Iain Davidson

Iain Davidson is an emeritus professor of Archaeology in the School of Humanities at the University of New England. Holds honorary positions at Flinders University, the University of Queensland and Harvard University. Worked at the University of New England for 34 years, helping to start the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology. Awarded a Personal Chair in 1997 until retirement in 2008. Visiting Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University in 2008-9. Awarded the Rhys Jones Medal of the Australian Archaeological Association 2010. I have worked on the Spanish Upper Palaeolithic, archaeology and ethnography of Northwest Queensland, Australian rock art, archaeology and heritage, and language origins. I have contributed to discussions of interpreting animal bones as evidence of prehistoric economy, use of ethnography in archaeological interpretation, evidence of non-human primates for understanding language origins, the interface between psychology and archaeology, problems of understanding the "meaning" of prehistoric art, and the relations between stone tools and cognition, and the evolution of cognition.