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Sean Ulm

  • sean.ulm@jcu.edu.au
  • Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories
Projects

14

Publications

0

Awards

12


Biography

Distinguished Professor Sean Ulm MAIATSIS FSA MAACAI FAHA FQA is a professional archaeologist with core expertise in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander coastal and island archaeology. Over the last 25 years he has led large collaborative networks of Indigenous communities and researchers (archaeologists, geomorphologists, chemists, geologists, ecologists, palynologists, palaeoclimatologists, oceanographers, and zooarchaeologists) to recast understandings of coastal occupation by integrating environmental data with detailed analyses of archaeological sites.

Sean’s research increases confidence in the resolution of data underpinning models of past human behaviour. A major strand of this research has been in the field of archaeological science, where Sean leads a research program designed to improve methods used to establish chronologies and taphonomic sequences (i.e. understanding when and how archaeological deposits form).

He is highly regarded for his coordination of large-scale, multidisciplinary projects in partnership with Indigenous communities investigating people-environment relationships across Australia. His team-based approach to tackling persistent research questions in close collaboration with Indigenous communities, government, and industry, and his multiauthored approach to publication, are hallmarks of his research.

His publications include more than 150 articles on the archaeology of Australia and 5 books. Sean has conducted research in Australia, Honduras, Chile, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific.

Research

Research Interests

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander archaeology

Archaeology of the Great Barrier Reef

Indigenous and environmental histories and futures

Cultural heritage management and climate change

Archaeological science

Coastal and island archaeology

Radiocarbon dating of marine materials

Projects
Research Data

Teaching

Teaching Interests

Research-led teaching

Improving archaeology teaching and learning

Problem-based learning


Current JCU Research Students
Investigating Constructed Seascapes in the Lizard Island Group, Far North Queensland.
Doctor of Philosophy (Society and Culture)
Understanding Kwokkunum Shell Mounds as Landscape Engineering: A Spatial and Temporal Archaeological approach
Doctorate by Research - time-based
Millenial-scale Variability in Lizard Island Group Mollusc Exploitation: Studying Mollusc remains to understand Past Aboriginal Shellfishing practices and Reef Resource use for Future Reef Conservation
Doctor of Philosophy (Society and Culture)
Kaiadilt Country: A Remote Sensing Approach to Documenting Long-Term Aboriginal land management technologies
Doctor of Philosophy (Society and Culture)
Palaeolandscapes and the Archaeological implications of Changing Landscapes and Seascapes in the Torres Strait
Doctorate by Research - time-based
Constructed Seascapes: Understanding Fishtrap Construction, Use, Condition and Futures in the Wellesley Islands Region, Gulf of Carpentaria
Doctor of Philosophy (Society and Culture)
Completed JCU Research Students
A grammar of Doromu-Koki: A Papuan language of Papua New Guinea
Doctor of Philosophy (Society and Culture)- 2022
Reappraising the land -Patrick White's landscape legacy and its afterlives
Doctor of Philosophy (Society and Culture)- 2023
Old Smithfield Township, Cairns, 1876-1879: Revealing the Material Life of a Nineteenth Century Community in Tropical North Queensland
Doctor of Philosophy (Society and Culture)- 2023
The Cyclone Written Into Our Place : The cyclone as trope of apocalypse and place in Queensland literature.
Doctorate by Research - time-based- 2018
Fire and environmental change in Northern Australian savannas during the holocene
Doctor of Philosophy (Society and Culture)- 2020
A grammar of Brokpa: A Trans-Himalayan language of Bhutan
Doctor of Philosophy (Society and Culture)- 2021
Chronological modelling of the Torres Strait: A re-evaluation of occupation trends, and expansion of village and ritual sites
Doctor of Philosophy (Society and Culture)- 2022
Ancient ceramics at Vilabouly: pottery production and society in Laos
Doctor of Philosophy (Society and Culture)- 2023
Current Honours and External Research Students
Using Giant Clam Shell Geochemistry to Understand Past Environmental Change and Human-Environment Interaction in the South Pacific
PHD- 2021
Holocene ENSO Activity and its Influence on Seasonal Shellfish Gathering Practices of the Aboriginal People on Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef: Clues from Short-Lived Marine Gastropod Shells
PHD- 2021
Marine Resource Use in the Northern Carnarvon Bioregion
PHD- 2018
Completed Honours and External Research Students
Stone Arrangements in the Lizard Island Group: A Study of Indigenous Seascapes in Northeastern Australia
HONOURS
Analysing Human Predation Patterns, using Morphometric Analysis of Tectus niloticus to Ascertain Holocene Site Occupation Phases: South Island, Northern Queensland
HONOURS
An Analysis of the Risk Hypothesis and its Application to Hunter-Gatherer Toolkits Using an Australian Dataset
HONOURS
Lizard Island Rock Art and the Quinkan Rock Art Province
COURSEWORK_MASTERS
Gender and Agency: Organising Principles when Investigating Objects in the Archaeological Record
HONOURS
Analysing the Queensland Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003: How Effective has this Legislation been in Protecting Aboriginal Cultural Heritage?
HONOURS
All in Good Time: Exploring Change in Neanderthal Behavioural Complexity
HONOURS
Using Archaeological Shell Assemblages for Palaeoenvironmental Reconstruction: Preliminary Isotope Analysis of Polymesoda (Geloina) coaxans (Gmelin, 1791) from Bentinck Island, Gulf of Carpentaria
HONOURS
Sticks and Stones: A Functional Analysis of Aboriginal Spears from Northern Australia
PHD
Assessing Mid-to-Late Holocene Predation of Conomurex luhuanus and Tectus niloticus at Lizard Island, Northeastern Australia
HONOURS
The Rural Pastoral Context of Native Title and ILUAs in Queensland: A Complex Intercultural History, Present and Future
HONOURS
Using Foraminifera as Indicators of Site Formation and Disturbance in Tropical Coastal Environments
HONOURS
Geochemical and Technological Approaches to Understanding the Manufacture and Distribution of Silcrete Artefacts in the South Wellesley Archipelago, Gulf of Carpentaria
HONOURS
Uncovering Mill Point: Understanding Concepts of Space at Australian Historic Sawmills
HONOURS
Health, Diet and Migration Prior to the Establishment of the Angkorian Civilisation of Southeast Asia
PHD
Novel Shell Site Expressions: Archaeological Mud Shell (Gelonia expansa) on Kaiadilt Country, South Wellesley Islands
COURSEWORK_MASTERS
The Way it Changes Like the Shoreline and the Sea: The Archaeology of the Sandalwood River, Mornington Island, Southeast Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia
PHD
Geophysical Explorations of Archaeological Shell Matrix Sites: Evaluating Geophysical Techniques in Determining the Boundaries, Structure and Volume of Buried Shell Deposits
PHD
Public or Perish: An Ethnographic Study of Archaeology in a Southeast Queensland Community
PHD
Remembering the Mother Mission: Exploring Trauma, Cultural Heritage Values and Identity at Mapoon, a Former Mission Village in Western Cape York, Queensland
PHD
All the Small Things: The Refinement of Foraminiferal Analysis to Determine Site Formation Processes in Archaeological Sediments
HONOURS
Social Relations and Layered Identities in a Remote Aboriginal Town, Mornington Island, Southern Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia
PHD
Identifying Behavioural Complexity in the Pleistocene Australian Archaeological Record
RESEARCH_MASTERS
3D Reconstruction of Archaeological Excavations
RESEARCH_MASTERS
Power, Representation and Community Archaeology in Australia
HONOURS
Holocene Technological Provisioning Strategies on the Eastern Hamersley Plateau, Western Australia
HONOURS
Warrego Country: Water, People, Landscape
PHD
Maps that Move: Representations from a Phenomenological Counter-Mapping Investigation of Gummingurru, a Jarowair-Wakka Wakka Stone Arrangement Landscape
PHD
The Significance of Place for Contemporary Indigenous Identity: The Berajondo Case Study, Southeast Queensland, Australia
HONOURS
A Spatial Analytical Approach to Indigenous Fishtraps: Using High-Resolution UAS Photogrammetry and GIS in the Investigation of Kaiadilt Aboriginal Stone-Walled Intertidal Fishtraps, Gulf of Carpentaria
COURSEWORK_MASTERS
Walking Between Two Paradigms
HONOURS
The Storied Landscape: A Queensland Collection
PHD
A Novel Application of Sclerochronology: Forging New Understandings of Aboriginal Occupation in the South Wellesley Archipelago, Gulf of Carpentaria
PHD
Scratched Surfaces: Dialogic Remains of Tangible and Ephemeral European Inscription across the Palimpsest Landscape of Sweers Island
HONOURS
Formative Copán: The Ritual Transformation of an Early Mesoamerican Community
PHD
Beyond the Cootharaba Mill: An Archaeology of Social Interaction, Practice and Community in Colonial Australia
PHD
The Application of Ecological Models and Trophic Analyses to Archaeological Marine Fauna Assemblages: Towards Improved Understandings of Prehistoric Marine Fisheries and Ecosystems in Tropical Australia
PHD
Unique Palaeoenvironmental Records? An Examination of Applications and the Reliability of Fish Otoliths in Archaeological Investigations
PHD
Use-Wear Analysis of Wardaman Burins and Associated Spalls
HONOURS
Disturbing Effects: Towards an Understanding of the Impact of Ant and Termite Activities on Australian Archaeological Sites
HONOURS
Understanding Choice: Aboriginal Law and Decision-Making in the Selection of Rocks for a Stone Arrangement
HONOURS
Between Lapita and the Hiri: Occupational Trends and Settlement Patterns at Caution Bay, Papua New Guinea 1897-739 cal BP
PHD
Changing Sea Levels and Palaeolandscapes: Investigating Submerged Indigenous Cultural Heritage in Trinity Bay, Far North Queensland
HONOURS
From Midden to Sieve: The Impact of Differential Recovery and Quantification Techniques on Interpretations of Shellfish Remains in Australian Coastal Archaeology
HONOURS
Alternative Interpretive Landscapes: Representations of Archaeology in Australian Poetry
HONOURS
Trampling Pots and Shells: Understanding the Impacts of Trampling on Cultural Materials in Coastal Archaeological Sites
HONOURS
The Chosen Ones: A Morphological and Technological Approach to Understanding Manufacture and Selection of Stone Leilira Blades
HONOURS
Investigating Sea Urchin Exploitation at the South Island Headland Midden (Lizard Island Group)
HONOURS

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