Detailed Program
Draft Program - Subject to Change
Tuesday 1 December 2026
9.00 AM - 12.00 PM
Getting into print: Publishing masterclass - Strategies for writing and publishing
Adelaide University CBD Campus
9.30 AM - 12.30 PM
Teaching and learning deep time Australian history through an archaeological lens
Adelaide University CBD Campus
9.30 AM - 1.00 PM
Country, knowledge, and care: Celebrating Paul S.C. Taçon
Adelaide University CBD Campus
1.00 - 3.00 PM
Getting into print: Publishing masterclass - Mentoring session
Adelaide University CBD Campus
3.00 - 5.00 PM
Australian Association of Consulting Archeaologists Inc. (AACAI) Annual General Meeting
Venue: TBA
5.30 - 7.30 PM
Welcome Reception, Welcome to Country & Smoking Ceremony
Regattas Lawns, Adelaide Convention Centre
Wednesday 2 December 2026
8.00 - 8.30 AM
Room: Hall E
Conference Opening
Michelle Langley, AAA President
8.30 - 9.45 AM
Room: Hall E
Plenary Session
A city on sacred land: The ongoing struggle to reconcile Adelaide and Kaurna cultural heritage
Presenters:
Tim Agius, Kaurna Traditional Owner & Chairperson, Kaurna Yerta Aboriginal Corporation
Jeffrey Newchurch, Kaurna Traditional Owner & Kaurna Repatriation Supervisor
Allan Sumner, Kaurna Traditional Owner & Secretary, Kaurna Yerta Aboriginal Corporation
Alison Harvey, Kaurna Traditional Owner & Heritage Workforce Participation Manager, RAW Personnel
A/Prof Neale Draper, Principal Heritage Consultant, Neale Draper & Associates & A/Professor in Archaeology, Flinders University
Dr Colin Pardoe, Colin Pardoe Bio-Anthropology & Archaeology
9.45 - 10.30 AM | Morning Tea
10.30 AM - 12.30 PM
1A - The archaeology of submerged landscapes
Room: E1
Recent developments from the submerged cultural landscape of Murujuga Sea Country (Dampier Archipelago), Western Australia
Jonathan Benjamin
What's under the surface, exploring the history of sea country
Malik Churnside
Raw material variability at submerged archaeological sites in Murujuga (Dampier Archipelago), Western Australia: Insights from portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF)
Wendy van Duivenvoorde
Wear beneath the waves: Initial functional analysis of submerged lithic artefacts
Elspeth Hayes
Bathymetric and terrestrial LiDAR in coastal and submerged landscape archaeology: An application in Northern Australia
Louise Brooke
Mapping and modelling the offshore Budj Bim Cultural Landscape in Gunditjmara Nyamat Mirring (Sea Country)
Michael O'Leary
1B - Remembering in practice: Consulting archaeology and the future of cultural stories
Room: E2
Our Yarta is alive! Reclaiming custodian authority in archaeology
Mick McKenzie (Snr)
Kaurna and defence: The evolution of relationships, management and respect, 2006 to 2026
Tim Owen
Past, future and back to the past? A critical look at the WA Aboriginal heritage legislative section 18 approvals regime following the 2023 amendments
Annabelle Davis
The long story: Archaeological narratives, relationships, and the nature of transactions
Kathryn Przywolnik
Are we weaponising heritage? Unconscious bias, truth-telling and responsible advocacy in cultural heritage practice
Jade Pervan
DISCUSSION
1C - Disability in archaeology: A path forward
Room: E3
Who gets a future in archaeology? Disability, student experience, and career paths in the 2026 PAST survey
Carly Monks
From participation to belonging: Reflections on accessibility and inclusion in Australian archaeology
Daryl Wesley
Archaeology and mental wellbeing
Jennifer Will
Accessibility and inclusion in conflict archaeology: Lessons from Project Pozières, France
Samuel Dix
Look up!: The archaeology of unsheltered homelessness and invisibility within landscapes
Frances Hicks
DISCUSSION
12.30 - 1.30 PM | Lunch & Australian Archaeology Journal Editorial Board Meeting
1.30 - 3.30 PM
2A - Plants in Australian archaeology revisited
Room: E1
A critical discussion of the historical origins of archaeobotany as viewed from "down under"
India Ella Dilkes-Hall
Culturally modified trees, recording methods and Indigenous intellectual property rights
Kate Greenwood
Establishing chronologies for culturally modified trees on Wotjobaluk, Jaadwa, Jadawadjali, Wergaia and Jupagulk Country
Abby Cooper
Imaging and imagining Larrkardiy: Re-presenting the living heritage of Australian boab trees
Ursula Frederick
Preliminary archaeobotanical investigations into plant food use at Dargan Shelter, Blue Mountains, New South Wales
Emma Jones
Species identification of plant fibres in archaeology: A case study from Windmill Way, southeast Cape York Peninsula
Sharon Russo
2B - Grand challenges in Australian archaeology (Workshop)
Room: E2
Decolonising and indigenising the discipline
Georgia Stannard & Georgia Williams
Roundtable and Discussion
Moving towards a national accreditation scheme
Georgia Stannard & Georgia Williams
Roundtable and Discussion
2C - Celebrating cultural connection in the care of heritage and biocultural landscapes
Room: E3
Bringing our old people home: A Kaurna journey of 'Return to Country' and repatriation
Allan Sumner
Looking after living cultural landscapes of Napier Downs
Robin Dann
A review of the art and archaeology of the Burbung ceremony of southeast Australia: Ethnographic and archaeological insights
Wayne Brennan
PANEL DISCUSSION
3.30 - 4.00 PM | Afternoon Tea
4.00 - 5:00 PM
3A - Plants in Australian archaeology revisited
Room: E1
Using phytoliths to reconstruct palaeolandscapes in Australia's Dead Heart
Ian Moffat
Landscape as artefact: Pollen from Minjerribah
Jody Schulz
DISCUSSION
3B - Grand challenges in Australian archaeology
Room: E2
Public understanding of, and interest in, Australian archaeology
Georgia Stannard & Georgia Williams
Roundtable and Discussion
3C - First Nations Meet and Yarn
Room: E3
Closed Session
5.30 - 7.00 PM
Room: Foyer E
Meet the Graduates & Colleagues Event
Adelaide Convention Centre
7.30 - 9.00 PM
4A - The ethics of advocacy in archaeology and heritage management
(Fireside session)
Regattas Lawns (outside)
Aboriginal archaeology: Advocacy, responsibility and truth-telling
Jeffrey Newchurch
The search for our humanity
Jacinta Walsh
Archaeology and advocacy at Gummingurru as truth-telling, enculturation and reconnecting with culture
Annie Ross
Warragamba Dam: Squeezing a precious cultural landscape through a traumatic heritage process
Kazan Brown
DISCUSSION
It's time (to unionise!)
Kiri Hatzipantelis
DISCUSSION
Thursday 3 December 2026
8.30 - 10.30 AM
5A - A riverscape replete with meaning: Honouring Aboriginal lifeways on the River Murray, from deep time to the present
Room: E1
'Braiding knowledge’ about the peopling of the River Murray (Rinta) in South Australia: Ancestral narratives, geomorphological interpretations and archaeological evidence
Amy Roberts
Archaeological and palaeoenvironmental records in South Australia's Riverland region: Some lessons for future water management in the Murray-Darling Basin
Craig Westell
7000 years of Aboriginal mining at Sugarloaf Hill in the Riverland Region of South Australia
Simon Hoad
Implications of source heterogeneity for ochre provenance at Ma:ko
Rachel Popelka-Filcoff
The place of perpetual fire: An exploration of initial results from an excavation at Tanamee Rockshelter, Murray River, South Australia
Marc Fairhead
Woven together: A technological, typological and ethno-historical investigation of Aboriginal basketry from the Murray River, South Australia
Alyssa De Luna
5B - Building knowledge through practice: Insights from consultancy archaeology
Room: E2
Cumulative impacts: The results of multiple open area excavations along a linear corridor in western Sydney
Darran Jordan
Revealing hidden landscapes: Integrating LiDAR into heritage assessment and archaeological practice
Ashleigh Bentley
Not from around here: Tektite artefacts and implications for long-distance connections in Yinhawangka Country
Elly Anderson
Archaeological salvage excavations at Perth Airport reveal elements of a 50,000-year-old cultural landscape
Joe Dortch
An archaeologist's treasure: Discovering an unrecorded refuse depot in Warrnambool, Victoria
Sarah Chandlee
AANSW's Culturally Centric Design Approach: Community, Culture and Country at the heart of all reform programs
Cheryl Kitchener
5C - Archaeological science in the past and in the future: ARCAS session
Room: E3
How do coastal and marine processes create the archaeological record? A review of how multi-disciplinary approaches help reveal past environments and inform cultural interpretations
Piers Larcombe
From traceability to legitimacy: Rethinking digital provenance in cultural heritage repatriation
Aquila Bergstrom
Understanding the palaeohydrology of archaeological landscapes in the Coongie Lakes region using advanced remote sensing techniques
Oliver Hatswell
More than mapping: Design, narrative, and the archaeology of the Morass Fish Trap
Ané van der Walt
Old spirit man burial
Alison Harvey
Automated archaeology and how it affects how we think and work
Ben Dyson
10.30 - 11.00 AM | Morning Tea
11.00 AM - 1.00 PM
6A - Remembering how people are shaped by cross-cultural interaction, trade and exchange
Room: E1
Depictions of buffalo shooters and other non-Indigenous people in late 1800s/early1900s northwest Arnhem Land and beyond
Paul Taçon
The farthest shore: Using archaeology, place names, and song poetry to trace how Makassan trepang fishers and Yanyuwa people shaped one another from the 1700s in the Gulf of Carpentaria
Chris Urwin
Li-Tharribamara, those people that desire trepang: An archaeomalacological and anthropological investigation of Yanyuwa-Makassan relationships on Yanyuwa Country
Alex Ivkovic
Archaeology in the ground, anthropology in the air at Dinajirdi: Reflexivity and reviving the Yanyuwa-Makassan relationship through contemporary collaborative work between anthropology, archaeology, and the Yanyuwa expertise on Yanyuwa Country
Fikri Yathir
Trading stories: Testimony about trade relationships maintained in the wanggas (myths) of the Ngardangarli (Pilbara Aboriginal people)
Neil Brougham
DISCUSSION
6B - Building knowledge through practice: Insights from consultancy archaeology
Room: E2
35,000 years and 30,000 Artefacts: Results from the Central East Zone of the Skye Salvage on Bunurong Country, Victoria
Brian Porrett
Kanti Tjiwa: From compliance to collaborative archaeology at Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park
Madeleine Kelly
Inland aeolian sand bodies and the preservation of evidence for early human occupation of the central lowlands of the Hunter River Valley, south-eastern Australia: New insights from Aboriginal archaeological site ‘Singleton Bypass OAS23’ (AHIMS ID#37-6-4219)
Andrew McLaren
Press button, get map? Robust predictive modelling requires more than that!
Renee McAlister
Seqwater: Building a cultural heritage management framework
Toyah Morath
DISCUSSION
6C - Archaeological science in the past and in the future: ARCAS session
Room: E3
New approaches and applications of rock surface luminescence dating (RSD) in heritage management
Christina Neudorf
Chemical changes during radiocarbon pretreatment of Australian charcoals and a comparison with materials used in the IntCal and SHCal radiocarbon curves
Bo Borbridge
An island in the Spinifex: Holocene faunal evidence for ceremony at Gurrinyu, Pilbara
Fiona Hook
Geology, geochemistry, and remote sensing for provenancing chert in the northwest
Niamh Shulmeister
X-ray vision: Looking inside Martu pigmented objects with X-ray imaging
Antonia Papasergio
New ceramic temper groups from Ormi, eastern Torres Strait
Emily Nutman
1.00 - 2.00 PM | Lunch & Archaeology in Oceania Journal Meeting
2.00 - 4.00 PM
7A - Remembering how people are shaped by cross-cultural interaction, trade and exchange
Room: E1
Trade and exchange in Mithaka country
Michael Westaway
Indigenous presence and persistence at Artawarapanha/Mount Serle Station
Rebecca Milne
Exploring a painting as cross-cultural encounter between artist and Country
Hugh Cowie
Rock art and pigs (Sus scrofa): The Coral Sea cultural interaction sphere and the pre-European presence of Sus scrofa on Cape York Peninsula
Bryce Barker
A history in clay: Pottery-making, social change, and cultural continuity in Wusi, Vanuatu
Edward King
Assessing individual and population mobility in a prehistoric coastal trading population on the Papuan Coast: Applying strontium isotope analysis to Motupore Islanders
Jason Kariwiga
7B - Ground stone tools come of age
Room: E2
Into the groove: Large grinding stations provide new insights into arid zone settlement and subsistence in north-west WA
William Bromage
In the beginning: Grindstone quarries in Channel Country, southwest Queensland
Doug Williams
From Country to catalogue: Colonial separations and the archaeological classification of Noongar ground stones
Jordanna Eades
Ground work: Pleistocene and Holocene shape data
Max Both
Ground stone and flaked stone: What's the difference?
Richard Fullagar
DISCUSSION
7C - Archaeological science in the past and in the future: ARCAS session
Room: E3
A future for palaeoproteomics in the Tropics: Five years exploring the invisible
Sofia Samper Carro
Bridging artefacts and ancient DNA: New perspectives on human mobility in Island Southeast Asia
Charlotte Cooper
Morphometric and LC-MS/MS data from Lapita middens, Vanuatu, estimates greater fruit bat diversity in the past
Loren Howell
Recording surface lithic scatters at high resolution: An artefact-level distributional study at Yirrangunha (Yindjibarndi Country, Western Australia)
Gianni Marcelo Cunietti
Organic residue analysis of Torres Strait pottery
Claire Coots
Identification of archaeological traces
Carney Matheson
4.00 - 4.30 PM | Afternoon Tea
4.30 - 5.30 PM
8A - Remembering how people are shaped by cross-cultural interaction, trade and exchange
Room: E1
Trading with the dead: Secondary burial and exchange networks in the Massim, Papua New Guinea
Simon Coxe
Earlier Lapita dispersals and Indigenous agency in southern Papua New Guinea
Ben Shaw
DISCUSSION
8B - Ground stone tools come of age
Room: E2
Stone choices, shared landscapes: Material selection and connection in Newcastle
Jordan Gilbert
Re-purposing, re-cycling and personal attachment
Colin Pardoe
DISCUSSION
8C - Film Presentation
Room: E3
Long Time Larrkardiy: Film Presentation
Followed by Q&A session with the Archives in Bark Collective members
6:00 - 7:30 PM
Room: E3
Australian Archeaological Association (AAA) Annual General Meeting
7.30 - 10.30 PM
Rainbow Dinner
Venue: TBA
7.30 - 10.30 PM
First Nations Delegate Dinner
Venue: Melt CBD, 38 Weymouth Street, Adelaide
Friday 4 December 2026
8.30 - 9.30 AM
Room: Hall E
Plenary Session
We remember, and then we act: The discipline in sharing power on PKKP Country
Presenters:
Dr Jordan Ralph, Chief Executive Officer, PKKP Aboriginal Corporation
Sandra Hayes, Puutu Kunti Kurrama Traditional Owner and Chairperson, PKKP Aboriginal Corporation
Terry Drage, Pinikura Traditional Owner and Director, PKKP Aboriginal Corporation
Burchell Hayes, Puutu Kunti Kurrama Traditional Owner and Chairperson, Puutu Kunti Kurrama Land Committee
Toni Akuila, Pinikura Traditional Owner and Director, PKKP Aboriginal Corporation
9.30 - 10.15 AM | Morning Tea
10.15 AM - 12.15 PM
9A - At the edges of the Act: Managing heritage where the framework doesn't fit and other misfits
Room: E1
When the framework ends but the heritage doesn't
Francisco Almeida
Ethics, objectivity and advocacy in Sea Country geoarchaeology
Ingrid Ward
Protecting what cannot be said: Indigenous intangible heritage under the EPBC Act
Zachary Carter
Reasonable and practicable? Professional judgement and Queensland's duty of care
Kathy Lai
Across the divide: Navigating separate heritage legislation through integrated archaeological practice on Burramattagal Country
Sarah Janson
Cumulative impact and cultural heritage
Miranda Gronow
9B - Archaeology at the water's edge: Coastal, intertidal and underwater perspectives
Room: E2
Characterising the interrelationship between industrial archaeology and the maritime cultural landscape of Lake Illawarra
Jake Allen
Visualising Nyamat Mirring (Sea Country): Gunditjmara aspirations drive integration of remote sensing technologies at Tarragal, southwest Victoria
Bradley Arsenault
Listening to a transformed river: Acoustic traces of landscape modification along the Onkaparinga
Alan Cook
Dangerous places (Awiyi), oral tradition and site abandonment: Evidence from a midden site on South Barrow Island, Cape York Peninsula
Mia Dardengo
Morphometric evidence for Mangrove Whelk (Terebralia palustris) harvesting selectivity: Thalanyji Coastal lifeways across the mid-to-late Holocene from the Ashburton Coastline, northwest Australia
Emily Haagensen
Looking after country: The Wellesley Islands Region fishtrap project
Lucy Hughes
9C - Shared stories, rethinking futures: Australasian archaeologies in and with Southeast Asia
Room: E3
At the edge of Sunda: Rethinking Kangean and Nusa Penida in the context of early human dispersal
Alifah Alifah
Commodifying the Vietnamese past: A snapshot sample of online markets for Đông Sơn metal artifacts c. 2019-2026
Damien Huffer
Revisiting salvaged and looted shipwreck sites in Indonesia: Community-engaged futures for underwater cultural heritage
Nia Naelul Hasanah Ridwan
Connecting the cargoes: A historiographical and comparative approach to Southeast Asian maritime ceramic assemblages
Amir Saiffuddin
A 4,000-year-old painted plaque from Wetar and the Austronesian Painting Tradition
Shimona Kealy
DISCUSSION
12.15 - 1.15 PM | Lunch and ICOMOS National Scientific Committee on Rock Art Australia Meeting & National Archaeology Week Meeting
1.15 - 3.15PM
10A - At the edges of the Act: Managing heritage where the framework doesn't fit and other misfits
Room: E1
Beyond the polygon: Breaking free from ‘activity area’ boundaries to tell stories at landscape scales
Rebekah Kurpiel
Wilami-baanh (water home): The importance of protecting, integrating, and restoring pre-European wetlands and landscape depressions in strategic planning
Lauren Modra
Archaeology of the fairway: Aboriginal cultural landscapes beneath golf course redevelopment in the Hunter Region, NSW
Andrew Costello
On the verge: Best practice heritage management in the liminal road verge
Rebekah Hawkins
Registration of Aboriginal cultural places: Waurn Ponds and the best-worst outcome
Lucy Welsh
Nobody wrote the guidance for this: A panel discussion
Erica Walther
10B - Archaeology at the water's edge: Coastal, intertidal and underwater perspectives
Room: E2
The life history of a dingo buried 700 years ago at Wreck Bay
Loukas Koungoulos
Stable oxygen isotope analysis of Tegillarca granosa provides insights into late Holocene palaeoenvironment and seasonal shellfish harvesting in Murujuga
Caroline Mather
Palaeolithic dispersal histories of Arabia: Chronological assessments of out of Africa migrations using single-grain luminescence dating
Kira Otterbach
Constraining the timing of Neanderthals in Southern Iberia and evidence of marine resource consumption
Ben Robertson
Water, stone and flooding landscapes at Bilpa Morea: Preliminary archaeological perspectives from Mithaka Country
Courtney Simmiss
Murujuga Thathagurra: A coastal rock art assemblage from Withnell Bay
Jerome Wachter
10C - Shared stories, rethinking futures: Australasian archaeologies in and with Southeast Asia
Room: E3
Simulâ sa isáng bútil: Internationalism and geoarchaeology in and with Southeast Asia
Vito C. Hernandez
How Indonesian archaeology engage with mass graves of the 1965-66 mass killings in Indonesia?
Dicky Hidayat
Voices from the shore: Community perceptions of underwater cultural heritage in Belitung, Indonesia
Zainab Tahir
Producing archaeological knowledge alongside local communities: Practices and perceptions from the Catanauan Archaeology and Heritage Project in the Philippines
Don Matthews
Archaeology by invitation: Rethinking archaeological collaborations in Cambodia
Martin Polkinghorne
DISCUSSION
3.15 - 4.00 PM | Afternoon Tea & Poster Session
7.00 - 11.00 PM
Conference Dinner and Awards Ceremony
Venue: Panorama Ballroom, Adelaide Convention Centre