[Aqualist] ARC Results and Survey
Simon Haberle
simon.haberle at anu.edu.au
Mon Oct 20 09:52:07 EST 2003
Dear All,
The ARC results were announced last week and again there is a reasonable
spread of Quaternary related projects that have been funded (see the list
of successful Discovery, Linkage and Infrastructure grants below). In the
interests of continuing our survey of successful and unsuccessful grants I
would like to invite those who submitted an application but were
unsuccessful to send me the details of that submission by answering the
following categories...
(1) Named Investigators...
(2) Project Title...
(3) Administrating Institute.....
(4) 2-3 Keywords describing the application....
(5) Fellowships/PhD's applied for...
If people respond within the next week the results of this survey will
appear in the next QA....Well done to all those who were
successful...Cheers, Simon
_______________________________
DISCOVERY GRANT
Dr AK Gillett
Title: Communication and Media in the Development of the Post-Roman/Early
Medieval and Byzantine World (fifth to eighth centuries)
Category: 4301 - HISTORICAL STUDIES
QEII Dr AK Gillett
Administering Institution: Macquarie University
Summary:
This project investigates an apparent contradiction: though the Roman
empire fragmented into multiple states, its successors developed parallel,
not diverse, cultural and political practices. I approach this issue by
exploring the role and conduct of communication throughout these
states. Applying new methodologies to unused sources, the study will
examine the practicalities of face-to-face and textual exchanges and their
conceptual contexts, to track pathways of communication. This new
conceptualisation of the post-imperial period will produce a book;
translations with commentary of main sources; and an international
symposium with proceedings (publishers are already involved in the latter two).
Dr SP Turner Prof CJ Hawkesworth A/Prof M Reagan Dr JW Kirchner
Title: THE TIME SCALES OF MAGMATIC AND EROSIONAL CYCLES
Category: 2601 - GEOLOGY
Administering Institution: Macquarie University
Summary:
Precise information on time scales and rates of change is fundamental to
understanding natural processes and the
development and testing of quantitative physical models in the Earth
Sciences. Uranium decay-series isotope studies are
revolutionising this field by providing time information in the range
100-100000 years, similar to that of many important Earth
processes. This project will establish a dedicated Uranium-series research
laboratory and investigate (1) the processes and time scales of magma
formation, transport and differentiation beneath western Pacific island arc
volcanoes, (2) the time scales and relative roles of physical and chemical
erosion in Australian river basins
Dr RT Bush
Title: Contemporary sulfur biomineralisation in acid sulfate soil landscapes
Category: 3008 - ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Administering Institution: Southern Cross University
Summary:
This project aims to generate fundamental knowledge on the processes,
kinetics and impacts to water quality of contemporary sulfur
biomineralisation in acid sulfate soil landscapes. Extreme concentrations
of highly reactive sulfides are forming in the surface sediments of
floodplain drains, wetlands and agricultural soils. The newly forming
sulfides are linked to severe oxygen depletion and acidification of coastal
rivers and the complete failure of floodplain vegetation, leaving soils
susceptible to erosion. The proposed study will greatly advance our
understanding of how our precious coastal floodplain soil and water
resources are being degraded, and will guide better land management.
Dr CA Petrie
Title: Key of Anshan, Bolt of Elam: Cultural evolution and state formation
in the Fahliyan Plain (Fars, Iran), 4000 BC - 500 AD
Category: 4302 - ARCHAEOLOGY AND PREHISTORY
APD Dr CA Petrie
Administering Institution: The University of Sydney
Summary:
This project will excavate cultural material from the site of Tul-e Spid in
the area of Fahliyan in southwest Iran and has been
proposed as the location of Huhnuri, the Key of Anshan and the Bolt of
Elam. Little is known about Fahliyan, yet it lies on the route between the
two ancient capitals of the region. Excavation and analysis of material
from Tul-e Spid will provide insight into the evolution of states and
empires that developed in southwestern Iran, and the first indication of
the changes that occurred in regional areas during their formation
Dr R- Torrence Dr TE Doelman Mrs NA Kononenko
Title: Reconstructing Prehistoric Exchange of Volcanic Glasses in Far East
Russia
Category: 4302 - ARCHAEOLOGY AND PREHISTORY
APD Dr TE Doelman
Administering Institution: The University of Sydney
Summary:
This project examines competing theories to explain the causes for volcanic
glass movement up to 700 kilometres from its
source, in Far East Russia 18,000 years ago. As the earliest evidence in
the world for long distance overland movement of materials, this case
represents a significant innovation within human evolution. The project
combines studies of production and consumption to test competing theories
to explain why and how volcanic glass was transported. Analyses of
geological outcrops, quarries/workshops, and locations of artifact use and
discard over a large region enable a comprehensive reconstruction of
changing patterns of behaviour between 18,000-2500 bp.
Dr CS Turney
Title: Radiocarbon dating frontiers: Testing hypotheses of human evolution
and environmental change in Australasia and Southeast Asia (60,000-25,000
years ago)
Category: 2601 - GEOLOGY
QEII Dr CS Turney
Administering Institution: University of Wollongong
Summary:
Radiocarbon (14C) dating has revolutionised our understanding of
archaeological events and past environments. However, much of the period
60,000-25,0000 years ago is beyond the traditional limit of the method
(40,000 years). This is unfortunate as this period is characterised by
rapid, extreme shifts in climate during which the global spread of modern
humans took place. This project will utilise the latest developments in
14C dating (allowing ages up to 60,000 years ago) to test hypotheses
concerning the timing of human arrival and settlement in Southeast Asia and
Australasia, their environmental impact, and the synchroneity of climate
change between the hemispheres
Dr L Liu Prof X Chen Dr Y Lee Prof HT Wright Dr AM Rosen
Title: Settlement patterns, craft production, and the rise of early states
in China
Category: 4302 - ARCHAEOLOGY AND PREHISTORY
Administering Institution: La Trobe University
Summary:
This project is an international, multidisciplinary archaeological program
focused on monitoring the processes which led to the rise of early states
in China, through extensive study of settlement patterns in the Yiluo
valley, using regional surveys and geoarchaeological investigations. It
will make significant contributions in four aspects: evaluation and
reformulation of general theoretical and methodological approaches to the
interdisciplinary study of social complexity; enhanced understanding of
Chinese cultural history in the light of anthropological theory;
articulation of empirical approaches to the study of Chinese civilisation
through archaeology; and strengthened collaborative research between
archaeologists in Australia and other parts of the world
Dr J Beringer Dr LB Hutley Prof A McGuire
Title: Sustainable futures of Australian temperate forests: An
investigation of coupled carbon, water and energy exchanges from hourly to
centennial timescales
Category: 2606 - ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES
Administering Institution: Monash University
Summary:
Australia's forests are a critical natural resource that must be
sustainably managed. We will determine the uptake/release of carbon from
old growth and regrowth forests and assess the water budgets of the
Melbourne water catchment. We aim to understand the current cycles of
carbon, water and energy and how these may change over time (hours to
centuries). We will integrate our observations with state-of-the-art
models to improve our predictions of how forests will respond to
change. This will aid our management of forests and forested catchments to
ensure sustainable and viable water resources and optimise carbon sequestration
Dr HM Jackson
Title: House to House Enquiries in the Hellenistic Near East
Category: 4302 - ARCHAEOLOGY AND PREHISTORY
APD Dr HM Jackson
Administering Institution: The University of Melbourne
Summary:
Housing is primary, vivid evidence of domestic life. Its key role in
interpreting the social fabric of human settlement is a
current international debate. This will be the first study of households in
the Near East in the Seleucid period, when
Macedonians settled the Levant. Did Greek culture interact with eastern
traditions? Only archaeological evidence survives. The project takes a
unique, newly-excavated site in Syria as a starting point for a wider
investigation of Hellenistic houses in the Near East, using the
cross-disciplinary evidence of architecture, ceramics, domestic cult,
zooarchaeology, palaeobotany and nuclear analysis of clays to interpret
living space
Dr RA Wust Prof AP Kershaw A/Prof WT Anderson
Title: Drought, El Niño and Climate Change in Queensland over the last
200,000 years: the Lynch's Crater lake record
Category: 2601 - GEOLOGY
Administering Institution: James Cook University
Summary:
Lynch's Crater (Queensland) provides the longest, most sensitive
terrestrial record of vegetation and climate change in the low altitude
tropics. A multidisciplinary approach will exploit the potential of a core
collected in 2003 through high-resolution
multiproxy (sedimentology, geochemistry, stable and radiogenic isotopes,
pollen, charcoal and diatoms) studies. The results will contribute
substantially to the resolution of current debates on the role of the
tropics in global climate forcing at a variety of temporal scales,
including that of the El Niño phenomenon. The reconstruction of temperature
and precipitation over the past 200,000 years will improve global climate
databases and prediction models
Dr J Zhao Prof KD Collerson
Title: Chemical and isotopic fingerprinting of ancient porcelains and pottery
Category: 4399 - OTHER HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY
Administering Institution: The University of Queensland
Summary:
This project aims to establish provenance of ancient porcelains and pottery
of archaeological or antique collection significance using trace element
and lead-strontium-neodymium (Pb-Sr-Nd) isotopic compositions, which serve
as fingerprints of porcelains and pottery of different places or ages. High
quality multi-element and isotopic data will be obtained using facilities
at ACQUIRE¡¯s state-of-the-arts geochemistry laboratory. The results will
have significant implications for investigation of ancient cultures,
technology and trades, artefact authentication and even forensic studies.
Established database is potentially patentable for commercialization in the
antiquity market
Dr CE Smith Dr JM Balme Dr HD Burke
Title: Shared and Separate Histories: Landscapes of Memory in the Barunga
Region, Australia
Category: 4203 - CULTURAL STUDIES
Administering Institution: The Flinders University of South Australia
Summary:
This research integrates archaeological, documentary and oral evidence to
investigate the dynamic relationships between
Indigenous people and place over time in the Barunga region, Australia. By
mapping the active construction of social
landscapes by different groups in the same place, this project illuminates
the webs of attachment between people, place and identity during periods of
upheaval and change. It records Indigenous histories being lost on a
regular basis, contributes to national reconciliation through enhancing
understandings of shared histories and advances international debates about
the nature of social significance and how best to assess this for
Indigenous places
Dr MC Ball
Title: Global change in the sub-antarctic - Temperature response of
vascular plant species from Macquarie and Heard Islands
Category: 2704 - BOTANY
Administering Institution: The Australian National University
Summary:
The aim is to understand how subantarctic and alpine plant species that
have evolved, respectively, in equable and highly
variable temperature regimes will respond to increase in temperature
resulting from global warming and climate change. The proposed project will
identify species that are likely to benefit from, or are vulnerable to,
rising temperatures. Processes underlying adaptation and acclimation of
plant growth to increasing temperature will also be identified. These
results will be significant for conservation of biodiversity and management
of Australia's unique subantarctic and alpine flora.
Dr P De Deckker Dr SM Eggins
Title: Uncoupling past salinity and temperature signals in the
Indo-Pacific Warm Pool: implications for
climate change in the Australian region
Category: 2603 - GEOCHEMISTRY
Administering Institution: The Australian National University
Summary:
The tropical oceans and in particular the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool,
immediately to Australia’s north, play a key role in
modulating global and Australian climate through El-Niño and related
phenomena. Using a new microanalysis approach to
analyse individual foraminifera from deep-sea cores, we will reconstruct
past salinity and temperature variability within the
Warm Pool, and determine changing rainfall patterns and, ENSO and monsoon
behaviour under climate conditions that lie
outside modern records. This information is vital for understanding past
climate and predicting the future intensity and
frequency of El-Niño related drought and wet cycles in Australia.
Dr SG Haberle Prof AJ Anderson Prof H Heijnis
Title: Stepping-Stones or Barrier: The Movement and Impact of People
throughout the Far Eastern Pacific
Category: 4302 - ARCHAEOLOGY AND PREHISTORY
Administering Institution: The Australian National University
Summary:
The vast ocean of the far eastern Pacific divides two great migratory
peoples, the Amerindians and Polynesians. Whether or not members of either
group overcame this barrier remains one of the greatest uncertainties in
Pacific prehistory. We focus on the remote islands of the far eastern
Pacific Ocean and combine fine-resolution archaeology, palaeoecology, and
dating techniques to determine the antiquity and nature of occupation on
these islands. Their role as stepping-stones for human migration and
material exchange will be determined and the notion of these islands as
pristine and unspoilt at the time of European discovery will be challenged.
Dr P Hiscock
Title: A reappraisal of Western European Mousterian tools from Australian
perspectives
Category: 4302 - ARCHAEOLOGY AND PREHISTORY
Administering Institution: The Australian National University
Summary:
Intense debates in human evolution surround Neanderthals in France, where
archaeological deposits provide abundant evidence of their lives. Were
Neanderthals complex cultural beings comparable to our ancestors or did
they possess less complex cultures? This question has often been addressed
through analysis of Neanderthal, or Mousterian, stone tools. Previous
studies follow a tradition of dividing tools into types such as scrapers or
points. This study employs non-type-based Australian perspectives,
incorporating new analytical techniques, to re-describe Mousterian tools,
review what they tell us of Neanderthal capabilities, and evaluate
conventional type-based systems of analysis. Significant new information
about hominid evolution will result.
Prof K Lambeck
Title: Growth and Decay of ice sheets during glacial cycles:the example of
Europe
Category: 2602 - GEOPHYSICS
Administering Institution: The Australian National University
Summary:
The proposal is to develop a comprehensive model for the growth and decay
of the ice sheets of Europe during the last glacial cycle, using a
combination of diverse field evidence with geophysical modelling. The
outcomes provide boundary conditions for climate models (times of
inception and decay, ice limits, ice thickness) including processes driving
climate as well as constraints on the Earth’s mantle viscosity. Thus the
project contributes to the quantitative characterisation of both climate
change and planetary structure. In an Australian context, these outcomes
form important elements in the development of predictive models for
sea-level change.
Dr GR Summerhayes Prof G Hope Dr SL O'Connor
Title: The archaeology of northern New Guinea, a cultural corridor between
Asia, Island Melanesia and the
Category: 4302 - ARCHAEOLOGY AND PREHISTORY
Administering Institution: The Australian National University
Summary:
The project seeks to define the chronology, and clarify the dynamics of
prehistoric human colonisation, settlement,
subsistence and exchange in northern New Guinea. Integrated archaeological
and palaeoenvironmental sequences will show settlement, environmental
change and development of agriculture across 40,000 years. The significance
is in understanding a key area in the settlement of greater Australia and
the Pacific.
LINKAGE
Prof PS Bellwood, MsJA Cameron
Title: Bronze Age textiles from Dong Son coffins in Vietnam.
Category: 4302 - ARCHAEOLOGY AND PREHISTORY
APDI Ms JA Cameron
Partner Organisation(s)
National Museum of Australia
Administering Institution: The Australian National University
Summary:
This multi-disciplinary project breaks new ground in Southeast Asian
archaeology by incorporating excavation with the
conservation and analysis of a unique assemblage of prehistoric textiles
already located in Dong Son coffins in the Red River delta. In recognition
of the cultural significance of the archaeological materials to Vietnam,
conservators are involved in the excavation process to reduce physical
damage and the loss of fragile materials during recovery. The research will
also contribute to Southeast Asian (and Vietnamese) archaeology by
providing some new insights into the cultural interaction between South
China and Vietnam during the late prehistoric period.
Dr LA Hughes, Dr G Cassis
Title: Predicting climate change impacts on the biodiversity of Lord Howe
Island: an approach using
experimental and historical data
Category: 2707 - ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
APA(I) Award(s): 1
Partner Organisation(s)
Australian Museum
Administering Institution: Macquarie University
Summary:
Climate change will have profound impacts on biodiversity. We will
investigate both recent and future impacts of climate
change on invertebrate and plant assemblages on Lord Howe Island, an
important World Heritage Area. We will 1. compare current assemblages with
a unique set of historical databases spanning the past 150 years, to
investigate whether recent warming has affected community composition and
2. experimentally assess impacts of increasing temperature and CO2 on Lord
Howe's unique flora and fauna. Our assessment of species vulnerability to
climate change threats will be used to inform future conservation policy
and species management on Lord Howe
Infrastructure Grant
Dr RG Roberts Dr CV Murray-Wallace Prof AR Chivas Dr PJ Hearty Dr JF Nott
Title: Luminescence stimulation and detection facility for dating of
Quaternary geological and archaeological sediments
Category: 2601 - GEOLOGY
Partner Organisation(s)
University of Wollongong
James Cook University
Administering Institution: University of Wollongong
Summary:
Reliable ages are required in the Earth and archaeological sciences.
Luminescence dating is a flexible geochronological
technique for diverse deposits. It exploits the radiation-induced thermally
(TL) and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL)
emissions from minerals exposed to sunlight before burial. Recent technical
developments have made feasible OSL dating of small samples (e.g.,
individual sand grains) and sediments deposited during the past 0.5-1
million years. We request funds for a Risø TL/OSL system with single-grain
attachment to resolve the timing of sea-level, climate and landscape
changes, and the chronology of human evolution and dispersal, in Australia
and Southeast Asia
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