UNE archaeologist chosen for Harvard professorship

May 29, 2007

Iain Davidson, the University of New England’s Professor of Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology, will follow in the footsteps of such luminaries as Manning Clark, Gough Whitlam, John Mulvaney, Rhys Jones, Geoffrey Blainey and Tim Flannery when he takes up the position of Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at Harvard University in August next year.

"It's a very distinguished bunch of people, and it's a very daunting and exciting prospect to be following in their footsteps," Professor Davidson said. "And Harvard has such distinguished scholars: it’s a terrific privilege to be going there to work with such people."

Professor Davidson (pictured here) will offer lectures and seminars, meet students and faculty staff, and visit other American universities with Australian studies programs as part of the professorship, which is awarded annually and extends over a one-year period.

He will also pursue his own research with the aim of writing a book about Australian archaeology. "One of the reasons I was so keen to take up the position is that Harvard has the Tozzer Library: the best archaeology library in the world," he said. "I am keen to write a book about Australian archaeology after 30-odd years of being involved with it."

Professor Davidson will also investigate similarities and differences between the experiences of the Indigenous peoples of Australia and America during their colonisation of the respective continents. "There are some similarities between Australia and America, and why their first people colonised them so late in the human experience," he said.

Professor Graeme Davison from Monash University, the Chair of the Australian Nominating Committee and a previous holder of the Harvard Chair, said: "As one of Australia's leading archaeologists, Iain Davidson is admirably equipped to meet the keen interest of Americans in the ancient history of our land and its people. I enthusiastically welcome his appointment." (THE PHOTOGRAPH of Professor Iain Davidson displayed here expands to include, from left, Professor Graeme Davison and the Vice-Chancellor of UNE, Professor Alan Pettigrew.)

Professor Davidson obtained his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from the University of Cambridge, UK. He began his archaeological career with (he said) "the romantic dream that archaeology could contribute unwritten pages to the history of ancient Greece and Rome". This dream changed as he conducted fieldwork in countries as diverse as Jordan, Turkey, France, Britain, Greece and Spain, as well as in Australia. In Spain he worked on a site that produced some of the earliest arrowheads ever found. It was this interest in the lives of hunters that led him to Australia – and UNE – in 1974.

He has taught on subjects including hunting, animal bones as evidence of prehistoric economy, rock art, language origins, and the link between stone tools and cognition. He has directed major field research programs (working closely with Aboriginal people in north Queensland, western Sydney and the Hunter Valley), completed a major project with the Department of Natural Resources and Planning about resource management by Gamilaraay people in northern NSW, is a foundation Director of UNE’s cross-disciplinary Heritage Futures Research Centre, and has acted as a consultant for a wide range of private industries. He has written two books, edited four others, and co-published numerous papers on the origins of language. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and a past president of the Australian Archaeological Association.

The Chair of Australian Studies was established as a gift to Harvard by the Australian Government in 1976 to commemorate America’s Bicentennial, "in order to maintain such teaching, research and publication as will help to promote awareness and understanding of Australia in the United States of America".

Posted by Jim Scanlan at May 29, 2007 10:37 AM