , the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. (FAMSI). It will begin to be put on FAMSI's website ( www.famsi.org ) late in 2005.

A Dictionary of Maya Hieroglyphs
This project, also commissioned by FAMSI, is a long-term project to record the words recorded in ancient Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions. Several thousand Maya texts have survived, and increasingly over the past 50 years we have been able to decipher them, to the point where nowadays on average over 90% of inscriptions can be ‘read' in ancient Mayan and translated. The Dictionary will list the attested words and provide commentary on their occurrences and dating, variation in hieroglyphic spellings, and use in phrases and clauses, as well as relating the hieroglyphic words to cognate forms in modern Mayan languages, some two dozen of which are still spoken in the Mayas' traditional homeland.

Professor Tim Murray

Sir John Lubbock and the foundation of prehistoric archaeology
This research project relates to the documentation and publication of a collection of 19 paintings commissioned by Sir John Lubbock and executed by Ernest Griset between 1869 and 1871. These paintings are among the earliest reconstructions of prehistoric life and are thought to have been displayed in Lubbock’s house “High Elms” in Kent along with his collection of artefacts drawn from prehistoric times and ethnographic sources.

18 of the paintings are held in the Bromley Museum in Orpington. http://www.bromley.gov.uk/leisure/museums/collections/). Some of the paintings remain the property of Sir John’s grandson, Lord Avebury. The 19th painting is in private hands in Sydney, Australia. Permission to mount the images as a gallery has been granted by both Lord Avebury and the Bromley Museum Services and is gratefully acknowledged.

Sir John Lubbock, Prehistoric Times Gallery

Building Transnational Archaeologies in the Modern World 1750-1950
Contemporary historical archaeology is much concerned with understanding capitalism, colonialism and modernity. Analyses of material culture recovered from archaeological contexts have tended to focus on what material things have to tell us about class, ethnicity and race, gender, and the consequences of colonialism. While there has been a strong tradition of exploring the archaeology of rural settlements, it has long been understood that the city provides the crucial context for investigating the archaeology of capitalism and modernity. But urban archaeological assemblages (especially those created over the last 250 years) tend to be very large and complex, requiring considerable time and knowledge to allow material culture to be transformed into primary historical and anthropological data, which can then support analysis and interpretation. It is also now more widely understood that approaching the archaeology of the modern world requires a framework of methods and theories that will successfully integrate material evidence drawn from sites around the world, with dense local historical documentation. The sheer amount of evidence is a major challenge to historical archaeologists, but then so is the creation of viable strategies for integrating the various types of evidence we routinely deal with (eg oral history, photographs, written documents, plant and animal remains and material culture).

This project articulates the rigorous analysis of urban assemblages and related historical documentation to underpin broader inquiries into the historical archaeology of the modern world. It builds on over ten years of research on sites in Sydney conducted by the Exploring the Archaeology of the Modern City (EAMC) see www.latrobe.edu.au/amc) and other developer-funded work, ARC and developer funded work in Melbourne and latterly in London. Analysis will occur at several levels, ranging from a single sealed deposit to comparisons between contexts at the local, national and global levels. Given my concentration on the archaeology of three modern cities and on the movements of people, capital and technology that created and sustained them, I will focus on two broad ‘transnational’ matters. First, the consumption of consumer goods, and exploring what this can tell us about production, trade, ethnicity, class and gender. Second, the nature of the modern city as a global phenomenon, particularly as an outcome of the global mobility of people, capital and technology during the period under review. I seek to enhance an archaeological contribution to writing the history of the modern world, contextualising new histories of migration, consumption and, of course, the city, in ways that support the broader goals of transnational histories.

Specifically the project will:

• Complete the re-cataloguing and contextual analysis of artefacts recovered from over 10 years of excavation on the ‘Commonwealth Block. (Melbourne) creating a consistent database for the entire ‘Block’ that will also be consistent with databases derived from London, and from two Sydney sites previously investigated in the EAMC project;
• Complete the re-cataloguing and contextual analysis of up to 6 London assemblages, creating the same kind of consistent and comparable databases that were achieved in Sydney and Melbourne;
• Further develop the analysis of data derived from the Cumberland and Gloucester Street and Hyde Park Barracks sites during the EAMC project, through comparison with new data from the ‘Commonwealth Block’ and target London assemblages.

Drawing on this re-cataloguing work I will undertake advanced assemblage analysis on target assemblages to achieve the following goals:

• To more fully articulate perspectives on specified classes of material culture as a means of better understanding contexts of consumption, and more reliably contributing to analyses of the role of material culture in mediating ethnicity, gender roles, or class distinctions;
• To write a historical archaeology of the entire ‘Commonwealth Block’ that will enhance the site’s contribution to making new histories of Melbourne, Sydney and London.
• To contribute to the development of a global comparative perspective on the archaeology of the modern city through publication and by participating in conferences and meetings.
• To complete (in conjunction with the Museum of London) a historical archaeology of London since the Great Fire of 1666, that will serve as a guide for the creation of a new exhibition Capital City to be housed at the Museum and, which is due for completion in 2012.
• To enhance the heritage and historical potential of large assemblages derived from urban sites that are stored in museums around Australia, but which are rarely used as a resource for history-making.
• Through this focus on the modern city to contribute to the development of the broader Transnational Archaeologies research agendum.

Traces, Collections, Ruins: Towards a Comparative History of AntiquarianismThis project associates historians, art historians, philologists, archaeologists and anthropologists, specialists of both eastern and western cultures, covering the northern and southern hemispheres, to undertake a comparative study of the practice, the epistemology and the history of antiquarians worldwide. The first aim of such a study is to define what may be understood as antiquarian practice: methods of selection, collecting and valorization, allowing us to clearly perceive the specificities of antiquarianism. A major goal of the project is the publication of an anthology bringing together different authors for a comparative history of antiquarians from earliest times up until the development of modern positivist science, globally speaking, the middle of the nineteenth century. This anthology will however not be restrained in any strict sense to the frame of the results proposed by the study which follows below, but should take into consideration the entire scope of antiquarian behavior from proto history to modern Europe. It will reflect the results a wide ranging debate between all the participants and a group of specialists capable of covering every aspect of the different periods and cultures that this study wishes to encompass.

1. The formation of an international network for the study of antiquarian practices. The project aims to structure the work already started by listing all the studies being undertaken in the world on the subject of different antiquarian cultures. With emphasis being placed on the slave, Latin-American and Ancient Near Eastern and non literate cultures.
2. The preparation of a comparative history of antiquarian practice. Once the research participants for this project have been identified and the epistemological outline of the comparative approach defined, a few precise fields of study need to be chosen in order to allow for a systematic anthology of antiquarian knowledge such as the materiality or immateriality of antiquarian practice, the permanent or transient nature of the remains of the past, the limits of the nature/culture opposition in the collecting of stories, objects, remains or monuments that form the basis of antiquarian practice. This process should allow us to achieve a collection of texts dedicated to “A Comparative History of Antiquarian Practice from Prehistoric to Modern Times, from the East to the West”. In order to avoid the often disparate nature of such a collection of texts, we need to be particularly attentive to giving a unified sense of coherence to the ideas being expressed, to the way they are presented and to the usage of specific vocabulary. With this problem in mind, and in order to insure a coherent structure, it will be necessary to organise a symposium which should not only allow a discussion on methods of harmonization but should secure the intellectual coherence of this collective enterprise.
3. Creation of a glossary, list of terms and references necessary for the development of a digital “bibliotheca universalis antiuaria”. The digital library of French and German antiquarians should be operational by the beginning of 2008, the international network set up around this project of a “comparative history of antiquarians” will unite the means and the competences necessary for the establishment of a universal digital library which will complete this project by a series of collections covering all of the above mentionned cultures. This united effort will allow a common definition of a set of lists necessary for the indexation of the corpuses: authors, places, descriptive vocabulary for collections.

The program will be lead by:
Irène Aghion, chief curator at the Cabinet des Médailles, specialist of eighteenth century antiquarians in English, French, Italian and Spanish cultures.
Lothar von Falkenhausen, professor at UCLA, specialist of ancient chinese litterature and architecture, responsible for Chinese and Far Eastern cultures.
Tim Murray, professor at Trob university, specialist in Prehistory and History of contempory archaeology, responsable for Prehistoric and non literate cultures.
Alain Schnapp, professor at Paris I, specialist of Classical archaeology and the history of European archaeology, responable for the Ancient Near East, scandinavian, slave and geramanic cultures as well as “colonial antiquarians” of the Americas, Asia and Africa. Initator of the French-German “bibliotheca antiquaria gallica et germania”.

The Origin and Development of the Tongan Maritime Empire
The Tongan maritime empire was the most widespread and complex socio-political entity known to exist in prehistoric Oceania. Spanning the ethnological boundaries of Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia, the empire was, by tradition, organised by a pair of paramount chiefs who integrated within the Tongan polity Pacific Islander populations living far beyond the Tongan archipelago — an event unique in Polynesia. At its height, from AD 1000 to AD 1500, Tongan influence extended to the neighbouring archipelagos of Fiji and Samoa, as well as to the islands of Rotuma, Futuna and 'Uvea, an area of more than three million square kilometres of ocean.

This project focuses on the Central Pacific — comprising Tonga and adjacent islands — with the purpose of establishing the origins of the Tongan empire, the pattern of its expansion beyond Tonga's shores, and the nature of relations between Tongans and other Pacific Islander populations.

It is a collaboration between Dr Geoff Clark (ANU), Professor Alan Frost (History, La Trobe) and Tim Murray, and is a study that goes beyond the usual single-island/archipelago-based research to understand the dynamic past of the entire Central Pacific over the past 1000 years.

The project will:

• Provide the first comprehensive radiocarbon chronology of the extensive network of monuments in the Central Pacific, and obtain detailed stylistic information for major field monuments through excavation and mapping.
• mprove understanding of indigenous cross-cultural contact. If the spread of Tongan monuments indicates the imposition of Tongan authority, the transformative effect of culture contact between Tongans and other indigenous peoples will be in the record of inter-personal encounters away from imperial infrastructure. This work excavates village sites where interactions between Tongans and other Pacific Islanders are known to have occurred.
• Provide a comparative picture of empire that can be used to aid understanding of the development of maritime empires elsewhere in the world, from antiquity (Mycenaean, Norse) and from history, like the Portuguese in Asia, the Indian and Arab empires of the Indian Ocean and European colonial expansion in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. The project is funded by the Australian Research Council (2004-2008).

Urban Archaeology in Melbourne
Begun in 1996 with funds from the Australian Research Council this project (conducted jointly with Associate Professor Alan Mayne of the University of Melbourne) has been focused on issues related to the integration of archaeological and historical frameworks of analysis and intepretation that have arisen from major excavations at the ‘Little Lon’ and Casselden Place sites situated in the heart of Melbourne. Since 2002 we have been joined by Godden Mackay Logan Pty Ltd and Austral Archaeology Pty Ltd, two of the major archaeological consultancies in Australia, and this has enabled us to work on the archaeology and history of an entire city block over a period spanning 1850-1950. In the course of the project we have published works related to our theme of questioning the idea of the slum and replacing such generalisations with more finely-observed explorations of the life of a vanished community. This is best expressed in Alan Mayne and Tim Murray (eds) The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes: Explorations in Slumland. Cambridge University Press 2001.

Exploring the Archaeology of the Modern City
This project, also funded by the Australian Research Council, is an outgrowth of our work in Melbourne. To find out more about what we are doing and why we are doing it visit our website.

An Archaeology of Institutional Confinement: The Hyde Park Barracks 1848-1886

This ARC funded project follows on from research conducted in the Exploring the Modern City project. To find out more about what we are doing and why we are doing it visit our website.

Robert Knox, James Hunt, and the Birth of British Archaeology 1810-1865
This ARC-funded research project is devoted to the production of a new critical history of British archaeology which can help us understand more about the nature of contemporary debate about the identity of archaeology. Since the 1960s archaeologists have debated issues of disciplinary definition that now include questions about the ontology of archaeological records as records of human action. These debates have begun to fundamentally change the terms of an archaeological contribution to historical and anthropological inquiry. Critical histories of archaeology which examine the genesis of contemporary orthodoxies (and which help to denaturalise them) can play a crucial role in redefining disciplinary goals and identities.

Dr Shejiang Wang

RESEARCH – ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIELDWORK

• March. 2006-Present ARC APD Research Fellow the Luonan Basin Palaeolithic Project.
  
• Nov. 2002 – March. 2006 Principal Investigator the Luonan Basin Palaeolithic Project. Archaeological site survey in the Luonan Basin and excavation at the site of No. LP055, a Lower Palaeolithic site of southern Shaanxi
  Province, China.
  
• Oct. 2000 Excavator The tropical rainforest archaeological survey project in far northern Queensland, Australia.
  
• June. 1998 – July. 1998 Excavator The tropical rainforest archaeological survey and excavation project in far northern Queensland, Australia.
  
• June. 1995 – Oct. 1998 Principal Investigator the Luonan Basin Palaeolithic Project, archaeological site survey in the Luonan Basin and excavation at the Longyadong cave site, a Lower Palaeolithic cave site of southern Shaanxi Province, China.
  
• Nov. 1994 – Dec. 1994 Collaborator The Hongkong Archaeological Project, excavation at the Patougu site, a neolithic site at the Hongkong.
  
• Oct. 1992 – Dec. 1992 Principal Investigator The Northern Shaanxi Paleolithic Survey Project. Conducted palaeolithic sites survey in the Northern Shaanxi Province and the Eastern Gansu Province of northern China.
  
• May. 1991 – Dec. 1993 Co-principal investigator The Wayaogou Project, excavation at neolithic sites in Tongchuan City, Shaanxi Province, China.
  
• Oct. 1990 – Dec. 1990 Principal Investigator The Middle Shaanxi Paleolithic Survey Project. Conducted palaeolithic sites survey in the Eastern Guanzhong Basin, Shaanxi Province of northern China.
  
• Sep. 1989 – Dec. 1989 Principal Investigator The Southern Shaanxi Paleolithic Survey Project. Conducted palaeolithic sites survey in Ankang District, Southern Shaanxi Province of northern China.
  
• Feb. 1988 – April. 1988 Principal Investigator The Shaanxi and Gansu Provencial Paleolithic Survey Project. Conducted palaeolithic sites survey in the Hanzhong Basin, Southern of Shaanxi Province, and in the Western Guanzhong Basin, Middle of Shaanxi Province as well as in the Eastern Gansu Province of northern China.
  
• Sep. 1987 – Dec. 1987 Excavator Xiaokongshan Cave Project, excavation at the Xiaokongshan Cave site, a upper palaeolithic cave site in the South-Western Henan Province and survey for palaeolithic sites in the South-
  Western Henan Province and North-Western Hubei Province in China.
  
• Oct. 1984 Excavator Excavation at the Qinshuitan site, a neolithic site in Hubei Province, China
  
• Sept. 1984 Excavator Excavation at the Caojialou site, a Neolithic to Early Bronze age site, Hubei Province, China

Dr Nicola Stern

FxJj43: investigating the behavioural and evolutionary significance of the earliest archaeological traces FxJj43 is one-and-a-half million-year-old locality in the Koobi Fora Formation on the eastern side of Lake Turkana, in northern Kenya, preserving the activity traces of early African Homo erectus. Unusual depositional circumstances have preserved the southern bank of ancient sandy stream channel, its levee and the adjacent floodplain. These can be traced out around the edge of the modern erosion front for about half a kilometre and contain abundant chipped stone artefacts and broken-up animal bones, in clusters of varying size and density. All the archaeological debris is derived from a narrow stratigraphic horizon immediately overlying a volcanic ash. Thus it provides a springboard for investigating the way in which archaeological materials accrued on an ancient landscape surface over a limited span of time, and for investigating the relationship between discrete clusters of debris that represent individual activities (like the knapping of a water-worn cobble) and agglomerations of debris that represent the overprinting of many different activities and events (including hominin butchering events, carnivore feeding events and hominin tool-making). Disentangling the relationship between discrete clusters and dense agglomerations of debris is fundamental to decoding the behavioural information embedded in the early Pleistocene record.

The Southern Forests Archaeological Project
Participation in this project, which was established and coordinated by Professor Jim Allen and Richard Cosgrove to document the history of human occupation in south west Tasmania, was aimed at investigating the empirical structure of late Pleistocene cave deposits. This involved documenting the impact of site formation processes and radiocarbon chronologies on the identification of discrete archaeological assemblages. Ultimately, interpretations of archaeological remains are based on comparisons between assemblages, each of which is the product of unique circumstances. Consequently, finding a way of comparing assemblages of debris that accrued at different rates and over different time spans is fundamental to interpreting those remains. This work involved studies of the macro-stratigraphy, micro-stratigraphy and the coarse components of the sediments, as well as the composition and characteristics of the artefact and faunal assemblages.

Investigating the contribution that archaeology has made to accounts usually revolve around well-publicised discoveries of the bony remains of our ancestors. These do allow us to piece together our family tree and to paint - at least in broad outline - a picture of the ancestors who appear on that tree. But it is the archaeological record that preserves actual traces of our ancestors' activities and intuition suggests that these ought to be fundamental to our accounts of human evolution. However, this is far from being the case and this project is designed to explore why this is so.

Dr Jennifer Webb

The Social Archaeology of Bronze Age Cyprus. Excavations at Marki Alonia
This ARC-funded project, undertaken jointly with Dr David Frankel, is built on the extensive excavations at the site of Marki Alonia, a prehistoric Bronze Age settlement in central Cyprus. The settlement was occupied for five or six hundred years from about 2400 BCE. Substantial architectural remains from the earliest phase of the Early Bronze Age to the early Middle Bronze Age provide the opportunity for exploring issues of household structure, settlement growth and demography, as well as economy and technology. The earliest occupation provides crucial evidence of the Philia facies of the Early Bronze Age, providing new data for developing models of migration and ethnicity as the keys to explaining the transition from the Chalcolithic to the Bronze Age in Cyprus. Preliminary reports on each excavation season have been published in the Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus. A comprehensive study of the first phase of fieldwork is D. Frankel and J.M. Webb, Marki Alonia. An Early and Middle Bronze Age Town in Cyprus. Excavations 1990–1994, Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology Volume CXXIII:1, Paul Åströms Förlag, Jonsered 1996. The final site report appeared in 2006 as D. Frankel and J.M. Webb, Marki Alonia. An Early and Middle Bronze Age Settlement in Cyprus. Excavations 1995–2000. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology Volume CXXIII:2, Paul Åströms Förlag, Sävedalen.

Deneia: A study of regionalism, population and society in Bronze Age Cyprus
This is a collaborative project funded by the Australian Research Council, co-directed with David Frankel and Maria Iacovou (University of Cyprus). The cemetery complexes at Kafkalla and Mali, near the village of Deneia in Cyprus, were in use for around 1000 years, from the beginning of the Early Bronze Age (2,400 BCE) to the end of the Late Bronze Age. A survey season carried out in 2003 identified over 1000 tombs, all of which have been partially looted. In 2004 a number of these were sampled in order to assess the changing size and structure of the cemeteries during their long period of use. Comparative studies of contemporary sites provide the basis for monitoring and explaining local, regional and island-wide relationships, viewed in a context of expanding population and increasing interaction with the wider Mediterranean world. A volume reporting the survey, excavation and finds will be submitted for publication in late 2007.

Politiko Kokkinorotsos. A Chalcolithic cite in central Cyprus
This project, jointly directed with David Frankel, involves the excavation and publication of a Chalcolithic settlement in central Cyprus. It acquires particular importance as the material culture of this period is very poorly known in this region of the island. A preliminary field season was carried out in 2006 and a major excavation in 2007. The latter produced over one tonne of pottery, over 150 kilos of animal bone and large quantities of ground and chipped stone artefacts.