Dr Robin Torrence
Key Info
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- Position Title
- Senior Fellow, Archaeology and Geosciences
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- Section
- Archaeology and Geosciences
- Branch
- Life and Geosciences
- Division
- Australian Museum Research Institute
Email Dr Robin Torrence
Dr Robin Torrence's archaeological research focuses on the roles of ancient material culture, especially stone tools, in peoples’ daily lives, social strategies, and exchange systems. Dr Torrence has been especially interested in how the manufacture, design and exchange of tools can help people minimise risks. Throughout her career, Dr Torrence has collaborated in the development of new methods for studying trade, stone tool use, and subsistence patterns. Dr Torrence has been fortunate to have participated in fieldwork in many parts of the world, but her major projects have been in Greece, Papua New Guinea, and eastern Russia.
Robin's current research aims to understand social change in western Pacific societies over the past c. 50,000 years, since earliest colonization of the region. Robin is particularly interested in finding out how people coped with the highly active volcanic environment in West New Britain province, Papua New Guinea. Robin's research utilizes multiple interdisciplinary methods to reconstruct social landscapes, with particular emphasis placed on studying the production and exchange of obsidian artifacts, changes in land-use practices, and patterns of recolonisation following the relatively frequent disastrous volcanic events that occurred.
Another major research interest is the study of how indigenous groups used objects now commonly found in ethnographic museum collections to negotiate social relationships with outsiders. In collaboration with scholars from the University of Sydney and independent curators and researchers, Robin is studying changes in manufacture, style, and form of the artefacts actively used to structure social relations between local groups and European explorers, traders and government officials during the late nineteenth century in British New Guinea.
Research Projects
- Understanding the diversity of stone tool assemblages over the past 50,000 years in West New Britain, Papua New Guinea.
- Impact of natural disasters on cultural change with special reference to West New Britain, Papua New Guinea.
- Reconstructing cross cultural social interaction through the analysis of ethnographic museum collections with a focus on the colonial history of Papua New Guinea.
Qualifications
1981 Ph.D. (Anthropology), University of New Mexico, U. S. A.
1974 M.A. (Anthropology), University of New Mexico, U.S.A.
1971 A.B. (magna cum laude), Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Appointments
2002-2020 Research Scientist, Australian Museum
Grants, awards and scholarships
2016 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales
2016 AMRI Medal, Australian Museum Research Institute
2013 ICOM Australia Award for International Relations
2002 Society for American Archaeology Award for Excellence in Archaeological Analysis
1999 Elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities
Field Reports Papua New Guinea
These reports are available for download:
- PDF Archaeological Research in West New Britain and the National Museum, Nov 2010
- PDF Archaeological Survey at Hargy Oil Palms, Ltd., Nov 2010
- PDF Indigenous Agency and Ethnograpic Collections from Central Province, Papua New Guinea, Sep-Oct 2008
- PDF Archaeological Fieldwork in West New Britain, Apr-May 2005
- PDF Archaeological Research in West New Britain, Papua New Guinea, Apr-May 2005
- PDF Archaeological Research in West New Britain, Papua New Guinea, Jun-Jul 2004
- PDF Archaeological Fieldwork in West New Britain, Jun-Aug 2002
- PDF Report on an Archaeological Survey on the Bali-Witu Islands, West New Britain, Jul 2002
- PDF Archaeological Fieldwork in West New Britain, Jun-Jul 2001
- PDF Archaeological Fieldwork in West New Britain, May-Jun 2000
- PDF Archaeological Fieldwork on Numundo and Garu Plantations, West New Britain, Jul 1999
- PDF Archaeology Field Guide - Uluwan Decade Volcano Workshop, 1998
- PDF Archaeological Fieldwork in West New Britain, Papua New Guinea, Jun-Aug 1997
- PDF Archaeological Fieldwork on Garua Island, Jun-Aug 1996
- PDF Archaelological and Ethnobotanical Fieldwork in West New Britain, Jun-Jul 1995
- PDF Archaeological Research on Garua Island, Jun-Jul 1993
- PDF Report on Archaeological Research on Garua Island, Jul-Aug 1992
