ISA2024 Sessions

The full Abstract Booklet can be downloaded here:

Featured Session (S1): Theme session: Rock art and pigments

This themed session aims to share knowledge about rock art from across Australia and globally. The session welcomes papers concerned with all areas of rock art scholarship such as dating, ochre and pigment characterisation, typology and conservation and includes pictographs (painted rock art), petroglyphs (carved rock art), earth figures (surface scapings) and petroforms (stone arrangements).

Session 2 (S2): Field methods and remote sensing in archaeological science

This session welcomes papers on archaeological science field methods including surveying and remote sensing techniques such as aerial survey, geophysical survey, surface survey, satellite imaging and LiDAR applications. 

Session 3 (S3): Dating methods

This session welcomes papers on chronometric applications in archaeology (radiocarbon, dendrochronology, fission track, potassium-argon, optically stimulated luminescence), archaeomagnetic, U-series) relating to artefacts, archaeological landscapes, food remains, shells and skeletal material.

Session 4 (S4): Bioarchaeology and biomolecules

This session welcomes papers on zooarchaeology and the molecular study of archaeological human and faunal remains and organic residues including studies utilising DNA analysis, imaging, and isotopic analysis.

Session 5 (S5): Stone, residues, use wear

This session welcomes papers on the archaeometric study of stone (artefacts, monuments, stone arrangements and megaliths) including use-wear and residue analysis, spatial analysis, and production technology to facilitate greater understanding of provenance, raw material preference and functionality.

Session 6 (S6): Ceramic, metal, vitreous

This session welcomes papers on the study of ceramics, metals, and vitreous materials (including glass, glazes, obsidian, metal artefacts) with a focus on provenance, production technology and raw material trade (including isotopic analysis, portable X-ray fluorescence, synchrotron science).

Session 7 (S7): Human-environment interactions

This session welcomes papers that discuss the dynamic interplay between humans and the environments they have inhabited throughout the past, from deep time to the recent past. How have humans responded to climatic change, how did they adapt to changing environments and how did they modify their environments? This session embraces research from all fields of inquiry including palaeoclimatology, palaeoenvironmental sciences, geoarchaeology, palaeoecology, geomorphology, archaeobotany and zooarchaeology. This session especially welcomes papers incorporating traditional ecological knowledge from across the globe.

Session 8 (S8): Architectural and cultural heritage archaeology 

This session welcomes papers on architectural and decorative archaeology including the provenance and technology of archaeological building materials (marble, stone, plaster), building techniques (interior/exterior), building context and utility (spatial analysis, 3-D reconstruction) and cultural heritage (objects and monuments provenance and technology).