Sean Ulm
Sean Ulm is Distinguished Professor of Archaeology at James Cook University and Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, a Fellow of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences, an Honorary Research Fellow of the Queensland Museum and a Fellow of the Cairns Institute.
Sean’s research focuses on persistent problems in the archaeology of northern Australia and the western Pacific where understanding the relationships between environmental change and cultural change using advanced studies of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental sequences are central to constructions of the human past. His priority has been to develop new tools to investigate and articulate co-variability and co-development of human and natural systems.
A major strand of this research has been in the field of archaeological science, where Sean leads integrated research programmes designed to improve methods used to establish chronologies and taphonomic sequences to increase confidence in data resolution underpinning models of past human behaviour. This ongoing work refines chronologies of human occupation in tropical coastal areas and allows calibration of archaeological datasets with terrestrial environmental records, creating the potential for much closer integration of these two key sources of information. Sean has applied these understandings to key archaeological issues, including establishing correlations between archaeological and climate records in northern Australia and evaluating the evidence for Polynesian voyaging to the Americas.
His publications include more than 160 articles on the archaeology of Australia and 5 books. He is a former President of the Australian Archaeological Association Inc., is Editor-In-Chief of Queensland Archaeological Research, and sits on the editorial boards of Australian Archaeology, The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology and Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. Sean has conducted research in Australia, Honduras, Chile, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific.
Sean’s latest book is The First Inventors: How People Shaped a Continent (Allen & Unwin, June 2026) authored with Billy Griffiths and Larissa Behrendt.
Sean’s research focuses on persistent problems in the archaeology of northern Australia and the western Pacific where understanding the relationships between environmental change and cultural change using advanced studies of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental sequences are central to constructions of the human past. His priority has been to develop new tools to investigate and articulate co-variability and co-development of human and natural systems.
A major strand of this research has been in the field of archaeological science, where Sean leads integrated research programmes designed to improve methods used to establish chronologies and taphonomic sequences to increase confidence in data resolution underpinning models of past human behaviour. This ongoing work refines chronologies of human occupation in tropical coastal areas and allows calibration of archaeological datasets with terrestrial environmental records, creating the potential for much closer integration of these two key sources of information. Sean has applied these understandings to key archaeological issues, including establishing correlations between archaeological and climate records in northern Australia and evaluating the evidence for Polynesian voyaging to the Americas.
His publications include more than 160 articles on the archaeology of Australia and 5 books. He is a former President of the Australian Archaeological Association Inc., is Editor-In-Chief of Queensland Archaeological Research, and sits on the editorial boards of Australian Archaeology, The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology and Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. Sean has conducted research in Australia, Honduras, Chile, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific.
Sean’s latest book is The First Inventors: How People Shaped a Continent (Allen & Unwin, June 2026) authored with Billy Griffiths and Larissa Behrendt.
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This is what a history of Australia looks like when it has Indigenous perspectives at its heart.
For over 65,000 years, people have made this continent their own through language, song, water and fire. The First Inventors tells their story. It is a history of innovation, diplomacy and design, and a celebration of the survival and resilience of cultural knowledge. It explores how people managed and engineered entire landscapes, and how they orchestrated seascapes according to the stars, tides and relationships with animal kin.
The First Inventors is grounded in the idea of Country: a transformative way of seeing, and relating to, the world. It honours old ways of knowing and relates fresh insights from cutting-edge collaborative research: from astronomy, navigation and ancient memory systems to archaeology, pottery and international trade.
Based on the stunning SBS and Channel 10 TV series, The First Inventors is a story of hope, wonder and possibility.
'A dazzling history that is anchored in the knowledges and practices of the Ancestors. With vivid prose and a wonderful sense of story, The First Inventors offers a different way of relating to the history and future of the continent.' Rachel Perkins
'Celebrates how our people shaped the landscape through curiosity, care and invention.' Professor Wesley Enoch AM
'An instant classic' Robyn Williams AO
'A big story in every sense of the word' Professor Lynette Russell AM
Coastal Themes builds a detailed chronology of Aboriginal occupation for the southern Curtis Coast in Queensland. Innovative analyses refine radiocarbon dates and explore discard behaviours and post-depositional processes affecting the integrity of coastal archaeological sites. The resulting insights highlight major changes in Aboriginal use of this region over the last 5,000 years and disjunctions between the course of occupation in this and adjacent regions."
Jay's arrival in Australia in June 1976 to begin the archaeology programme in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Queensland marked two important events in the history of archaeology in this country. Firstly it provided a local focus for archaeology north of the Tweed River, thus continuing to expand the discipline beyond the dominant Sydney Canberra axis. Secondly Jay was an important addition to the tiny number of American-trained archaeologists practising in Australia at that time. Indeed, because of Jay's fundamental role in developing the archaeology teaching at UQ, that school became and has remained the most 'American' among Australian archaeology departments in its philosophy and methodology. This, and the four fi eld approach used in UQ, in turn produced several generations of scholars who continue to influence archaeological thinking in this country and beyond. Celebrated as a gifted teacher and a pioneer of Queensland archaeology, Jay leaves a rich legacy of scholarship and achievement across a wide range of archaeological endeavours.
This volume brings together past and present students, colleagues and friends to celebrate Jay's contributions, influences and interests.
The Bibliography is the result of a long-term project undertaken by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit at the University of Queensland to collect, abstract and index theses with Indigenous Australian content, which were accepted for a degree at the University of Queensland. The project was initiated in response to a perceived need to make the results of postgraduate research available not only to internal and external researchers but also to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
University of Queensland theses with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content have been included in several other thesis bibliographies and lists (e.g. Coppell 1977; Hall 1987; White 1975, 1994). However, these listings are either dated or discipline-specific and do not cover the full range of theses completed at the University of Queensland. More comprehensive searches were therefore carried out using the University of Queensland Library catalogue, supplemented by manual searches of departmental thesis collections and checked against entries in the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Library catalogue.