News Release:
Australian perspective on Indonesian prehistory
| Date 5/11/03 No 197/03 A public lecture at the University of New England next week will describe research in Indonesia that could solve some of the mysteries surrounding Australia's first inhabitants. Associate Professor Mike Morwood, an archaeologist at UNE, will be giving the UNE Asia Centre Public Lecture for 2003. In his lecture, titled "Adventures in Flores: Archaeology in Indonesia from an Australian Perspective", he will describe some of the archaeological and fossil finds made recently on this island by a team of Indonesian and Australian researchers. Dr Morwood was recently awarded a four-year grant from the Australian Research Council to investigate when ancestral humans arrived in South- east Asia, when they first began to cultivate crops, when Austronesian-speaking "Asian’" peoples with pottery and cereal cultivation arrived, and the associated changes in climate, plans and animals. Answering these questions requires a range of scientific expertise and Dr Morwood leads a team of more than 20 researchers from 10 institutions and from many different disciplines, including archaeology, palaeontology, geomorphology, geochronology and palynology.
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This interdisciplinary project is the first to strategically tackle major problems in human evolution, dispersal and culture change in South-east Asia. It is focusing on Java and Flores (two Indonesian islands separated by the Wallace Line, the major biogeographical boundary in the region) but will also use evidence obtained from other parts of mainland and island South-east Asia. The research is particularly relevant to Australia because East Indonesia was the jumping-off point for initial human colonisation of Australia more than 50,000 years ago. The first Australians were Indonesians. Dr Morwood has undertaken previous archaeological projects in the Central Queensland Highlands, South-east Queensland, Cape York Peninsula and the Kimberley. This free public lecture will be on Wednesday November 12 at 7.30pm in the John Dillon Lecture Theatre, Faculty of Economics, Business and Law, at UNE. For more information phone Clare Zagami on 6773 3955 or Associate Professor Mike Morwood on 6773 2357. Media contact: Associate Professor Mike Morwood, School of Human and Environmental Studies, UNE, Armidale (02) 6773 2357 or Clare Zagami, Public Relations, UNE, Armidale on (02) 6773 3955. |
