Michelle C Langley is an australian archeologist and the author of A Record in Bone; exploring Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander bone & tooth objects.
Her book is fascinating, documenting many records of organic materials used in Indigenous Australia. Allowing readers to get a glimpse of what every day tools looked like on this land before the industrialised world took over. I find these insights to be deeply fascinating & insightful of the refined relationships Australian Aboriginals had/have with the landscape and its many organic resources.
During this episode, we discuss:
- Michelles work as an australian archeologist
- various bone & tooth tools
- How to determine what artefacts have been used for
- A little journey from Africa 300 000 years ago
- Mega fauna, the mystery of were they hunted?
- Different bone types & their unique uses, avian, terrestrial mammal, land mammal
- Tasmanian archeology
- Human bones & ancestral connections to the deceased
- The important cross over of academia and Indigenous Oral History
I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did!
Michelle C. Langley is an Associate Professor in the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution (ARCHE) and Program Advisor for the Bachelor of Science (Archaeology) in the School of Environment and Science. Currently, she is the President of the Australian Archaeological Association (AAA).
Her research centres around the evolution and diversity of human behaviour which she explores through the study of artefacts made on hard animal materials – bone, tooth, antler, ivory, and shell. She is the author of 'A Record in Bone. Exploring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Bone and Tooth Objects' (2023, Aboriginal Studies Press) and has been involved in unveiling some of the earliest ornaments, bone tools, and shell artefacts discovered throughout the Australian and Southeast Asian regions. She also maintains research in Palaeolithic Europe, childhood archaeology, and most recently, Egyptology -- publishing in both specialist and overarching academic journals.
Her work has been published in Nature Communications, Nature Human Behaviour, PNAS, Current Anthropology, Antiquity, Quaternary Science Reviews, and the Journal of Human Evolution. It is also regularly highlighted in the media: National Geographic, New Scientist, Archaeology Magazine, and Australasian Science Magazine, as well as NITV, SBS, and the ABC. Most recently she consulted on the ABC Series, 'First Weapons'.
She is a recipient of a 2018 Queensland Young Tall Poppy Science Award (AIPS) and a Women in Technology (WiT) Research Leader in Science Finalist 2021. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
Resources mentioned:
A Record in Bone by Michelle C Langley
Bone, Antler Ivory & Horn by Arthur MacGregor
Australian Archeology Association:
https://australianarchaeologicalassociation.com.au/
