Projects per year
Personal profile
Biography
Chris Urwin is a research fellow at Monash University and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage. He conducts archaeological and museum-based research with Indigenous communities in Australia and the Pacific. He researches how people build places through time, and how personal and community histories are constructed when artefacts are collected and exchanged.
Urwin has held a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution) and worked as archaeology curator in the First Peoples department at Museums Victoria (Melbourne). He continues to work with colleagues in museum institutions as a Research Associate of the Smithsonian and Museums Victoria.
Chris completed his PhD at Monash University in 2019, for which he worked with two villages in Orokolo Bay on Papua New Guinea's south coast to document oral traditions and establish radiocarbon chronologies for their ancestral sites. This research has helped improve our understanding of the history of exchange and social change on PNG's south coast. His current research project investigates the archaeology of Makassan (Indonesian) voyaging to Australia's Gulf of Carpentaria.
Chris enjoys communicating archaeology and anthropology for a popular audience. Online magazine articles stemming from Chris' research can be found here:
- Archaeology: Western science or global practice? (Current World Archaeology)
- Indigenous cultures have archaeology too (Sapiens.org, Wenner Gren Foundation)
- Cultural heritage key to regional development in PNG and Australia (The Interpreter, Lowy Institute)
- Archaeology is unravelling new stories about Indigenous seagoing trade on Australia’s doorstep (The Conversation AU)
- Magic, culture and stalactites: how Aboriginal perspectives are transforming archaeological histories (The Conversation AU)
For interviews/discussions of Chris' research in the media see:
- Indigenous seagoing trade (ABC Radio National, Counterpoint)
- Culture and Country: exploring our history, part 2 (What Happens Next? podcast with Dr Susan Carland)
- Researcher finds that Orokolo Bay locals have their own form of 'Archaeology' (ABC Radio, Pacific Beat)
Research interests
Chris' research interests include:
- Indigenous voyaging & exchange in the tropical north (Arafura and Coral seas)
- museum collections of Pacific canoes & navigation technology
- how people build and remember their ancestral places through time
- the application of Bayesian chronological models in archaeology
His research has been funded by the Smithsonian Institution, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE), the Australian Archaeological Association.
In 2021 he was awarded a publication subsidy by the Australian Academy of the Humanities to support his book "Building and Remembering: An Archaeology of Place-Making on Papua New Guinea's South Coast" with the University of Hawaii Press.
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
External positions
Research Associate, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
10 May 2022 → …
Peter Buck Postdoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian Institution
14 Jan 2021 → 13 Jan 2022
Research Associate, Museums Board of Victoria (trading as Museum of Victoria)
18 Feb 2020 → …
Research area keywords
- Memory studies
- Archaeology
- Anthropology
- Radiocarbon dating
- Museum Collections
Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
-
-
Caution Bay pre-Lapita–Lapita–post-Lapita archaeological database and shell reference collections
McNiven, I., Ulm, S., David, B., Leavesley, M. G., Mate, G., Urwin, C., Petchey, F., Rowe, C. & Lambridges, A.
1/07/21 → 1/07/23
Project: Research
-
Applying high-resolution chronological modelling to historicise the recent archaeological past (past 500 years): Jiwarrjiwarra 1, Marra Country, Northern Territory
Ash, J., Urwin, C., Hua, Q. & Brady, L.
19/02/21 → 31/07/21
Project: Research
-
Entwined Narratives of Indigenous Voyaging and American Collecting: Pacific Canoes in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution
14/01/21 → 13/01/22
Project: Research
-
Agila and the reanimation of seafaring on the south coast of Papua New Guinea after 770 cal BP
Skelly, R. J., David, B., Petchey, F., Leavesley, M., Mialanes, J., Beni, T. & Urwin, C., 2023, In: Australian Archaeology. 89, 2, p. 97-114 18 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
Open AccessFile -
Cross-cultural interaction across the Arafura and Timor seas: Aboriginal people and Macassans in Northern Australia
Urwin, C., Russell, L. & Yulianti, L., 26 Jan 2023, (Accepted/In press) The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Indigenous Australia and New Guinea. McNiven, I. J. & David, B. (eds.). Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 17 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (Book) › Research › peer-review
-
Re-assessing regional chronologies for island southeast Asian voyaging to Aboriginal Australia
Urwin, C., Bradley, J., McNiven, I., Russell, L. & Yulianti, L., 2023, (Accepted/In press) In: Archaeology in Oceania. 30 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
Open Access -
Rethinking agency in hiri exchange relationships on Papua New Guinea’s south coast: Oral traditions and archaeology
Urwin, C., Lamb, L., Skelly, R. J., Bell, J. A., Beni, T., Leavesley, M., David, B. & Arifeae, H., Mar 2023, In: Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. 69, 15 p., 101484.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
1 Citation (Scopus) -
Aboriginal monumental stone-working in Northern Australia during the Pleistocene
Urwin, C., David, B., Delannoy, J-J., Bell, J. A. & Geneste, J-M., 2022, Megaliths of the World. Laporte, L., Large, J-M., Nespoulous, L., Scarre, C. & Steimer-Herbert, T. (eds.). Oxford Uk: Archaeopress, Vol. 1. p. 241-256 15 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (Book) › Research › peer-review
Prizes
-
Australia-PNG Emerging Leaders Dialogue (2019), Lowy Institute
Urwin, Chris (Recipient), 5 Nov 2019
Prize: Other distinction
-
Peter Buck Postdoctoral Fellowship, Smithsonian Institution
Urwin, Chris (Recipient), 11 Mar 2020
Prize: Competitive Fellowships
-
Postgraduate Publication Award, Monash University (Arts)
Urwin, Chris (Recipient), Jan 2019
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
-
Postgraduate Publication Prize, Monash University (Arts)
Urwin, Chris (Recipient), 19 Oct 2020
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
-
Publication Subsidy Scheme, Australian Academy of the Humanities
Urwin, Chris (Recipient), 30 Jun 2021
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
-
National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution) all Science Meeting
Chris Urwin (Invited speaker)
2 Feb 2022Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Contribution to conference
-
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting 2021
Chris Urwin (Speaker)
21 Nov 2021Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Contribution to conference
-
University of Western Australia Archaeology Department seminar series
Chris Urwin (Invited speaker)
19 Mar 2021Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Contribution to workshop, seminar, course
-
Seminar series: Putting Theory and Things Together: Conversations about Anthropology and Museums (Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution)
Joshua A. Bell (Organiser), Chris Urwin (Organiser), Sowparnika Balaswaminathan (Organiser), Jacqueline Hazen (Organiser) & Adrian Van Allen (Organiser)
Sept 2021 → Mar 2022Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Contribution to workshop, seminar, course
-
Seminar: 'Remembering through things, encountering objects & kin in the museum' (Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution)
Chris Urwin (Session chair)
21 Oct 2021Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Contribution to workshop, seminar, course
Press/Media
-
What Happens Next? Hosted by Dr Susan Carland: Culture and Country
25/01/21
1 item of Media coverage
Press/Media: Blogs, Podcasts and Social Media › Podcasts
-
ABC Radio (Pacific Beat) Interview: Researcher finds people from Orokolo Bay conduct their own form of archaeology in the course of daily life
13/08/20
1 Media contribution
Press/Media: Profile/Interview
-
Museums Victoria collections article: Pottery sherds from Wuatam (Watom) Island, East New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea
1/06/20
1 Media contribution
Press/Media: Public Engagement Activities
-
ABC Radio National Interview: Indigenous seagoing trade
3/06/19
1 item of Media coverage
Press/Media: Profile/Interview