Past and recent research

Examination of prehistoric adaptive systems through a study of stone artefacts is the focus of research. Peter is currently engaged in five large research projects:

1) An investigation into the technology of Neanderthals in France, focussing on the sequence at Combe Grenal. This work was funded by an ARC discovery grant.

2) the Eastern Sequence Project which is reassessing technological structure and change in the Sydney Basin during the Holocene. This work was funded by an ARC discovery grant.

3) Field surveys and site excavation in the Lake Eyre Basin, Australia, designed to reconstruct ancient settlement systems.

4) Experimental examinations of methods by which the extent of reduction can be measured on stone tools.

5) Excavation and analysis of Middle Stone Age archaeological materials in South Africa, with the goal of understanding evolutionary change and the onset of modernity. This project is currently funded by an ARC discovery grant.

Peter's past research includes a synthesis of Australian pre-history (Archaeology of Ancient Australia), a study of the technological sequence at Haua Fteah (Libya), fieldwork and regional syntheses of Kakadu archaeology, and exploration of adaptive models for the proliferation of backed artefacts and bifacial points in Australia.

Career highlights

Recent highlights include being elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (2008), elected as a Fellow of the Australian Acadamy of Humanities (2009), winning the Mulvaney Book Award for Archaeology of Ancient Australia (2008), and of course being appointed to a personal Chair by the ANU (2008). He is currently an editor of the Journal of World Prehistory and a member of the Editorial Board of Archaeology in Oceania.

Recent and main publications

Clarkson, C. and Hiscock, P. 2011 Estimating original flake mass from 3-D Scans of platform area. Journal of Archaeological Science.

Hiscock, P. and A. Tabrett 2010 Generalization, inference and the quantification of lithic reduction, World Archaeology 42:545-561.

Hiscock, P. and C. Clarkson 2009 The reality of reduction experiments and the GIUR: reply to Eren and Sampson. Journal of Archaeological Science 36:1576-1581. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. 2009 Archaeology threatens the world! Representations of archaeologists in cinema. Pp.71-79 in Serge Lemaitre and Céline Schall (Editors) How do the media represent archaeology, what is at stake? Kineon, Bruxelles.

Robertson, G., V. Attenbrow and P. Hiscock 2009 Multiple uses for Australian backed artefacts, Antiquity 83: 296-308.(View full text as pdf)

Attenbrow, V., Robertson, G. & Hiscock, P. 2009. The changing abundance of backed artefacts in south-eastern Australia: a response to Holocene climate change? Journal of Archaeological Science, 36:2765-2770.

Bellwood, P. and P. Hiscock 2009 Holocene Australia and the Pacific Basin. Pp. 264-305 in Chris Scarre (Editor) The Human Past: World Prehistory & the Development of Human Societies. Thames & Hudson; second edition

Hiscock, P, A. Turq, J-P. Faivre and L. Bourguignon. 2009 Quina procurement and tool production. Pp. 232-246 in. B. Adams and B.S. Blades (eds) Lithic Materials and Paleolithic Societies, Wiley-Blackwell

Hiscock, P. 2009 Reduction, recycling and raw material Procurement in Western Arnhem Land. Pp. 78-94 in. B. Adams and B.S. Blades (eds) Lithic Materials and Paleolithic Societies, Wiley-Blackwell

Hiscock, P. 2008 Archaeology of Ancient Australia. Routledge: London.
Winner of the 2008 Mulvaney Book Award. View the award nomination.
View the book on the Routledge site (you can order it there too).
View the book on Amazon.com
Read a book review by Brian Fagan

Hiscock, P. and C. Clarkson 2008 The construction of morphological diversity: a study of Mousterian implement retouching at Combe Grenal. Pp.106-135 in W. Andrefsky (ed) Lithic Technology, Cambridge University Press.

Mercieca, A. and Hiscock, P. 2008 Experimental insights into alternative strategies of lithic heat treatment. Journal of Archaeological Science 35:2634–2639. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. and C. Clarkson 2007 Retouched notches at Combe Grenal (France) and the Reduction Hypothesis. American Antiquity 72: 176-190. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. 2007 Looking the other way. A materialist/technological approach to classifying tools and implements, cores and retouched flakes. Pp. 198-222 in S. McPherron (ed.) Tools versus Cores? Alternative approaches to Stone Tool Analysis. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. 2007 Australian point and core reduction viewed through refitting. Pp. 105-118 in M. de Bie and U.Schurman (eds) Fitting Rocks. Lithic refitting examined. British Archaeological Reports. International Monograph Series 1596. Oxford: Archaeopress. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. and P. Faulkner 2006 Dating the dreaming? Creation of myths and rituals for mounds along the northern Australian coastline. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 16:209-22. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. and S. O'Connor 2006 An Australian perspective on modern behaviour and artefact assemblages, Before Farming [online version] 2006/1 article 5. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. 2006 Blunt and to the Point: Changing technological strategies in Holocene Australia. Pp. 69-95 in I. Lilley (ed.) Archaeology in Oceania: Australia and the Pacific Islands. Blackwell. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. 2006 Process or planning?: depicting and understanding the variability in Australian core reduction. Pp. 99-108 in S. Ulm (eds) An archaeological life: papers in honour of Jay Hall. University of Queensland. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. and V. Attenbrow 2005 Australia's Eastern Regional Sequence revisited: Technology and change at Capertee 3. British Archaeological Reports. International Monograph Series 1397. Oxford:Archaeopress. ISBN 1 84171 836 X. (More information)

Hiscock, P. 2005. Artefacts on Aru: evaluating the technological sequences. Pp. 205-234 in S. O'Connor, M. Spriggs and P. Veth (eds) The archaeology of the Aru Islands, Eastern Indonesia.Terra Australis 22. Pandanus Books, Australian National University.

Hiscock, P. and C. Clarkson 2005 Experimental evaluation of Kuhn's Geometric Index of Reduction and the flat-flake problem. Journal of Archaeological Science 32:1015-1022. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. and S. O'Connor 2005. Arid paradises or dangerous landscapes. A review of explanations for Paleolithic assemblage change in arid Australia and Africa. Pp. 58-77 in P.Veth, M.Smith and P.Hiscock (eds) Desert Peoples: Archaeological perspectives. Blackwell.(View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. and L. Wallis 2005. Pleistocene settlement of deserts from an Australian perspective. Pp. 34-57 in P.Veth, M.Smith and P.Hiscock (eds) Desert Peoples: archaeological perspectives. Blackwell.(View full text as pdf)

Veth, P., M.Smith, Hiscock, P. and L. Wallis 2005. Global deserts in Perspective. Pp. 1-13 in P.Veth, M.Smith and P.Hiscock (eds) Desert Peoples: Archaeological perspectives. Blackwell.

Hiscock, P. 2005 Reverse knapping in the Antipodes: The spatial implications of alternate approaches to knapping. In Xavier Terradas (editor) L'outillage lithique en contextes ethnoarchéologiques / Lithic Toolkits in Ethnoarchaeological Contexts. Acts of the XIVth UISPP Congress, University of Liège, Belgium, 2-8 September 2001, Colloque / Symposium 1.4. British Archaeological Reports. International Monograph Series, S1370. Oxford:Archaeopress. (View full text as pdf)

Bellwood, P. and P. Hiscock 2005. Australia and the Austronesians. Pp. 264-305 in C.Scarre (editor) The human past. World prehistory and the development of human societies. Thames and Hudson.

Hiscock, P. and V. Attenbrow 2005. Reduction continuums and tool use. Pp. 43-55 in Clarkson, C. and L. Lamb (eds) Lithics 'Down Under': Recent Australian Approaches to Lithic Reduction, Use and Classification. British Archaeological Reports International Monograph Series. Oxford:Archaeopress. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. and C. Clarkson 2005. Measuring artefact reduction: an examination of Kuhn's Geometric Index of Reduction. Pp. 7-19 in Clarkson, C. and L. Lamb (eds) Lithics 'Down Under': Recent Australian Approaches to Lithic Reduction, Use and Classification. British Archaeological Reports International Monograph Series. Oxford:Archaeopress. (View full text pdf)

Hiscock, P. 2004 Slippery and Billy: intention, selection and equifinality in lithic artefacts. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 14:71-77.(View a copy in .pdf format)

Hiscock, P. and V. Attenbrow 2004 A revised sequence of backed artefact production at Capertee 3. Archaeology in Oceania 39:94-99.(View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. and V.Attenbrow 2003 Early Australian implement variation: a reduction model. Journal of Archaeological Science 30(2): 239-249. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. 2003 Prehistoric Populations: Australia and the Pacific. Pp. 796-798 in P.Demeny and G.McNicoll (eds) Encyclopedia of Population. Volume 2. Macmillan Reference USA. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. 2002 Pattern and context in the Holocene proliferation of backed artefacts in Australia. Pp. 163-177 in Robert G. Elston and Steven L. Kuhn (eds) Thinking Small: Global Perspectives on Microlithization. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association (AP3A) number 12. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. 2002 Quantifying the size of artefact assemblages. Journal of Archaeological Science 29: 251-258. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. and V.Attenbrow 2002 Reduction continuums in Eastern Australia: measurement and implications at Capertee 3. In Sean Ulm (ed.) Barriers, Borders, Boundaries. Tempus volume 7. Pp.167-174. University of Queensland. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. 2002 Kolonisierung des 5. Kontinents. Archäologie in Deutschland 2002.2:14-17.

Hiscock, P. 2001 Sizing up prehistory: sample size and composition of artefact assemblages. Australian Aboriginal Studies 2001/ 1:48-62. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. 2001 Late Australian. Encyclopedia of Prehistory. Volume III. Pp.132-149. Plenum Press. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. 2001 Early Australian. Encyclopedia of Prehistory. Volume III. Pp.18-22. Plenum Press. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. and H. Allen 2000 Assemblage variability in the Willandra Lakes. Archaeology in Oceania 35:97-103. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. and C. Clarkson 2000 Analysing Australian stone artefacts: An agenda for the twenty first century. Australian Archaeology 50:98-108. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. 1999 Holocene coastal occupation of Western Arnhem Land. Pp. 91-103 in J. Hall and I. McNiven (eds) Australian Coastal Archaeology, ANH Publications, Department of Archaeology and Natural History, Australian National University. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. 1998 Revitalising artefact analysis. In T. Murray (ed) Archaeology of Aboriginal Australia. Pp.257-265. Sydney, Unwin and Allen. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. and V.Attenbrow 1998 Early Holocene Backed Artefacts from Australia. Archaeology in Oceania 33:49-63. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. 1996 Transformations of Upper Palaeolithic implements in the Dabba industry from Haua Fteah (Libya). Antiquity 70:657-664. (View full text as html)(View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. 1996 The New Age of alternative archaeology of Australia. Archaeology in Oceania 31(3):152-164. (View full text as html) (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. 1996 Mobility and technology in the Kakadu coastal wetlands. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 15:151-157. (View full text as pdf)

Hiscock, P. 1994 Technological responses to risk in Holocene Australia. Journal of World Prehistory 8(3):267-292. (View full text as html) (View full text as pdf)

Courses currently taught

ARCH1111 Archaeology: Finding Treasure and History
ARCH2004/ARCH6004 Australian Archaeology
ARCH2006/ARCH6006 History of Archaeology: Discovering the Past
ARCH2035/ARCH6035 Decay and Disturbance: Archaeological Formation Processes
ARCH2036/ARCH6036 Archaeology of the Neanderthals: Who Were They?
ARCH2052 Archaeology in Film and Fiction
ARCH2126 /ARCH6126 Analytical Methods for Anthropology and Archaeology 
ARCH3000 /ARCH6500 Research Design and Analysis in Archaeology 
BIAN3014 /BIAN6516 Research Design and Analysis in Biological Anthropology
BIAN3017 Research Design in Biological Anthropology
ARCH8101 - Archaeological Studies Foundation
ARCH8102 - Designing Research in Archaeology