Category: Historical Sites

Our mapping project shows how extensive frontier violence was in Queensland. This is why truth-telling matters

Our mapping project shows how extensive frontier violence was in Queensland. This is why truth-telling matters

by | Oct 14, 2024 | , , | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes The Native Mounted Police operated in Queensland for 80 years, starting in 1849. It consisted of small groups of between six and 15 Aboriginal troopers under the command of white officers. The troopers were typically recruited from areas far from where they were sent to serve. Detachments of troopers were regularly sent out on patrol, covering large areas along the frontier of the colony in pursuit of Indigenous people who were considered to be “problematic”. Their main job was to protect civilian settlers, the lands they had taken up, and their livelihoods – by whatever means necessary.

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DNA from elusive human relatives the Denisovans has left a curious mark on modern people in New Guinea

DNA from elusive human relatives the Denisovans has left a curious mark on modern people in New Guinea

by | Oct 7, 2024 | , | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
An encounter with a mysterious and extinct human relative – the Denisovans – has left a mark on the immune traits of modern Papuans, in particular those living on New Guinea Island. This is a new discovery we describe in a study published in PLoS Genetics today. It further suggests that our modern human diversity didn’t just evolve – some parts of it we got from other, extinct human groups.

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David Grann’s The Wager: a drama of murder, insurrection, escape and an empire at sea

David Grann’s The Wager: a drama of murder, insurrection, escape and an empire at sea

by | Sep 16, 2024 | , , | 0

Reading time: 7 minutes
In 1740, a modest squadron of ships from Britain’s Royal Navy departed Portsmouth in pursuit of an immoderate treasure. Commodore George Anson, who led the flotilla, was tasked with sailing south and west across the Atlantic Ocean, rounding Cape Horn, and interfering in imperial Spain’s lucrative trans-Pacific trade. But even before the mission got underway, its prospects of success appeared dubious. A sizeable proportion of the roughly 2,000 sailors and non-seamen under Anson’s command lacked suitable experience. Worse still was the fact that so many of them took up their posts already in a parlous state of health. It is little surprise, therefore, that Anson’s “famous” voyage around the world proved to be, for most of the men who undertook it, a journey of no return.

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World’s earliest evidence of a successful surgical amputation found in 31,000-year-old grave in Borneo

World’s earliest evidence of a successful surgical amputation found in 31,000-year-old grave in Borneo

by | Jul 30, 2024 | , | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
Modern medicine seems to advance with time thanks to research breakthroughs. Hence it’s often thought that further into the past, only simpler medical practices existed. The medical expertise of foraging communities such as hunter-gatherers has been thought to be rudimentary and unchanging. It’s been argued that shifts towards settled agricultural life within the past 10,000 years were what created new health problems and advances in medical culture; this includes surgery.

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1915 in Australia: the reality of total war sinks in

1915 in Australia: the reality of total war sinks in

by | Jul 22, 2024 | , , | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
1915 was a critical year for Australians, and not just because of the pride and myth-making associated with Gallipoli. Today we struggle to capture a sense of the profound shock and anxiety the landing at Anzac Cove brought to Australia. But it was this, together with a wider understanding that the war was not going well, that defined 1915 and drew Australians ever deeper into the vortex of total war.

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The birth of Ravenser Odd

The birth of Ravenser Odd

by | Jul 16, 2024 | | 0

Reading time: 8 minutes
In 1290 there was an investigation into their complaint and the records of that investigation still survive. The people of Grimsby told the king’s investigators that in the time of King Henry III ‘a certain small island was born’, the distance of ‘one tide’ from Grimsby, and fishermen began to dry their nets there. One day a ship was wrecked on the island, and someone made a cabin from the wreckage and began to live there. That man, the first permanent resident of this new land, began to sell food and drink to passing sailors.

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We have revealed a unique time capsule of Australia’s first coastal people from 50,000 years ago

We have revealed a unique time capsule of Australia’s first coastal people from 50,000 years ago

by | Jun 18, 2024 | , | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
Barrow Island, located 60 kilometres off the Pilbara in Western Australia, was once a hill overlooking an expansive coast. This was the northwestern shelf of the Australian continent, now permanently submerged by the ocean.
Our new research, published in Quaternary Science Reviews, shows that Aboriginal people repeatedly lived on portions of this coastal plateau. We have worked closely with coastal Thalanyji Traditional Owners on this island work and also on their sites from the mainland.

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Ancient DNA reveals the earliest evidence of the last massive human migration to Western Europe

Ancient DNA reveals the earliest evidence of the last massive human migration to Western Europe

by | Apr 10, 2024 | , | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes

Nomadic animal-herders from the Eurasian steppe mingled with Copper Age farmers in southeastern Europe centuries earlier than previously thought. In a new study published in Nature, we used ancient DNA to gain new insights into the spread of culture, technologies and ancestry at a crucial juncture in European history.

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Swedish Viking hoard: how the discovery of single Norman coin expands our knowledge of French history

Swedish Viking hoard: how the discovery of single Norman coin expands our knowledge of French history

by | Feb 12, 2024 | , , | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
In the autumn of 2020, I was contacted by the field archaeology unit of the Swedish National Historical Museums, who are also known as the Archaeologists. They were excavating at a Viking-age settlement at Viggbyholm just north of Stockholm. During routine metal detecting of the site, they had located a very exciting find: eight silver necklaces and other silver jewellery along with 12 coins, everything delicately wrapped up in a cloth and deposited in a pot. In other words, a genuine Viking silver hoard.

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In a first discovery of its kind, researchers have uncovered an ancient Aboriginal archaeological site preserved on the seabed

In a first discovery of its kind, researchers have uncovered an ancient Aboriginal archaeological site preserved on the seabed

by | Feb 5, 2024 | , , | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
For most of the human history of Australia, sea levels were much lower than they are today, and there was extra dry land where people lived. When people first arrived in Australia as early as 65,000 years ago, sea levels were around 80m lower than today.

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An incredible journey: the first people to arrive in Australia came in large numbers, and on purpose

An incredible journey: the first people to arrive in Australia came in large numbers, and on purpose

by | Dec 27, 2023 | , | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
The size of the first population of people needed to arrive, survive, and thrive in what is now Australia is revealed in two studies published today. It took more than 1,000 people to form a viable population. But this was no accidental migration, as our work shows the first arrivals must have been planned.

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