Chris Urwin

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Dr Chris Urwin conducts archaeological and museum-based research with Indigenous communities in Australia and the Pacific. His research focusses on Indigenous voyaging, cross-cultural encounters and exchanges, and how people build places through time. He is an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow (2025-2027), working with Yanyuwa Families and the li-Anthawirriyarra Sea Ranger Unit to understand the history of Makassan (Indonesian) voyaging to Australia's Gulf of Carpentaria.

In 2021-2022 he was Peter Buck Postdoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) and in 2019 was Senior Curator for First Peoples archaeology at Museums Victoria (Melbourne Museum).

Chris was awarded his PhD in 2019, for which he conducted worked with two villages in Orokolo Bay (Papua New Guinea) to understand the archaeological history of their ancestral places. By combining knowledge from oral traditions and archaeology (such as carbon dates), his research showed how vast coastal villages developed on PNG's south coast in the past 700 years.

His 2022 book "Building and Remembering: An Archaeology of Place-Making on Papua New Guinea's South Coast" was published by the University of Hawaiʻi Press with Australian Academy of the Humanities funding. It was awarded the 2023 John Mulvaney Book Award by the Australian Archaeological Association.

His research has been funded by the Australian Research Council, Smithsonian Institution, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE).

Chris serves his discipline as Book Reviews Editor for Australian Archaeology (2024-) and Webmaster for the Australian Archaeological Association (2023-). He was the AAA Social Media Officer in 2018-2019.

Experience

  • 2025–present
    ARC DECRA Research Fellow, Monash University
  • 2022–2024
    Postdoctoral research fellow, Monash University
  • 2021–2022
    Postdoctoral research fellow, Smithsonian Institution
  • 2020–2021
    Postdoctoral research fellow, Monash University
  • 2019–2020
    Senior curator, Museums Victoria

Education

  • 2019 
    Monash University, Doctor of Philosophy
  • 2013 
    Monash University, Honours / Australian Indigenous Archaeology

Grants and Contracts

  • 2025
    Uncovering Aboriginal culture and histories through artefact collections
    Role:
    Primary Chief Investigator
    Funding Source:
    ARC Linkage Project 2024, Round 2 (LP240200657)
  • 2024
    Asian voyagers and First Nations people in Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria
    Role:
    Chief Investigator
    Funding Source:
    ARC DECRA Fellowship (DE250100964)
  • 2021
    Applying high-resolution chronological modelling to historicise the recent archaeological past (past 500 years): Jiwarrjiwarra 1, Marra Country, Northern Territory
    Role:
    Co-Investigator
    Funding Source:
    Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation
  • 2020
    Entwined Narratives of Indigenous Voyaging and American Collecting: Pacific Canoes in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution
    Role:
    Chief Investigator
    Funding Source:
    National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution
  • 2017
    User Access Grant: High-resolution radiocarbon chronologies for the phased development of Popo Ancestral Village in Papua New Guinea (PNG)
    Role:
    Co-Investigator
    Funding Source:
    Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation
  • 2016
    Dating the ancestral migration village site of Popo, Orokolo Bay, Papua New Guinea.
    Role:
    Investigator
    Funding Source:
    Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering
  • 2016
    Dating the Miruka clan suburb of Popo Ancestral Village, Orokolo Bay
    Role:
    Chief Investigator
    Funding Source:
    Australian Archaeological Association Student Reserach Grants Scheme

Professional Memberships

  • Australian Archaeological Association
  • The World Archaeological Congress
  • The Archaeological & Anthropological Society of Victoria

Research Areas

  • Pacific Cultural Studies (200210)
  • Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Archaeology (210101)
  • Archaeology Of New Guinea And Pacific Islands (Excl. New Zealand) (210106)
  • Social And Cultural Anthropology (160104)
  • Pacific History (Excl. New Zealand And Maori) (210313)

Contact Chris for

  • General
  • Media request
  • Speaking request
  • Consulting / Advising
  • Research collaboration
  • Research supervision