It is indeed :) PhD done; all chapters published bar one and I’ve got a lab full of new scaphopod beads and fragments of Melo to investigate :)

Hope you are well too

Great research Chris !

Early Middle Stone Age personal ornaments from Bizmoune Cave, Essaouira, Morocco Shell beads from Bizmoune Cave (Morocco) show the early appearance and continuity of symbolic behavior among early Homo sapiens.

The oldest shell beads are from Morocco. 142,000 years old - and made from Tritia gibbosula

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

I’ll be there. I arrive in Darwin last night. I’m presenting in the T1/8. Palaeolandscapes and People in Australian Deserts on the consumption and use (as tools and ornaments) of marine invertebrates for 51,000 years in north Western Australia.

One day I’ll come visit - it looks amazing !

They are an amazing species indeed! I have more research to come on their manufacture into large bowls using fire and percussion.

Ooh I can’t wait to read this!

This is what I was doing in the lab this week — working through the MNI counts for chitons as part of my reanalysis of the marine invertebrate assemblage from Haynes Cave. Applying a method that is more accurate.
#archaeomalacology #zooarchaeology #chiton #australianarchaeology #MontebelloIslands

Using archaeological, ethnographic & experimental datasets, we establish a full chaîne opératoire for Melo shell knives—proving manufacture began 46,000 years ago in northern Australia. doi.org/10.1016/j.ja... #zooarchaeology #archaeomalacology #australianarchaeology #experimentalarchaeology

There is also no evidence of resin on any of the knive and Boodie Cave. Ethnographically in the Wellesley Islands they had wrapped bark handles.

The shoulder spines are a natural part of Melo amphora. The shell was broken using a hammer stone detaching the lip of the shell which is the knife blade and retaining part of the shell with the spines still attached. Flaking Melo doesn’t work very well owing to its micro structure

The reduction sequence of a juvenile Melo into a knife followed a set process. The same as technique observed by Tindale in the 1960s in the gulf of Carpentaria. Which is 2,452 km away from Boodie Cave! #archaeomalacology #experimentalarchaeology #australianarchaeology #shelltools

The spikes are known as spines and yes they were kept by the makers to allow for a handle wrap of some sort. Perhaps melaleuca.

This would be wonderful!

Part of my PhD research looked at shell knives from Boodie Cave, Barrow Island (Hook et al. 2024). We found a 46,000-year tradition of Melo shell knife production—some of the earliest known shell tools made by Homo sapiens.
#archaeomalacology #australianarchaeology #experimentalarchaeology

Been a bit quiet—waiting on TO approval for my final PhD paper. I’ve moved into my own lab in the Peter Veth Arch Lab + kicked off archaeomalacological reanalysis of the late Pleistocene and early Holocene Haynes + Noala Caves, Montebello Islands, 1980s digs

#shellfish #uwa #australianarchaeology

New article on rock art in the Kimberley #australianarchaeology #rockart #kimberley #westenaustralia

Can you add me please :) my two latest papers are on Australian Aboriginal shell beads and shell knives using experimental archaeology to investigate manufacture characteristics, debitage patterns and usewear.

New postdoc in Australian archaeology from Sydney University

#auatralianarchaeology #coastalarchaeology #archaeomalacology

I get to research scaphopod shells used as ornaments 13,000 years ago in Australia :)

Who needs a cure from archaeomalacology awesomeness ! Plus a dose of experimental archaeology too

bsky.app/profile/did:...

Whhohoo ! I put together a feed for archaeomalacologists last year - if you want to see what fellow researchers are posting

Tracing pathways: writing archaeology in Nyiyaparli country The Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 (WA) uniquely placed Aboriginal perspectives at the heart of assessing significance and protecting Aboriginal places, alongside “historical, anthropological, archaeol...

Rethinking Australian archaeology narratives: WA’s Aboriginal Heritage Act once centred Aboriginal perspectives, but science now dominates. Using Ingold’s taskscape, we reconnect sites, stories & significance in Nyiyaparli Country.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
#taskscape #Aboriginalsites

Try refreshing it. The feeds a bit clunky sometimes. Plus they only show the last 7 days with of posts so often they are blank if no one has posted using the words Australian archaeology

It’s the way you tell the story - 2 perspectives on rockshelter CB08-500: one sees a typical Pilbara site, the other brings it to life with Nyiyaparli heritage and imagined past events. A fresh take on how we value and interpret Australian archaeological sites.

www.archae-aus.com.au/perch/resour...

New braided knowledge understandings of an Aboriginal earth ring and biik wurrdha (Jacksons Creek, Sunbury) on Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country, southeastern Australia Aboriginal rings are circular, earth (or rock) features that are preserved at increasingly fewer locations across eastern Australia today. While previous studies indicate these rings are sacred loc...

A new study in Australian archaeology combines Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung cultural insights with evidence from Jacksons Creek (biik wurrdha) to explore Aboriginal earth rings, revealing insights into fire, tool use, and movement by Woi-wurrung ancestors. #australianarchaeology

doi.org/10.1080/0312...

Island archaeology through the lens of archaeological science - EAA session this year

Great new paper on Western Australian archaeology and maritime archaeology.