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Associate Professor of Archaeology, Griffith University

I am a Associate Professor in the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution and the School of Environment and Science at Griffith University in Brisbane.

My research centres around understanding the origins and development of human behavioural uniqueness, with particular focus on:

- Hunter-gatherer technologies;
- Australian archaeology;
- Neanderthal behavioural complexity and interaction with Modern Humans;
- Palaeolithic Europe; and
- Identifying children in the deep past.

I undertake traceology (reconstructing how tools/ornaments were made and used via observation of microscope marks and residues) of bone, ivory, antler, marine shell, and ochre artefacts from around the globe, collaborating with researchers based both here in Australia and abroad to understand the people who produced these artefacts.

Experience

  • 2020–present
    Senior Research Fellow, Griffith University

Education

  • 2014 
    University of Oxford, Ph.D.
  • 2009 
    University of Queensland, M.Phil.

Publications

  • 2021
    The 40,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels: Previous assumptions and new perspectives., Cambridge Archaeological Journal
  • 2021
    Children and innovation: Play, play objects, and object play in cultural evolution., Evolutionary Human Sciences
  • 2021
    Fishhooks, lures, and sinkers: Intensive manufacture of marine technology from the terminal Pleistocene at Makpan Cave, Alor Island, Indonesia., Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology
  • 2021
    Gymea and the fishing technologies of the New South Wales coast, Australia. , Cambridge Archaeological Journal
  • 2021
    Bone artefacts from Riwi Cave, south-central Kimberley: Reappraisal of the timing and role of osseous artefacts in northern Australia. , International Journal of Osteoarchaeology
  • 2020
    Homo neanderthalensis and the evolutionary origins of ritual in Homo sapiens. , Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
  • 2020
    Mobile containers in human cognitive evolution studies: Understudied and underrepresented. , Evolutionary Anthropology
  • 2020
    Space to play: Identifying children’s sites in the Pleistocene archaeological record., Evolutionary Human Sciences
  • 2020
    Early evidence for bows-and-arrows and brilliant symbolic displays in the south Asian tropics., Science Advances
  • 2020
    Portable art from Pleistocene Sulawesi., Nature: Human Behaviour
  • 2020
    Playing with language, creating complexity: Has play contributed to the evolution of complex language?, Evolutionary Anthropology
  • 2019
    Ancient tattooing in Polynesia., Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology
  • 2019
    41,000 years of utilising ochre in Timor-Leste: Powders, prehensile traces, mastics, and engravings, Palaeoanthropology
  • 2019
    Small arboreal prey hunting specialisation in South Asian tropical rainforests 45,000 years ago. , Nature Communications
  • 2019
    Symbolic expression in Sahul, Sunda, and Wallacea., Quaternary Science Reviews
  • 2019
    Manufacture and use of Lapita Conus multi-section broad rings: Evidence from the Teouma site, Central Vanuatu., Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology
  • 2018
    Is it ritual? Or is it children? Distinguishing consequences of play from ritual actions in the Palaeolithic archaeological record., Current Anthropology
  • 2018
    Pastoral Neolithic settlement at Luxmanda, Tanzania., Journal of Field Archaeology
  • 2018
    Explaining the lack of emu eggshell material culture in Australia: Experimental working and archaeological implications., Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
  • 2018
    Establishing a typology for Australian pointed bone implements. , Australian Archaeology
  • 2017
    Early human symbolic behavior in the Late Pleistocene of Island Southeast Asia., Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
  • 2017
    Magdalenian children: Projectile points, portable art, and playthings., Oxford Journal of Archaeology
  • 2017
    Investigating the prehistoric material culture characteristics of the Massim region, Eastern Papua New Guinea: Insights from the manufacture and use of shell objects in the Louisiana Archipelago., Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
  • 2016
    A >46,000-year-old macropod bone implement from Carpenter’s Gap 1: Challenging past perspectives of Pleistocene Australia, Quaternary Science Reviews
  • 2016
    Painted shark vertebrate beads from the Djawumbu-Madjawarrnja Complex, Western Arnhem Land, Australian Archaeology
  • 2016
    Poison arrows and bone utensils in Late Pleistocene eastern Africa: Evidence from Kuumbi Cave, Zanzibar, Azania
  • 2016
    42,000-year-old worked and pigment-stained Nautilus shell from Jerimalai (Timor-Leste): Evidence for an early coastal adaptation in ISEA, Journal of Human Evolution
  • 2016
    An enduring shell artefact tradition from Timor-Leste: Oliva bead production from the Pleistocene to Late Holocene at Jerimalai, Lene Hara, and Matja Kuru 1 and 2, PLoS ONE
  • 2015
    6,500-year-old Nassarius shell appliqués in Timor-Leste: Technological and use wear analyses, Journal of Archaeological Science
  • 2015
    Investigating maintenance and discard behaviours for osseous projectile points: A Middle to Late Magdalenian (c.19,000 to 14,000 cal. BP) example, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
  • 2015
    A newly discovered Magdalenian near complete decorated Baguette Demi-Ronde from Grotte de l’Abbé (Charente, France), Comptes Rendus Paleovol
  • 2014
    Magdalenian antler projectile point design: Determining original form for uni- and bilaterally barbed points, Journal of Archaeological Science
  • 2013
    Long range inland-coastal networks during the late Magdalenian: Evidence for individual acquisition of marine resources at Andernach-Martinsberg, German Central Rhineland, Journal of Human Evolution
  • 2013
    A newly discovered horse engraving from La Madeleine (Dordogne), France, The Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society
  • 2013
    Storied landscapes make us (modern) human: Landscape socialisation in the Palaeolithic and consequences for the archaeological record, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

Grants and Contracts

  • 2020
    Discovery
    Role:
    Co-CI
    Funding Source:
    Australian Research Council
  • 2017
    DECRA
    Role:
    CI
    Funding Source:
    Australian Research Council

Professional Memberships

  • Australian Archaeological Association
  • European Society for the Study of Human Evolution
  • Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past

Honours

2018 Queensland Young Tall Poppy; Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London