[Aqualist] ARC DECRA and Discovery Indigenous 2021 grants announced - Quaternary Research including archaeology and related projects listed below

[Simon Haberle]

Dear all,

The ARC have just announced the latest outcomes for DECRA and Discovery Indigenous grants for 2021.

Congratulations to all who have been successful!

Regards, Simon


DISCOVERY INDIGENOUS 2021 (ROUND 1)

The University of Melbourne

A/Prof Michael-Shawn Fletcher; Dr Simon Connor (IN210100055)
Has it always burned so hot? Fuel and fire in southeast Australian forests.
Indigenous cultural burning has been raised as a way of mitigating against climate-driven catastrophic bushfires in southeast Australian forests. It is argued that returning an Indigenous style fire regime will keep landscape fuel loads low, thus reducing the frequency and intensity of bushfires and mitigating against large catastrophic bushfires. While based on enormous reservoirs of traditional fire knowledge in Indigenous communities, this assertion needs empirical testing within these highly flammable forests. This project aims to empirically test how fuel loads, fuel type, fire frequency and fire intensity have changed over the past 500 years in southeast Australian forests, spanning the period of indigenous to British management.
$454,044.00


DECRA 2021 (ROUND 1)


The Australian National University

Dr João Teixeira (DE210101235)
Encounters with hominins: the history of human arrival in Sahul.
This project aims to provide a detailed understanding on the remarkably complex encounters between archaic and modern human populations in Island Southeast Asia, New Guinea and Australia during the Pleistocene. The project plans to provide the largest collection of human genetic diversity from this vast geographical region and significantly advance current knowledge on one of the most intriguing questions in human evolution. These insights are expected to bring important social and cultural benefits for Australia by unveiling the singularly deep genetic history of Aboriginal Australians, including their ancient connection to indigenous communities from Indonesia and New Guinea that extends back to when people first arrived in Australia.
$424,500.00

Dr Hilary Howes (DE210101721)
Skulls for the Tsar: Indigenous human remains in Russian collections.
This project aims to produce the first detailed investigation of the acquisition of Indigenous human remains from Australia, New Zealand and the broader Pacific by the Russian Empire during the long 19th century. It expects to generate new knowledge about Imperial Russia's scientific networks, anthropological collections and underlying intellectual traditions. Expected outcomes include a better understanding of Russian perceptions of Indigenous peoples and the development of a new way of writing histories about the collecting of Indigenous human remains. Working directly with affected communities, this project should provide significant benefits to Indigenous peoples seeking the return of their ancestors' remains from overseas institutions.
$428,865.00


University of Wollongong

Dr Nathan Jankowski (DE210100157)
Landscape change and the archaeological record in the Willandra Lakes, NSW.
The primary aim of this project is to systematically construct a high-resolution record of landscape and vegetation change within the Willandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area over the past 50,000 years. Using state-of-the-art dating techniques and a multidisciplinary approach, this project will provide critical environmental context for the region's world-famous archaeological record, charting the environmental changes that occurred as NSW's largest inland lake system ran dry at ~15,000 years ago. Anticipated outcomes include a refined understanding of: the drivers, timing, and periodicity of lake desiccation; the influence these changes had on regions landforms and vegetation; and how this impacted the lives of people living here.
$462,700.00


James Cook University

Dr Ariana Lambrides (DE210101087)
10,000 years of Indigenous fisheries informs future Great Barrier Reef.
This project aims to document the role of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in shaping the fish resources of the Great Barrier Reef over millennia. Using novel analyses of archaeological faunal remains, this project expects to generate new knowledge on how people’s actions transformed marine systems and modified fish communities. Expected outcomes include establishing pre-European baseline data essential for managing contemporary fish populations, and a long-term perspective on human exploitation of a dynamic Great Barrier Reef. Benefits include a framework for integrating Indigenous fisheries management into conservation agendas and foregrounding the deep human history of the Reef to support future social-ecological resilience.
$444,281.00

Dr Anna Willis (DE210101383)
Hidden histories in teeth: The key to unlocking secrets in ancient Myanmar.
The aim of this project is to examine isotopes in the teeth of individuals from three sites in prehistoric central Myanmar to examine diet, the movement and migration of people, and potential patterns in post-marital residence, which are all intricately linked. Built on a strong conceptual framework this project seeks to generate new information in the field of archaeological science. The research outcomes of this project will expand our current archaeological knowledge of this focal but under-researched area, which will be of particular benefit in understanding Myanmar in relation to surrounding regions and the wider Southeast Asian context, and in fostering continued collegiality and collaboration with Myanmar scholars and communities.
$432,953.00


Monash University

Dr Richard Jones (DE210101923)
Characteristics and controls of ice sheet loss on centennial timescales.
This project aims to unearth the characteristics and controls of Antarctic ice sheet loss on timescales of 100s to 1000s of years. The polar ice sheets are getting smaller at an accelerating rate in response to a warming climate, but modern observations are not yet sufficient to determine whether current ice sheet loss marks the start of irreversible retreat. Through a combination of novel geological approaches and numerical ice-flow modelling, this project expects to generate new knowledge on the rates and magnitudes of ice sheet loss, and the processes that will dictate the amount of ice loss in this century and beyond. This work should be beneficial for managing the societal, economic and environmental impacts of future sea-level rise.
$411,073.00


La Trobe University

Dr Ruth Gamble (DE210101348)
Melting Futures: An Environmental History of the Himalayan Cryosphere.
The Himalaya’s cryosphere (or frozen realm) has underpinned Monsoonal Asia’s climate and water supply for millennia, and now it is disappearing. This project forecasts the Himalaya’s melting future by documenting how its ice has shaped Asia’s past and produced its present. Focusing on the period since the end of the Little Ice Age (the mid-1800s), it investigates the climatic, cultural and geopolitical causes of ice loss, and asks how they have influenced and intensified each other. The project’s multifaceted approach to the cryosphere challenges the current fragmented debates on the melting ice, and will, therefore, generate improvements in cryosphere management.
$369,913.00


The University of Adelaide

Dr Linda Armbrecht (DE210100929)
Using ancient DNA to uncover climate change impacts on Antarctica.
This project aims to utilise ancient DNA preserved in the seafloor to investigate how past Antarctic marine ecosystems have responded to past climatic changes, with a focus on the Holocene (last ~11,700 years). The study will generate the first-ever picture of marine community changes across the entire marine food web and unravel adaptation mechanisms of key marine organisms to climate shifts. Expected project outcomes will include significant knowledge advances into the evolution and resilience of Antarctic ecosystems over geological timescales. This will position Australia at the forefront of marine sedimentary ancient DNA research, and also provide valuable guidance for the conservation of Antarctica during ongoing climate change.
$462,948.00


The University of Western Australia

Dr David Friesem (DE210100536)
The Earliest Australians' Adaptations across Western Australia.
This project aims to investigate how the first people to arrive in Australia responded and adapted to diverse environments and changing ecosystems. This project will analyse microscopic remains of human activity from eight key sites in Western Australia, dated between 50,000 and 7,000 years ago. This will generate new evidence on the earliest technology, ecology and landscape management, in relation to environmental changes since the last Ice Age. New understandings on the earliest ecological behaviour and adaptations to diverse ecosystems will be generated through international collaboration, with important outcomes for Australian archaeology and advancing Traditional Owners' engagement in this scientific study of their deep-time heritage.
$446,362.00