Mike Morwood

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michael John "Mike" Morwood (born October 27, 1950 in Auckland , New Zealand ; † July 23, 2013 in Darwin , Australia ) was an archaeologist and professor at the School of Human and Environmental Studies at the University of New England in Armidale , New South Wales . In 2003, Morwood headed the Australian team that, together with Indonesian colleagues, discovered the first Homo floresiensis finds .

Life

Mike Morwood studied archeology at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and received his PhD from the Australian National University in 1980 . Since 1981 he has lectured as a lecturer at the University of New England in Armidale. His main research topic was the archeology of the Aborigines , i.e. the early history of settlement in Australia, especially in the Kimberley region in northern Australia. During the cold periods , this region was closest to the coasts of Asia because of the low water level in the oceans as a result of the icing. Therefore, it was assumed that there the conquest of the first immigrants of anatomically modern humans ( Homo sapiens had taken place). After years of research in Australia, Morwood turned his gaze from Australia to the northwest, towards the islands of Indonesia , with the aim of reconstructing the path of immigrants from mainland Asia to Australia. On his initiative, an Australian-Indonesian research cooperation was established in the mid-1990s, which from 2001 onwards selected the Indonesian island of Flores as a research region due to numerous earlier finds of stone tools in the Soa basin . The Liang Bua cave was recognized as particularly worthwhile , in which the first bone (a spoke ) of a hominine fossil initially interpreted as a "non-modern child" was uncovered on August 10, 2003 at a depth of six meters . On September 2, 2003, a very small skull was found near this find and shortly afterwards other associated bones, which were later assigned to a hitherto unknown representative of the genus Homo , called Homo floresiensis or jokingly " Hobbit ".

From 1992 to 2000 he was President of the Australian Rock Art Research Association (AURA), which is dedicated to the protection and research of rock art .

Morwood died in July 2013 at the age of 62 of complications from cancer .

Fonts

  • The prehistory of Aboriginal landuse on the upper Flinders River, North Queensland Highlands. In: Queensland Archaeological Research. Volume 7, 1990, pp. 3-56, doi: 10.25120 / qar.7.1990.126
  • as main author: AMS Radiocarbon Ages for beeswax and charcoal pigments in North Kimberley rock art. In: Rock Art Research. Volume 27, No. 1, 2010. pp. 3-8.
  • as main author: Fission-track ages of stone tools and fossils on the east Indonesian island of Flores. In: Nature , Volume 392, 1998, pp. 173-176, doi: 10.1038 / 32401
  • as main author: Archeology and age of a new hominin from Flores in eastern Indonesia. In: Nature , Volume 431, 2004, pp. 1087-1091, doi: 10.1038 / nature02956
  • with Penny van Oosterzee: The Discovery of the Hobbit: The Scientific Breakthrough that Changed the Face of Human History. Random House Australia, 2006, ISBN 978-1741667028
  • with DR Hobbs: Visions from the Past: The Archeology of Australian Aboriginal Art. Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2002, ISBN 978-1588340917

literature

  • Richard G. Roberts, Thomas Sutikna: Michael John Morwood (1950–2013). In: Nature . Volume 500, No. 7463, 2013, p. 401, doi: 10.1038 / 500401a

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Former Professional Profile. on the website of the Center for Archaeological Science at the University of Wollongong
  2. ↑ Lydia Pyne: The Precious: Flo's Life as a Hobbit. Chapter 6 in: Dies .: Seven Skeletons. The Evolution of the World's Most Famous Human Fossils. Viking, New York 2016, pp. 189-193, ISBN 978-0-525-42985-2
  3. ↑ Discoverer of the "Hobbit" dies of cancer. In: Rheinische Post , July 24, 2013. Accessed July 24, 2013.


personal data
SURNAME Morwood, Mike
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Morwood, Michael John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION New Zealand paleoanthropologist
DATE OF BIRTH October 27, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH Auckland , New Zealand
DATE OF DEATH 23rd July 2013
Place of death Darwin , Australia