Staff profile

Dr Richard Cosgrove

Reader, Archaeology Program Coordinator

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

School of Historical and European Studies

MB 167, Melbourne (Bundoora)

 

Qualifications

BA (ANU), MA (James Cook), PhD (La Trobe).

Membership of professional associations

International Council for Zooarchaeology, Australasian Quaternary Association, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

Area of study

Australian Studies
Archaeology
Aboriginal Studies

Brief profile

My research and teaching experience has been in human behavioural ecology, rock art studies, palaeoecology, zooarchaeology, stone artefact analysis and hunter-gatherer archaeology. I have carried out field work and research in most Australian states and, internationally in England, China, Jordan and France over the last 30 years. The time period that I study is from the Palaeolithic to the Holocene periods, from about 1 million years ago up to the historic period. I have advised the Tasmanian forest industry, ICOMOS, the World Heritage Centre and the Tasmanian Aboriginal Lands and Sea Council on cultural heritage matters for over 20 years. I work closely with the Queensland Wet Tropics, Aboriginal communities and Environmental Protection agencies, northeast Queensland on Indigenous cultural heritage management.

Research interests

Archaeology of Australia

- Animal bones in archaeology

- Archaeobotany

- Human behavioural ecology

- Hunter-gatherer archaeology

- Rock art

Teaching units

  • ARC2/3AIA - Australian Indigenous Archaeology;
  • ARC2/3ASA - Art and Symbolism of the Ancients;
  • ARC2/3ICE - Ice Age Australia;
  • ARC2/3ZOO - The Archaeology of Animals;
  • ARC4HN - Honours Course;
  • ARC4PRA - Practical Archaeology.

Recent publications

  1. Huayu Lu, Hongyan Zhang, Shejiang Wang, Xuefeng Sun, Richard Cosgrove, Jun Zhao, Donghuai Sun, Chen Shen, Ming Wei, 2011. Multiphase timing of hominid occupations and the paleoenvironment in Luonan Basin, Central China. Accepted for publication. Quaternary Research.
  2. Patrick T. Moss, Richard Cosgrove, Simon G. Haberle and Åsa Ferrier 2011 Holocene Landscape Change in the sclerophyll woodlands of the Wet Tropics of north-eastern Australia. In S. Haberle and B. David (eds) Peopled Landscapes: Archaeological and Biogeographic Approaches to Landscapes. Terra Australis 34. ANU Press.
  3. Ferrier, Å. and R. Cosgrove, 2011. The human use of toxic nut species in Australia’s tropical rainforests: interactions between people, climate and fire. In S. Haberle and B. David (eds) Peopled Landscapes: Archaeological and Biogeographic Approaches to Landscapes. Terra Australis 34. ANU Press.
  4. Cosgrove, R., D. Frankel and D. Thomas 2011 From the Moat to the Murray: Teaching practical archaeology at La Trobe University. Research in Archaeological Education Journal. March edition.
  5. Huayu Lu, Xuefeng Sun, Shejiang Wang, Richard Cosgrove, Hongyan Zhang, Shuangwen Yi , Ming Wei , Xiaolin Ma, Wenchao Zhang, 2011. Ages for hominid occupation in Lushi Basin, in catchments of South Luohe River, central China. Journal of Human Evolution 60: 612-617.
  6. Cosgrove, R. and R. Sim, 2010. A Tribute: Vale Darrell Arthur West 25 April 1945 – 24 March 2009. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2010/1: 132-135.
  7. Haberle, S. G., S. Rule, P. Roberts, H. Hiejnis, G. Jacobsen, C. Turney, R. Cosgrove, A. Ferrier, P. Moss and S. Mooney, 2010. Palaeo-Fire in the Wet Tropics of northeast Queensland, Australia. Past Global Changes, Vol 18, No 2: 78-80.
  8. Cosgrove, Richard, Judith Field, Jillian Garvey, Joan Brenner-Coltrain, Albert Goede, Bethan Charles, Steve Wroe, Anne Pike-Tay, Rainer Grün, Maxime Aubert, Wendy Lees and James O'Connell, 2010. Overdone overkill – the archaeological perspective on Tasmanian megafaunal extinctions. Journal of Archaeological Science. 37: 2486-2503.
  9. Field, J., R. Cosgrove, R. Fullagar & B. Lance, 2009. Starch residues on grinding stones in private collections: a study of morahs from the tropical rainforests of NE Queensland. In Sue Nugent, Luke Kirkwood, Alison Crowther and Michael Haslam (eds), Archaeological Science under a Microscope: Studies in residue and ancient DNA analysis in honour of Tom Loy. Terra Australis 30, pp 218-228.
  10. Cosgrove, R. 2008 Review of The Social Archaeology of Australian Indigenous Societies. B. David, B. Barker & I.J. McNiven (eds) Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 2006. ISBN 0-85575-499-0. Australian Archaeology, 66: 67-68.
  11. Wang, S., Lu Huayu, Z. Hongyan, Z. Jun, R. Cosgrove, Y. Shuangwen, S. Xuefeng, W. Ming, J. Garvey and M. Xiaolin, 2008. Preliminary survey of Paleolithic artefacts and loess deposit in the middle south Luohe River, eastern Qinling Mountains, central China. Quaternary Sciences, vol 28 (6): 988-912.
  12. Pike-Tay, A., R. Cosgrove and J. Garvey, 2008. Archaeological evidence for seasonal land use patterns by late Pleistocene Tasmanian Aborigines. Journal of Archaeological Science 35: 2532-2544.
  13. Wang, S., R. Cosgrove, H. Lu, C. Shen, W. Ming and X. Zhang, 2008. New Progress on Palaeolithic Studies in the Luonan Basin, Eastern Qinling Mountains, China. In K. Matsufuji (ed), Loess-paleosol and Paleolithic Chronology in East Asia, pp 145-161.
  14. Huayu, L. Zhang Hongyan, Wang Shejing, Richard Cosgrove, Zhao Cunfa, Thomas Stevens and Zhao Jun, 2007. A preliminary survey on loess deposit in eastern Qinling Mountains (central China) and its implications for estimating age of the Pleistocene lithic artefacts. Quaternary Sciences, vol. 27 (4): 559-567.
  15. Cosgrove, R., J. Field and Å. Ferrier, 2007. The archaeology of the Australia’s tropical rainforest. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 251 (1): 150-173.
  16.  Cosgrove, R., 2006. The archaeology of global expansion 300,000-8,000 years ago: the archaeology of late Pleistocene Australia and the Pacific. In S.L. Elias (ed) Encyclopaedia of Quaternary Sciences, Elseveir, United Kingdom, pp 118-129.
  17. Pike-Tay, A. and R. Cosgrove, 2006. ‘Mousterians of the Antipodes? ’Exploring ‘modern human behaviour’ in Late Pleistocene Tasmania. Zona Arqueologica: Papers in honour of Vicky Cabrera, Volume 1: pp 336-346. Museo Arqueologica Regional.
  18. Cosgrove, R, 2005. Coping with noxious nuts. Nature Australia 28, (6): 47-53.
  19. Wang Shejiang, Shen Chen, Hu Song-mei, Zhang Xiaobing, Wang Changfu, and Richard Cosgrove, 2005. A Study of Lithic Artefacts from Open-air Sites during 1995-1999 in Luonan Basin, China. Acta Anthropologica Sinica, 24 (2).  

Research projects

China Research: Chinese Middle and Late Pleistocene cultural variability French Research: Comparative late Pleistocene human behaviour North Queensland Research: Light Islands in a sea of dark rainforest: Human influence on fire, climate and biodiversity in the Australian tropics. Tasmanian Research: Seasonal human use of Tasmanian and Franco-Cantabrian Palaeolithic ice age sites Direct dating of megafauna bone in Tasmania