Antiquity's Ben Cullen Prize Winners, 2011

Congratulations to Dorian Fuller, Nicky Boivin, Tom Hoogervorst and Robin Allaby who have won this year's Ben Cullen Prize, awarded to the runner up for best contribution to the journal, Antiquity.

Every year Antiquity awards prizes for the best article they have published.  The Ben Cullen prize was set up in memory a bright young scholar at Cambridge, who died all too young.  Here is the title and abstract.  Click below to see the article. 

Across the Indian Ocean: the prehistoric movement of plants and animals

Dorian Q Fuller, Nicole Boivin, Tom Hoogervorst, Robin Allaby

Schematic map of major Bronze Age translocations 

Here is a major research project that is peopling the Indian Ocean with prehistoric seafarers exchanging native crops and stock between Africa and India. Not the least exciting part of the work is the authors’ contention that the prime movers of this maritime adventure were not the great empires but a multitude of small-scale entrepreneurs.

For the article, click here

Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka Lecture

Out of Africa and the Significance of the South Asian Archaeological Record,
By Prof. Michael D. Petraglia Professor of Human Evolution and Prehistory, University of Oxford.
on 24 May 2012 17:00
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NATURE | NEWS FEATURE Human migrations: Eastern odyssey

Humans had spread across Asia by 50,000 years ago. Everything else about our original exodus from Africa is up for debate.

Excavation at Jwalapuram Locality 22, Jurreru Valley, India.  Middle Palaeolithic artefacts were found under the Toba ash.

For the full story in Nature, click here

Ancient network of rivers and lakes found in Arabian Desert

Satellite images have revealed that a network of ancient rivers once coursed their way through the sand of the Arabian Desert, leading scientists to believe that the region experienced wetter periods in the past.  See:  Click here for more information