Mike W Morley

Flinders University · College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

A dramatic increase in the involvement of Indigenous Australians in archaeology has led to a crossroad for the discipline in Australia. This Indigenisation of Australian archaeology is prompting new conceptual approaches and archaeological projects more clearly aimed at addressing the needs of Indigenous communities. Three projects that are the foc...

Archaeological evidence attests multiple early dispersals of Homo sapiens out of Africa, but genetic evidence points to the primacy of a single dispersal 70-40 ka. Laili in Timor-Leste is on the southern dispersal route between Eurasia and Australasia and has the earliest record of human occupation in the eastern Wallacean archipelago. New evidence...

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note...

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note...

The largest ever primate and one of the largest of the southeast Asian megafauna, Gigantopithecus blacki¹, persisted in China from about 2.0 million years until the late middle Pleistocene when it became extinct2–4. Its demise is enigmatic considering that it was one of the few Asian great apes to go extinct in the last 2.6 million years, whereas o...

Lida Ajer and Ngalau Gupin are karstic caves situated in the Padang Highlands, western Sumatra, Indonesia. Lida Ajer is best known for yielding fossil evidence that places the arrival of Homo sapiens in Southeast Asia during Marine Isotope Stage 4, one of the earliest records for the region. Ngalau Gupin recently produced the first record of hippop...

Advanced geoscience techniques are essential to contextualize fossils, artefacts and other archaeologically important material accurately and effectively. Their appropriate use will increase confidence in new interpretations of the fossil and archaeological record, providing important information about the life and depositional history of these mat...

Secure environmental contexts are crucial for hominin interpretation and comparison. The discovery of a Denisovan individual and associated fauna at Tam Ngu Hao 2 (Cobra) Cave, Laos, dating back to 164–131 ka, allows for environmental comparisons between this (sub)tropical site and the Palearctic Denisovan sites of Denisova Cave (Russia) and Baishi...

The timing of the first arrival of Homo sapiens in East Asia from Africa and the degree to which they interbred with or replaced local archaic populations is controversial. Previous discoveries from Tam Pà Ling cave (Laos) identified H. sapiens in Southeast Asia by at least 46 kyr. We report on a recently discovered frontal bone (TPL 6) and tibial...

Investigation of Homo sapiens’ palaeogeographic expansion into African mountain environments are changing the understanding of our species’ adaptions to various extreme Pleistocene climates and habitats. Here, we present a vegetation and precipitation record from the Ha Makotoko rockshelter in western Lesotho, which extends from ~60,000 to 1,000 ye...

The timing of the first arrival of Homo sapiens in East Asia from Africa and the degree to which they interbred with or replaced local archaic populations is controversial. Previous discoveries from Tam Pà Ling cave (Laos) identified H. sapiens in Southeast Asia by 46 kyr. We report on a new frontal bone (TPL 6) and slightly older tibial fragment (...

The Pleistocene presence of the genus Homo in continental Southeast Asia is primarily evidenced by a sparse stone tool record and rare human remains. Here we report a Middle Pleistocene hominin specimen from Laos, with the discovery of a molar from the Tam Ngu Hao 2 (Cobra Cave) limestone cave in the Annamite Mountains. The age of the fossil-bearin...

We review palaeoenvironmental applications of stable isotope analysis to Late Pleistocene archaeological sites across Southeast Asia (SEA), a region critical to understanding the evolution of Homo sapiens and other co-existing Late Pleistocene (124–11.7 ka) hominins. Stable isotope techniques applied to archaeological deposits offer the potential t...

Northern Vietnam is situated on a major route of Pleistocene hominin dispersal in East Asia, and the area's karstic caves preserve many prehistoric shell middens. Fossil and genomic evidence suggest a complex human history in this region and more widely across Southeast Asia and southern China, but related archaeological investigations are hampered...

Unguja Ukuu, located on the Zanzibar Archipelago, eastern Africa, was an active Indian Ocean trading settlement from the mid-first millennium until the early second millennium AD. As part of recent archaeological excavations aimed at understanding the site’s transregional trade networks, geoarchaeological analyses were undertaken to document the ge...

Major changes in the technological, economic, and social behavior of Middle Pleistocene hominins occurred at the onset of the Middle Paleolithic, 400–200 ka. However, until recently it was not possible to establish when, where, and how certain forms of Middle Paleolithic behavior appeared and spread into Southeastern Europe, mainly owing to gaps in...

Significance DNA preserved in sediments has emerged as an important source of information about past ecosystems, independent of the discovery of skeletal remains. However, little is known about the sources of sediment DNA, the factors affecting its long-term preservation, and the extent to which it may be translocated after deposition. Here, we sho...

Recent research in the southern Central Balkans has resulted in the discovery of the first Middle Paleolithic sites in this region. Systematic excavations of Velika and Mala Balanica, and Pešturina (southern Serbia) revealed assemblages of Middle Paleolithic artifacts associated with hominin fossils and animal bones. This paper focuses on Pešturina...

Caves in tropical regions form a key resource for those reconstructing human evolution and dispersals. However, the complex sedimentary records they contain remain under-interpreted because of the poorly constrained effects of humid tropical climates upon archaeological site formation processes. Guano-driven phosphatic diagenesis impacts archaeolog...

Karst-derived breccia is the most analysed deposit in fossil-bearing Southeast Asian caves due to its superior preservation potential for human, faunal, archaeological, and palaeontological data. The study of breccia can provide a better understanding of human and faunal histories, and an opportunity to investigate site taphonomy and insights into...

This paper presents the key findings of a multidisciplinary study investigating the nature and timing of coastal landscape evolution in eastern Saudi Arabia during the Holocene. To date, most sea level reconstructions for the Arabo-Persian Gulf are based on uncalibrated 14C ages without correction for marine reservoir effects, or lack precision wit...

Significance Neanderthals once inhabited Europe and western Asia, spreading as far east as the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia, but the geographical origin and time of arrival of the Altai populations remain unresolved. Excavations at Chagyrskaya Cave in the Altai foothills have yielded 90,000 stone artifacts, numerous bone tools, 74 Neandertha...

Gigantopithecus blacki was the largest ape that ever lived. It was a key member of the Stegodon-Ailuropoda fauna and roamed the subtropical forests of China from ~2.0 Ma-300 ka. G. blacki is the only hominid genus to go extinct in the Pleistocene. The cause is unknown and may be related to climate change or ecological stress, due to habitat alterat...

Denisova Cave in southern Siberia uniquely contains evidence of occupation by a recently discovered group of archaic hominins, the Denisovans, starting from the middle of the Middle Pleistocene. Artefacts, ancient DNA and a range of animal and plant remains have been recovered from the sedimentary deposits, along with a few fragmentary fossils of D...

This paper presents the results of geoarchaeological and geochronological investigations at Con Moong Cave, North Vietnam. Beneath the published, terminal Pleistocene sequence, recent excavations have uncovered a ~5 m stratigraphic sequence containing flaked stone artifacts and sedimentary features that indicate extensive post‐depositional change....

Gigantopithecus (G. blacki, Von Koenigwald 1935) – literally ‘giant ape’ – was the largest ape that ever lived. It was a key member of the Stegodon-Ailuropoda fauna and roamed the subtropical forests of Asia from 1.5 million up to as recent as 300.000 years ago. Gigantopithecus is the only hominid to go extinct in the Pleistocene, while contemporar...

Overview of PhD analyses within overall The Giganto Project

Environmental change during the Holocene in eastern Saudi Arabia is poorly understood. Few detailed records have been examined to date, with limited evidence available from dunes, lakes and sea-level records. While the geomorphological setting of the Jubail region has been described in detail by Barth,1 the chronology for the development of this la...

The site of Crvena Stijena offers an extraordinary opportunity to study a very long sequence of Neanderthal occupations where the traces of fire are well preserved. In this sense, Crvena Stijena could be included in the short list of Lower and Middle Paleolithic sites with features containing abundant ash and charcoal and exhibiting a substrate of...

Geoarchaeology, Humid Tropics, Site Formation Processes

In this paper we present a multi-proxy study of tropical limestone forest and its utilization by human groups during the major climatic and environmental upheavals of MIS-2 (29-11.7 ka BP). Our data are drawn from new field research within the Tràng An World Heritage property, on the edge of the Red River Delta, northern Vietnam. Key findings from...

Geoarchaeological research is now commonly undertaken as an integral component of archaeological investigations across much of the world. However, in humid tropical regions there is a relative shortfall of this Earth-Science approach to understanding archaeological records. In these regions, where hot and humid conditions prevail for significant pa...

In this paper we present a multi-proxy study of tropical limestone forest and its utilization by human groups during the significant climatic and environmental upheavals of MIS-2 (29-11.7 kBP). Our data are drawn from new field research within the Tràng An World Heritage property on the edge of the Red River Delta, northern Vietnam. Key findings fr...

The Epipalaeolithic of the Levant witnessed important changes in subsistence behaviour, foreshadowing the transition to sedentism and cultivation, but much less is known of contemporary developments in the Middle Nile Valley. Here, Affad 23, a 16000-year-old settlement, on the margins of a resource-rich, multi-channel floodplain, offers exceptional...

Liang Bua, a karstic cave located on the island of Flores in eastern Indonesia, is best known for yielding the holotype of the diminutive hominin Homo floresiensis from Late Pleistocene sediments. Modern human remains have also been recovered from the Holocene deposits, and abundant archaeological and faunal remains occur throughout the sequence. T...

Homo floresiensis, a primitive hominin species discovered in Late Pleistocene sediments at Liang Bua (Flores, Indonesia), has generated wide interest and scientific debate. A major reason this taxon is controversial is because the H. floresiensis-bearing deposits, which include associated stone artefacts and remains of other extinct endemic fauna,...

The Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains are southern Africa’s highest and give rise to South Africa’s largest river, the Orange-Senqu. At Melikane Rockshelter in highland Lesotho (~1800 m a.s.l.), project AMEMSA (Adaptations to Marginal Environments in the Middle Stone Age) has documented a pulsed human presence since at least MIS 5. Melikane can be inter...

The Neolithic peopling of Arabia is a subject of increasing debate, as different scenarios are proposed to describe the relatively sudden appearance of seemingly homogeneous archaeological sites throughout the south of the Peninsula during the Early Holocene. Such sites are identified by the co-occurrence of a laminar core reduction strategy with i...

Archaeological, geoarchaeological and geochronological research at the Terminal Pleistocene/Early Ho-locene sites of al-Hatab, Ghazal and Khamseen Rockshelters help to elucidate our understanding of the Late Palaeolithic occupation of the South Arabian Highlands. The stone tools found at these sites are attributed to the Nejd Leptolithic tradition;...

Archaeological, geoarchaeological and geochronological research at the Terminal Pleistocene/Early Ho-locene sites of al-Hatab, Ghazal and Khamseen Rockshelters help to elucidate our understanding of the Late Palaeolithic occupation of the South Arabian Highlands. The stone tools found at these sites are attributed to the Nejd Leptolithic tradition;...

[This corrects the article on p. e54608 in vol. 8.].

Newly obtained ages, based on electron spin resonance combined with uranium series isotopic analysis, and infrared/post-infrared luminescence dating, provide a minimum age that lies between 397 and 525 ka for the hominin mandible BH-1 from Mala Balanica cave, Serbia. This confirms it as the easternmost hominin specimen in Europe dated to the Middle...

This paper provides a preliminary chronostratigraphic and palaeoenvironmental framework for the Late Pleistocene archaeological sequence at Melikane Rockshelter in mountainous eastern Lesotho. Renewed excavations at Melikane form part of a larger project investigating marginal landscape use by Late Pleistocene foragers in southern Africa. Geoarchae...

Example OSL decay and dose-response curves from AYB1-OSL1. Decay curve (a) and dose-response curve (b) for a single aliquot of quartz (∼50 grains). The De of ∼70 Gy is obtained by interpolation of the sensitivity-corrected natural OSL signal, shown in red on the y-axis of the inset plot. The data in (a) and (b) were collected after preheating the n...

Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating. (DOC)

Equivalent dose (De) values, environmental dose rates, and OSL ages of the sediment samples from Aybut Al Auwal. Values are mean ± total (1σ) uncertainty, calculated as the quadratic sum of the random and systematic uncertainties. The De uncertainty includes a relative error of 2% to allow for possible bias in the calibration of the laboratory beta...

Despite the numerous studies proposing early human population expansions from Africa into Arabia during the Late Pleistocene, no archaeological sites have yet been discovered in Arabia that resemble a specific African industry, which would indicate demographic exchange across the Red Sea. Here we report the discovery of a buried site and more than...

Neandertals and their immediate predecessors are commonly considered to be the only humans inhabiting Europe in the Middle and early Late Pleistocene. Most Middle Pleistocene western European specimens show evidence of a developing Neandertal morphology, supporting the notion that these traits evolved at the extreme West of the continent due, at le...

Over the course of the past two decades there has been growing research interest in the site formation processes of shell middens. This stands along-side and is being used to inform cultural, dietary and palaeo-environmental reconstructions. Just as midden site formation processes have turned out to be many and varied, however, the kinds of shell-b...

The medieval port town of Julfār is associated with the archaeological sites of Kush, al-MaΓāf, and al-Nudūd. Although these sites have been excavated separately, they most likely functioned as successive administrative centres serving the port, as the town and the landscape in which it was situated evolved through time. We know that a significant...

It has been known for some years thatthere are significant buried channelsbeneath the Middle and Lower Thamesfloodplain, long silted up and buriedbeneath the modern Londonlandscape. They are the legacy of periods in the past when the Thamesvalley accommodated not just a singlechannel as is seen today, but multiplechannels traversing the Thamesflood...

The excavations and geological studies made in 2004–2006 at the Paleolithic site of Crvena Stijena in Montenegro are described in preliminary form. Earlier excavations had removed virtually all of the layers later than the Middle Paleolithic, as well as a large part of the Middle Paleolithic, leaving a 9 m tall profile through these deposits. A sma...

The second (2008) season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project has significantly advanced understanding of the Haua Fteah stratigraphy and of the archaeology and geomorphology of the landscape in which the cave is located. The excavations of the McBurney backfill have reached a total depth of 7.5 m below the present ground surface, the...

Sediments deposited within caves and rockshelters have yielded much material evidence pertaining to the nature and extent of human activity in the area of the Mediterranean basin. Importantly, these sedimentary records also serve as unique and rich repositories of evidence for Quaternary environmental change and landscape dynamics which can elucida...