Archaeology at UWA

Al Paterson to give the George Seddon memorial lecture this Evening!

2026 George Seddon Memorial Lecture - Collecting the West: Revealing Western Australia through Its Collection Alistair Paterson, ARC Future Fellow in Archaeology at UWA will discuss his book 'Collecting the West: Revealing Western Australia through Its Collection.

UWA Archaeology Congratulates its latest Graduates!

Appropriately enough for Djilba – the season of transition – on a beautiful evening we welcomed three new archaeologists to the fold. Congratulations Will Bromage, Zabi Nezam and Zoe Southam! With Honours in hand you can now call yourself ‘archaeologist’! Thanks also to all the loved ones and other unseen hands that made their achievement possible.

Penny Major also graduated from the BA with an archaeology major and perhaps she too will soon decide on the Honours path – all good wishes for future endeavours!

as you can see from the pics - a true blue occasion (and if anyone has better pics, do shrer!)

ARCY1002 Experimenting with Archaeology Replicas on Display at Reid Library!

How did people in the past make tools, build shelters, or create art without modern technology? Experimental archaeology helps answer these questions by recreating ancient techniques, materials, and processes. By making and testing replicas of historical objects and technologies, archaeologists gain hands-on insights into how people lived, worked, and innovated. This approach bridges the gap between archaeological evidence and human experience, bringing the past to life through practical experimentation.

ARCY1002 students are tasked to research and re-create an artifact using the technological methods used to make the original. This exhibition brings together a diverse selection of materials and cultures to showcase the work of our students.

~37,000 people visit the library each semester - so students whose work is on display (the 2025 class, the 2026 class are hard at it and will have their turn to display next year)

For more on the Unit go to - https://www.handbooks.uwa.edu.au/unitdetails?code=ARCY1002

Thanks to Elly Famlonga and Reid Library for this great initiative!

UWA ARCY1002 Experimenting with Archaeology Students Make a Productive Mess which ARCY2220 Fieldschool Students will Clean up!

Human-stone relations are an enduring hallmark of humanity – and this week ARCY1002 students got to realise first-hand the physics behind making a humble flake (understanding materials – thanks John Fairweather for labelling our rock selection well as force vectors and fracture planes, mental templates..). Fortuitously, Joshua Willsher wa son hand working at the Desert People lab to show off his awesome lithic refit from 2-3 kya; impressing the students (at least that is how I interpreted their wide-eyed stares..). And Jayson Gill stopped by to share some stone tool making tips to add to the expert instruction of Niamh Shulmeister and Lohrrin Foley (who also convinced some students to volunteer in the lab..)

The students then used their flakes and tools (some retouched and ground) on wood and vegetables as later in the Unit we look at usewear and residue in the soils lab. Lithics stored in neat calico bags (thanks Elly, and for all the organising) they had decorated with paint from last week. We’d like to say no vegetables were hurt in this experiment but…

And then they had a go at grinding patches and making cupules and engravings. We had one literal broken heart where one Tute’s carefully constructed heart got broken by a another group (!)

But all is not lost – on Monday the ARCY2220 fieldwork class will map and excavate all these in situ artefacts as they learn to string squares (Martin Gibb’s YouTube video when he was at UWA remains a great digital artefact), excavate, sieve, sort, plan and section….

Next week is a little ropey as we will move Stonehenge….(really..).

Thank you to Aboriginal Land Services and Laura Mayer, ARCY4102 coordinator-extraordinary, for this fantastic opportunity given to Archaeology and Anthropology UWA Students - watch this space to see what other visits this unit offers!

UWA ARCY1002 Experimenting with Archaeology Students Gets Creative and Scientific While Watching the Paint Dry!

Great day to get dirty. Thanks to expert Tutors Niamh Shulmeister and Lohrrin Foley for using students all day (four 2 hour Tutes) through how to make slip, paint while understanding the roles of binders, extenders, emulsifiers, pigments to make paints and colourants. Plus productively harvesting campus flora to make brushes and applicators (one enterprising student used their hair!)

These they applied to the Must farm pinch pots they made last week (which now go off to get fired) – and to our rock art wall! Thanks to Elly as always for the hidden prep work that makes it all tick.

Next week – making , hafting and using (for later usewear and residue analysis) stone tools – an making excellent and culturally safe engravings/petroglyphs.

Join us this Thursday for our weekly Archaeology Seminar where Ari Jerrems will be presenting on 'The afterlives of the frontier', focused on the now-closed immigration detention centre in Port Hedland, WA. On campus at UWA Crawley - SSLAWLINK 3.73, 3PM, 6th August!

🥳Congratulations to UWA honours students Joleen Brown and Michael Brazel for being awarded an AACAI Student Support Fund for 2026!! These are the titles of their projects:
- Kaartdijin-Led Management: Developing a Noongar-led Heritage Prioritisation Framework for the Ballardong Region
- Cold, Cold Hearth: What charcoal and plant resin tell us about fire use across long-term environmental changes at Dargan Shelter, Blue Mountains (NSW).

AACAI Student Support Fund AACAI invites archaeological students to apply for funding support for their research project as it applies to archaeological consulting practice

Join us this Thursday the 30th of July for Dr Sean Winter's seminar on cultural burning on Noongar boodja - 3PM, 3.73 SSLAWLINK

First Seminar of the term, this thursday at 3pm!