Alan N Williams

Experience

• 2025–present
  Partner Investigator, Centre of Excellence for Indigenous Environmental Histories and Futures
• 2019–present
  Associate Director/National Technical Leader, Aboriginal heritage, EMM Consulting Pty Ltd
• 2026–present
  Adjunct Associate Professor, James Cook University
• 2016–2026
  Honorary Senior Lecturer, Univesity of New South Wales
• 2017–2025
  Associate Investigator, Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage
• 2017–2020
  Adjunct Research Fellow, Flinders University
• 2017–2019
  Associate Director/Team Leader, Extent Heritage
• 2008–2017
  Senior Archaeologist/Team Leader, Extent Heritage

Education

• 2015 
  Australian National University, PhD (Science)
• 2001 
  University of London, Master of Science
• 1999 
  University of Leicester, BSc (Hons) joint Geography and Archaeology

Publications

• 2026
  Tracing Identity in a Fragmented Past: Multi-Proxy Analysis of Human Skeletal Remains from Dungowan Creek, New South Wales, Australia, Archaeometry
• 2026
  Stochastic models indicate rapid smallpox spread and mass mortality of Indigenous Australians after colonial exposure, Nature Human Behaviour
• 2025
  An amazing 50 years of Australian research: Now for greater collaboration, codesign and traditional knowledge application to developing policy and action, Australian Archaeology
• 2025
  An archaeological signature of frontier violence in the New England Tableland, New South Wales, Australia, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
• 2024
  Last Glacial Maximum cooling induced positive moisture balance and maintained stable human populations in Australia, Nature Communications Earth and Environment
• 2023
  SahulArch: A geochronological database for the archaeology of Sahul. , Australian Archaeology
• 2023
  Directionally supervised cellular-automaton models for the initial peopling of Sahul, Quaternary Science Reviews
• 2023
  Exploration of the Burning Question: A Long History of Fire in Eastern Australia with and without People, Fire
• 2022
  Past Aboriginal Populations and Demographic Change Using Radiocarbon Data and Time-Series Analysis, The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Australia and New Guinea.
• 2021
  Distal ash fall from the mid-Holocene eruption of Mount Hudson (H2) discovered in the Falkland Islands: New possibilities for Southern Hemisphere archive synchronisation. , Quaternary Science Reviews
• 2021
  Stochastic models reveal rapid early peopling of Late Pleistocene Sahul., Nature Communications
• 2021
  Was Aboriginal population recovery delayed after the Last Glacial Maximum? A synthesis of a terminal Pleistocene deposit from the Sydney Basin, New South Wales, Australia, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
• 2021
  Landscape rules predict optimal super-highways for the first peopling of Sahul. , Nature Human Behaviour
• 2020
  Fire, humans and climate as drivers of environmental change on Broughton Island, New South Wales, Australia., The Holocene
• 2020
  Crossing a glaciated landscape: Aboriginal movement through the Blue Mountains, Sydney, during the terminal Pleistocene., Australian Archaeology
• 2020
  Human-environmental interactions in Mediterranean climate regions from the Pleistocene to the Anthropocene, Anthropocene
• 2019
  Subantarctic 14C ages of different peat fractions: A protocol for site and sample selection for the development of robust age models. , Radiocarbon
• 2019
  Minimum founding populations of the first people to colonise Australia. , Nature Ecology and Evolution
• 2019
  Redating the onset of the mid-Holocene sea-level highstand in southeast Australia and implications for global sea-level rise, Plos One
• 2019
  The first successful application of Optically Stimulated Luminescence Dating to a colonial era (<0.25ka) archaeological site in Australia, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
• 2018
  Sea-Level Change and Demography during the Last Glacial Termination and Early Holocene across the Australian Continent, Quaternary Science Reviews
• 2018
  Evidence for increased expression of the Amundsen Sea Low over the South Atlantic during the late Holocene., Climates of the Past
• 2018
  When did Homo Sapiens firs reach Southeast Asia and Sahul?, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States
• 2017
  The Cranebrook Terrace Revisited: Recent Excavations of an Early Holocene Alluvial Deposit on the banks of the Nepean River, NSW, and their Implications for Future Work in the Region, Australian Archaeology
• 2017
  Puntutjarpa rockshelter revisited: A chronological and stratigraphic reappraisal of a key archaeological sequence for the Western Desert, Australia, Australian Archaeology
• 2017
  Aboriginal mitogenomes reveal 50,000 years of regionalism in Australia, Nature
• 2016
  Advances in arid zone archaeology: The 4th Southern Desert Conference. , Quaternary International
• 2016
  A 250-year periodicity in southern hemisphere westerly winds over the last 2500 years., Climates of the Past
• 2016
  Paleochannels and patches: A geoarchaeological assessment of silcrete sources in the Cumberland Plain, Eastern Australia., Geoarchaeology
• 2016
  Anomalous mid-twentieth century atmospheric circulation change over the South Atlantic compared to the last 6000 years, Environmental Research Letters
• 2015
  Exploration of the Human-Fire Relationship of in Australia over the last 20,000 years. , Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology
• 2015
  The Establishment of Complex Society in Prehistoric Australia: Demographic and Mobility Changes in the Late Holocene, Plos One
• 2015
  A Continental Narrative: Human Settlement Patterns and Australian Climate Change over the last 35,000 Years, Quaternary Science Reviews
• 2014
  Australian Deserts: Extreme Environments in Archaeology?, Global Encyclopedia of Archaeology.
• 2014
  AustArch: A Database of 14C and Non-14C Ages from Archaeological Sites in Australia - Composition, Compilation and Review (Data Paper)., Internet Archaeology
• 2014
  A Glacial cryptic refuge in southeast Australia: Human occupation and mobility from 36,000 years ago in the Sydney Basin, New South Wales, Journal of Quaternary Science
• 2014
  A Pleistocene date at Chelsea Heights, Victoria: Evidence for Aboriginal occupation beneath the Carrum Swamp., Excavations, Surveys and Heritage Management in Victoria. Volume 3
• 2013
  A new population curve for prehistoric Australia. , Proceedings of the Royal Society B
• 2013
  Human refugia in Australia during the Last Glacial Maximum and Terminal Pleistocene: A geo-spatial analysis of the 25-12ka Australian archaeological record. , Journal of Archaeological Science
• 2012
  The use of summed radiocarbon probability distributions in archaeology: A review of methods., Journal of Archaeological Science
• 2012
  A Terminal Pleistocene Open Site on the Hawkesbury River, Pitt Town, NSW, Australian Archaeology
• 2011
  Why the Appearance of Tulas in Australia is linked to ENSO, Australian Archaeology
• 2010
  Hunter-Gatherer Response to Late Holocene Climatic Variability in Northern and Central Australia., Journal of Quaternary Science
• 2009
  Excavations at Parnkupirti, Lake Gregory, Great Sandy Desert: OSL dates for occupation before the Last Glacial Maximum., Australian Archaeology
• 2008
  Human-Environment Interactions of the Australian Drylands: Time-Series Analysis of Archaeological Records., The Holocene

Professional Memberships

• Full Member - Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists Inc
• Fellow, Society of Antiquaries of London
• Fellow, Royal Society of New South Wales
• Fellow, Australian Anthropological Society
• Member, Environmental Institute of Australia and New Zealand

Research Areas

• Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Archaeology (210101)
• Archaeological Science (210102)
• Anthropology (1601)
• Demography (1603)
• Palaeoclimatology (040605)