Archaeology Actually

Kia ora, The research team that I am part of just last week had a new open access research paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. Although this is not directly related to my current PhD research, I did make a small contribution to this research, which was led by colleagues who are based at the University of Tübingen in Germany, and was kindly included among the paper's co-authors (not always a given in academia!). This blog post will give a general background and summary of the paper, which those that are interested can build upon by checking out the paper via the hyperlink above (again, it's  open access !). A couple of posts back , when I introduced my broad PhD topic (the Pleistocene/Palaeolithic archaeological record of southern Arabia) I noted that modern weather systems bring seasonal monsoon rains to parts of southern Arabia. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Dhofar mountains and Salalah coastal plains in southern Oman, where th...

Kia ora, رَمَضَان كَرِيم (Wishing a generous Ramadan to all those observing!) I am part of the way through a two-month stay in Muscat, Oman, where I am collecting data for my PhD. At the start of this month I attended the First International Conference on the Archaeology of the Oman Peninsula and presented some of the recent work of the 'La Trobe University Archaeological Research in Oman' (LARiO) project. The conference, which was hosted at the Sultan Qaboos University campus in Muscat,  marked the golden jubilee (50th anniversary) of the Journal of Oman Studies , the peer-reviewed scholarly journal of the Sultanate of Oman's Ministry of Heritage and Tourism .  Presenting at the First International Conference of the Archaeology of the Oman Peninsula, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, 1 February 2026. Photo: Roman Garba. In a great move for the profile of research in Oman, it was announced during the conference that the Journal of Oman Studies was becoming a Gold Open Acces...

Kia ora, Those of you that have previously visited this blog have likely noticed a repeated theme - human origins - a long held interest of mine. You possibly also have noticed that it has been a while since I last posted. In the last couple of years there have been some major changes in my life. I decided to finally take the step to pursue my interest in human origins further by moving to Melbourne, Australia to undertake a PhD at La Trobe University. The focus of my PhD research, now into its second year, is on the early archaeological record of the southern Arabian Peninsula (specifically, the modern Sultanate of Oman) and the role of this region in 'Out of Africa' human dispersals, and is being undertaken as part of the LARiO (La Trobe Archaeological Research in Oman) project - an international and interdisciplinary research collaboration. This project is co-directed by my principal PhD supervisor at La Trobe University, Dr Matthew Meredith-Williams , and is currently being...