Current Projects

Stepping-stones or barrier: The movement and impact of people throughout the Far Eastern Pacific

Researchers: Dr SG Haberle, Prof AJ Anderson, Prof H Heijnis (ANSTO)
Funding: ARC Discovery

Summary: The vast ocean of the far eastern Pacific divides two great migratory peoples, the Amerindians and Polynesians. Whether or not members of either group overcame this barrier remains one of the greatest uncertainties in Pacific prehistory. We focus on the remote islands of the far eastern Pacific Ocean and combine fine-resolution archaeology, palaeoecology, and dating techniques to determine the antiquity and nature of occupation on these islands. Their role as stepping-stones for human migration and material exchange will be determined and the notion of these islands as pristine and unspoilt at the time of European discovery will be challenged.

Northern Vanuatu as a Pacific Crossroads: The archaeology of discovery, interaction and the emergence of the ethnographic present

Researchers: Prof. Matthew Spriggs and Dr. Stuart Bedford
Funding: ARC Discovery

Summary: This project addresses the archaeological record of northern Vanuatu, a significant crossroads region of the Southwest Pacific, from its initial human settlement some 3000 years ago through to the recent past. Through the application of a multi-disciplinary analytical approach, this research contributes towards the establishment of a detailed picture of inter- and intra-archipelago interaction, settlement pattern, subsistence and cultural transformations. The project has the potential to contribute both on a regional and on an international level to debates on human colonisation, patterns of social interaction and the drivers of social change in island contexts.

The archaeology of northern New Guinea, a cultural corridor between Asia, Island Melanesia and the Pacific

Researchers: Dr GR Summerhayes, Prof G Hope, Dr SL O'Connor, Dr A Fairbairn
Funding: ARC Discovery

Summary: The project seeks to define the chronology, and clarify the dynamics of prehistoric human colonisation, settlement, subsistence and exchange in northern New Guinea. Integrated archaeological and palaeoenvironmental sequences will show settlement, environmental change and development of agriculture across 40,000 years. The significance is in understanding a key area in the settlement of greater Australia and the Pacific.

Transformations and Persistence in the Holocene in East Timor: Unpacking the Island Southeast Asian Neolithic and Metal Age Cultural Packages

Researchers: Dr. Sue O'Connor and Dr. Katherine Szabo
Funding: ARC Discovery

Summary: This project will examine the structure and nature of the Island Southeast Asian Neolithic and the Metal Age in East Timor, and, particularly, the extent to which these phenomena form coherent or discrete cultural packages. It will enhance our understanding of archaeological sequence(s)in East Timor, test the validity of the Neolithic package or the Metal Age package in Southeast Asian archaeology and lay new theoretical and baseline archaeological ground for the potential reinterpretation of the nature and derivation of the Lapita Cultural Complex of the Western Pacific.

Bronze age textiles from Dong Son coffins in Viet Nam

Researchers: Dr. Judith Cameron and Professor Peter Bellwood
Funding: ARC Linkage Grant with the National Museum of Australia

Summary: This project involves the excavation, analysis and conservation of prehistoric textiles recovered from wooden coffins from waterlogged Dongson sites on the Red River plains of northern Vietnam. It is a collaborative project involving scholars from the Australian National University (Canberra), Institute of Archaeology (Hanoi), Centre of Southeast Asian Studies (Hanoi) and the National Museum of Australia (Canberra). The first season of excavations at the site of Dong Xa in December 2004 produced a wooden boat containing the remains of a small infant buried with pottery and lacquer. This waterlogged site is located in Kim Dong District, Hung Yen Province. The infant in the coffin was completely covered in a woven shroud, the first of its kind for Southeast Asia. The shroud was excavated in one piece and the material and structural composition of this important prehistoric textile are currently being analysed at the ANU. The wooden coffin and the shroud were also conserved in Vietnam.

Dongson textiles were also found inside another Dongson coffin during salvage excavations of the waterlogged site of Yen Bac. This site is located in Duy Tien District, Ha Nam Province. This more traditional Dongson coffin also contained the remains of a small child buried with copious quantities of bronze. Analysis of the small fragments of cloth found in the burial reveal that the Dongson spinners and weavers had knowledge of more than one weaving technique and used dyes to colour their cloth.

Three further waterlogged coffins have been identified at Dong Xa. These also contain cloth along with Dongson bronzes. Excavations of these wooden coffins are planned for September 2005 to coincide with a Conservation Workshop to be held in the History Museum in Hanoi.

The Taiwan - Philippine interaction sphere, 2000 BC to AD 500

Researchers: Prof. Peter Bellwood, Dr. Janelle Stevenson, Ms. Hung Hsiao-Chun and Mr Mandy Mijhares
Funding: National Geographic Society

Summary: The dispersal of the Austronesian speaking peoples was the most extensive process of its kind prior to AD 1500, resulting today in a population of more than 350 million speakers of Austronesian languages spread more than half way around the world. Linguistic and archaeological evidence makes it clear that this expansion originated with Neolithic movements from Taiwan into the Philippines, commencing about 4000 years ago. The project builds on archaeological and palaeoenvironmental research already conducted in the Batanes Islands and northern Luzon (Philippines), a region situated at the epicentre of the out-of-Taiwan migration process.

Asia's first people: the role of East Asia in human evolution during the past half million years

Researchers: Dr AG Thorne, Prof G Hope, Dr PS Tacon (Australian Museum), Dr MA Smith (National Museum of Australia), Dr C Pardoe, Dr DK Curnoe (University of NSW)
Funding: ARC Discovery

Summary: A new statement about the importance of East Asia in our evolution is long overdue. The evolutionary development of humans between 500,000 and 20,000 years ago will be examined from archaeological, biological, faunal, ecological, environmental and migrational perspectives. We will synthesise the scattered East Asian literature, examine unpublished material in situ and conduct new fieldwork. Excavations will take place at two locations in Myanmar, the first in 50 years.