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Interests
My research spans many
aspects of human evolution, with a focus on the fossil hominin/human record
spanning the last 2.6 million years, or Pleistocene Epoch. I am also a passionate science communicator and former television journalist (reporter and news presenter).
My work
has mostly sought to understand the origins, adaptations, diversity and classification of the human genus (Homo) and its species, with strong interests in the very earliest members of this group through to the more recent fossil record documenting the emergence of Homo sapiens
and establishment of modern human populations. I have undertaken fieldwork for many years, surveying and excavating fossil and archaeological sites, as
well as researching existing museum fossil collections. I have worked in Africa for almost 20 years and in China for half a decade.
My interests also span studies of the earliest humans to settle Australia, whose remains were buried at the World Heritage Willandra Lakes area and other places, like Kow Swamp. Much of this work was undertaken with Dr Alan Thorne.
My general interest in primate evolution has also led to studies of the ecology and biogeography of free ranging primates in Africa, mostly through honours and PhD student projects.
Publications
I have published over 70 articles,
book chapters, edited volumes, abstracts, book reviews and media articles, more than 50 of
them being in peer-reviewed scientific journals and books.
Qualifications & early research
I received the degrees of Bachelor of Arts (1st Class Honours) in 1996 and
Doctor of Philosophy in 2000, from the Australian National University (Canberra).
Honours was completed under the
supervision of Professor Colin Groves examining the
comparative anatomy and systematics of the 'Black Skull' (KNM-WT 17000).
My PhD was undertaken
in the Department of Archaeology and Natural History (ANH), Research
School of Pacific and Asian Studies (RSPAS), in the fields of
palaeoanthropology and geochronology. My main supervisors were Dr Alan
Thorne and Professor Rainer Grun, although, I consider Professors Rhys
Jones and Colin Groves to have been important influences during this
time. My PhD research focused on assessing the geological age and
systematics of early Homo from the South African palaeocave sites in the World Heritage Cradle of Humankind.
I was also
involved in various other projects at this time, including studies of the
skeletal biology and geological age of Australia's earliest human
remains: the 'Mungo Man' or Lake Mungo 3 skeleton.
An important outcome of my PhD work was the earliest direct-dating study of hominin remains: c2 million year old Paranthropus robustus
from Swartkrans cave. My electron spin resonance dating work with Rainer Grun has also
helped to lay the foundation for a rigorous chronological framework for
human evolution in southern African, after almost 80 years of
uncertainty; work extended with Dr Andy Herries and others
using various methods.
Postdoctoral research
Following
completion of my PhD, I was a visiting fellow in ANH, RSPAS, for two
years. I worked closely
with Alan Thorne during this time, developing ideas relating to the
timing of the colonisation of Australia and the origins and diversity of the
earliest Indigenous inhabitants of this continent.
Although I never
published any direct research relating to the Multiregional hypothesis
of modern human origins, I was at this time committed to a view of minimal
species diversity and deep-time continuity across the globe. (This view last manifest itself as support for the Assimilation
hypothesis in a solo-authored paper published during 2007.)
During
2002, I was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Sterkfontein
Research Unit, School of Anatomical Sciences, University of the
Witwatersrand (Johannesburg). My supervisor and mentor at that time was
Emeritus Professor Phillip Tobias. Following his invitation, and
under his supervision, I reconstructed and provided the first detailed
description, comparison and classification of the most complete skull of
early Homo from southern Africa: specimen Stw 53 from
Sterkfontein cave. This work built on my PhD research and focused on a
set of much neglected fossils central to understanding the emergence,
defining features and evolution of Homo.
Professor Tobias' invitation to study these remains was a defining
moment in my career and afforded me a rare, remarkable and
life-defining opportunity.
Academic positions (after postdoc) I have worked at the University of New South Wales since late 2002, initially in the Department of Anatomy, School of Medical Sciences (SOMS), Faculty of Medicine
(2002-2008), and then in the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental
Sciences (BEES), Faculty of Science (2009-present).
I have taught biological
anthropology for a decade, taught human anatomy in medical schools for 6
years, and regularly also teach palaeontology, zoology, systematics, evolutionary biology, earth
sciences and archaeology. I am presently the Director of Teaching in BEES and formerly held this role in SOMS.
I maintained a
close working relationship with Alan Thorne until the mid-2000s when our views diverged and I reconsidered my ideas about modern human origins, moving away from the biological systematics school and biological species
concept (as championed by Ernst Mayr). Despite these differences, I
count Alan Thorne among my most important influences and mentors.
At this time, I
began to delve into explanations provided by the emerging field of
'evo-devo' and to seek less subjective and rigorous approaches to
taxonomic and phylogenetic hypothesis building and testing, such as
provided by the phylogenetic systematics school. This was an extension
of my earlier work employing genetic distances to test ideas about
lineage diversity and macroevolution, and marked a return to earlier
ideas outlined in my PhD and published in two phylogenetic studies in
the South African Journal of Science during 2001 and 2002. This shift in (or return to?) philosophy and methodology was largely forced by my
experiences with hominin/human fossils in South Africa, Kenya and China, where I regularly
encountered remains that appeared to violently undermine my
earlier views.
After spending much of the previous decade disagreeing with more
speciose interpretations of human evolution, I found myself on a professional
and intellectual 'road to Damascus', increasingly striving for a scientific approach
consistent with the spirit of 'Popperian' enquiry (hypothetico-deductive approach) and keyed into best
practice within the broader biological sciences. In short, I embraced a more speciose view of the human evolutionary tree, in-line with what I felt was the view held widely within biology that nature does and has contained in the past high levels of diversity. In my view, to argue otherwise for the hominin tree was (is) little more than special pleading.
In 2009, I founded and presently convene the Asian-Australasian Association of Palaeoanthropologists,
the first professional organisation of its kind in this region. The
group is focused on providing new opportunities for research and
collaboration across the broad Asian region and helping Asian colleagues
engage in international collaboration and to bring their work to the attention of the broader (international) scientific community.
In 2010, I described the new species Homo gautengensis for the southern African Lower Pleistocene Homo assemblage.
The hypothesis of H. gautengensis as a new taxon is traceable to my PhD work where I
had considered the southern African fossils Stw 53 and SK 847 to each represent a different species,
taxa distinct from eastern African early Homo (H. habilis and H. rudolfensis).
Thus, it was a species more than a decade in the making, and reinforced
the views of other investigators who had also been impressed by the
differences between southern and eastern samples of early Homo.
Much of my present
research focuses on the later Pleistocene hominin record of southwest
China, as well as on 'virtual' investigations of fossils using
3D and engineering techniques in collaboration with Dr Stephen Wroe and
others at the University of New South Wales.
I also have ongoing
interests and commitments in South Africa, including various projects with Dr James Brink (National Museum Bloemfontein), such as research on the Florisbad hominin and field-based projects. I have also undertaken fieldwork in Kenya in the Central Rift valley with
Professor John Gowlett (University of Liverpool) and members of the
National Museums of Kenya.
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