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Teaching staff

Our incredible teaching and research staff within the Archaeology sector are experts in their professions and well-connected to industry.

Associate Professor Maritime Archaeology: 
Dr Wendy van Duivenvoorde

Growing up in the Netherlands, a nation famed for its maritime heritage, Wendy van Duivenvoorde became fixated on the sea. Drawn to archaeology at university, she jumped at the opportunity to volunteer on dives at maritime archaeological sites, sealing her fate as a scholar captivated by the histories of the deep. 

Dr van Duivenvoorde came to Australia to be involved in the study of the Batavia, a Dutch East India Company vessel built in Amsterdam that was wrecked on its maiden voyage on the West Australian coast, at a time when the waters of the southern hemisphere were largely uncharted – and 150 years before Captain Cook mapped Australia’s eastern coastline. The loss of the Batavia and the trail of mutiny and murder that followed the disaster fostered huge interest in the excavation of the wreck after it was rediscovered in 1963.

Associate Professor Maritime Archaeology: 
Dr Jonathan Benjamin

Born and raised amongst the Coastal Redwoods and Live Oaks of California, Jonathan spent his childhood in and around Monterey Bay, surfing, cycling, playing youth soccer and baseball and exploring his environment. 

Australia’s maritime archaeology has been dominated by a European colonial narrative, but Jonathan’s fascination with deep time and appreciation of Indigenous archaeology has seen his project team significantly contribute to and expand our understanding of Australia’s past, and what may lie beneath the waves. This opens up an enormous new field of study in Australia.

Jonathan undertook his PhD in Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland. It was here that he combined archaeology with underwater field methods, which led to further studies of Neolithic and Mesolithic coastal sites. A new career opportunity beckoned, and in 2014 he moved to Adelaide to lecture at Flinders and continue his research.

Associate Professor Geoarchaeology:
Dr Mike Morley

A/Professor Mike Morely is a geoarchaeologist with over 20 years’ experience working in both academic and commercial environments. His primary area of expertise is the study of archaeological site formation processes and the reconstruction of palaeoenvironments at various scales through the study of site micro- and macro-stratigraphy, geological sequences and geomorphological landforms. He is interested in reconstructing changes in geomorphological systems (e.g., river behavioural change) and the implications of these dynamics on humans (and hominins) living in—and interacting with—these landscapes. He has worked widely in Europe, North Africa (Sudan, Libya), southern Africa (South Africa, Lesotho), Middle East (Oman, Bahrain, UAE, Saudi Arabia) and Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar, East Timor).

Senior Lecturer Archaeology:  Dr Ania Kotarba

Dr Ania Kotarba’s PhD research used tools such as geoarchaeology, geophysics, maritime archaeology, historical archives, spatial analysis and sedimentological techniques with an aim to explore major ancient ports of trade — with a case study site of Berenike Troglodytica on the Red Sea coast of Egypt — and associated infilled harbour basins around the coasts of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The results of this thesis lead to a better understanding of human adaptations to — and interaction with — the natural environment of the Red Sea (including sea level change in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods) and to elucidate mechanisms of far­‐distance maritime trade in the Early Historic (Pre­‐Islamic) period within the wider Mediterranean-Indian Ocean protoglobalised world.