Previous web articles by the IPS Student Envoy for Australia/Aotearoa New Zealand have explored the origins of phytolith research in the region, beginning with CSIRO: https://phytoliths.org/the-first-formal-australian-institution-of-phytolith-research-csiro-the-commonwealth-scientific-and-industrial-research-organisation-1948-1969/). In this new web article, Molly Turnbull investigates another leading Australasian phytolith research institution: Southern Cross University (commonly abbreviated as ‘SCU’ or ‘Southern Cross’). Southern Cross is a regional university located in Lismore, on unceded Widjabul/Wia-bal Country in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales (NSW), on the eastern coast of Australia (see Image 1). Based on publication trends, phytolith research persisted for roughly 18 years at Southern Cross (e.g., Boyd and Lynch in Balme and Beck 1996; Parr and Sullivan 2014).
[Image 1] Caption: The Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia [image credit: M. Turnbull]
Phytolith research at Southern Cross University can be traced back to the geographer, geoarchaeologist and landscape scientist; William (Bill) Edgar Boyd. Boyd started using phytolith analysis to reconstruct Australian archaeological sites during the 1980s and 1990s. This was while Boyd held fellowships and teaching positions at various Australian and international institutions such as the University of Adelaide (South Australia), the University of New England (Northern Rivers, New South Wales), and the University of Glasgow (Scotland). Following this, Boyd began a lectureship at Southern Cross University in 1994, bringing with him expertise of phytolith and microfossil analyses. This informed the establishment of two Southern Cross research centres that conducted phytolith analysis: the Centre of Coastal Management and the Centre for Geoarchaeology and Palaeoenvironmental Research. The establishment of phytolith research at Southern Cross during the 1990s was concurrent with the development of other leading phytolith groups throughout Australia, as part of the broader era of modernisation efforts in Australasian phytolith research (Turnbull et al. 2023).
These early Boyd-led applications included phytolith analyses of various Australian sites in significant localities such as Roonka in South Australia (Boyd and Pretty 1989; Boyd et al. 1991) and the Macquarie Marshes in New South Wales (Balme and Beck 1996; see Appendix 2; pg. 50). Boyd and collaborators found that reeds were deliberately placed in Indigenous burials at Roonka (Boyd and Pretty 1989; Boyd et al. 1991). Doreen Bowdery of the Australian National University [hyperlink to: https://phytoliths.org/nearly-40-years-of-phytolith-research-at-the-australian-national-university/] later built upon this work by examining phytoliths from the dental calculus of individuals buried at Roonka. In doing so, Bowdery (1996: 28) argued for the presence of a Banksia-specific phytolith morphotype. Banksia is a native Australian genus of the Proteaceae family (see Image 2).
The Macquarie Marshes project attempted to identify diagnostic murnong (“daisy yam”; Microseris lanceolata [walp.] Schultz-bip) phytoliths at Indigenous earthen mound sites (Balme and Beck 1996). This involved Boyd leading modern phytolith reference collection research on murnong root, stem, leaf, and floret material. Murnong is a member of the Asteraceae family known for its sweet edible tuber with low fibre content that is eaten raw or cooked (see Image 2). The results were largely inconclusive, and no perforated Asteraceae phytolith platelets (Bozarth 1992) were identified in the reference material or the fossil record. The Macquarie Marshes project was part of a broader wave of Australian archaeological interest in murnong at the time, largely inspired by the ethnobotanical research of Beth Gott (1922—2022), who was based at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia) for most of her career. Unfortunately, the cultural use of murnong remains unresolved from phytolith taxonomy and archaeological perspectives, despite Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) revealing a deep-time connection between people and murnong, particularly in relation to women’s knowledge (Gott 1983). Gott (1983) found that murnong relies on systematic digging and/or burning practices by people, which promote rich soils to facilitate its abundance and spread. European colonisation is thought to have led to the widespread decline of these practices, negatively impacting murnong populations.
[Image 2] Caption: Left: Banksia spp. (Proteaceae family); Right: Murnong (Microseris lanceolata [walp.] Schultz-bip; Asteraceae family) [image credit: M. Turnbull]
Carol Lentfer is a leading Australian phytolith and starch analyst who began her career at Southern Cross University. Lentfer undertook Masters (1997) and Doctoral (2003) thesis projects under the supervision of Boyd. These projects involved assembling a modern reference collection and using modern sediment analogues to reconstruct vegetation and plant-use histories for archaeological and palaeoecological sites in Melanesia. This remains the largest Australasian phytolith reference collection ever assembled with 2,275 samples from 731 plant species.
During this period, Lentfer and collaborators (1997) conducted a phytolith study of an early colonial site in southeastern Australia, that involved modern reference collection research on introduced and native grasses. Lentfer later continued exploring phytolith applications for Melanesia (Lentfer 2009a) and also extended phytolith analysis to Indonesia (Lentfer 2009b), all while collaborating with many other leading Australian starch and phytolith analysts. This included Robin Torrence (Australian Museum), Doreen Bowdery (ANU), Lynley Wallis (ANU), Diane Hart (Macquarie University), and Alison Crowther (University of Queensland; UQ) (Turnbull et al. 2023).
Jeffrey Parr (2003) is another leading Australian phytolith analyst who began as an PhD student supervised by Boyd in the School of Environmental Science and Management at Southern Cross. Parr went on to become a Research Fellow in the Southern Cross GeoScience (SCGS) department and a global leader in biogeochemical phytolith research. This resulted in investigations into how phytolith-occluded carbon (‘PhytOC’) contributes to the global carbon cycle (Parr et al. 2009, 2010; Parr and Sullivan 2005, 2011, 2014). This research was conducted in collaboration with Professor Leigh Sullivan, an environmental and soil scientist with expertise in geochemistry and mineralogy. Parr also studied phytolith morphometrics and heating-based colouration (Parr 2004; 2006). Overall, Parr’s research greatly impacted how we understand past, present, and future ecosystems, as these data are important for isotopic and dating studies, as well as climate change mitigation strategies (Turnbull et al. 2023).
Together, Boyd, Lentfer, and Parr became well-known for improving phytolith extraction methods that resulted in testing and developing a series of processing and pre-treatment techniques, leading to new chemical and equipment recommendations (Lentfer & Boyd 1998; 1999; 2000; Boyd et al. 1998; Parr et al. 2001a; 2001b; Parr 2002; Lentfer et al. 2003; Parr & Farrugia 2003). These Southern Cross methods are still widely used by Australian analysts today, including at the University of Queensland and the University of Wollongong. The Southern Cross phytolith group also investigated Australasian archaeological and palaeoecological sites using phytoliths, including local Northern Rivers sites in Byron Bay (i.e. Taffs et al. 2010) and the Torres Strait in Australia’s northeast (Parr and & Carter 2003). Kathryn H. Taffs was a Southern Cross PhD student who went on to collaborate with Parr and others to use phytoliths, pollen, diatoms, and other proxies to identify environmental and anthropogenic impacts on coastal sites in the region.
While the last phytolith publication from the Southern Cross University was published over a decade ago (i.e. Parr and Sullivan 2014), broader Indo-Pacific geoarchaeological research efforts have continued through the new Geoarchaeology and Archaeometry Research Group (GARG) based at Southern Cross University. Southern Cross also has an Analytical Research Laboratory (ARL) herbarium with a medicinal plant collection and gardens, along with analytical equipment such as HPLC, GC, and mass spectrometry. These facilities have supported numerous pharmacognostic and ethnobotanical studies over the years, on both historical and modern plants, overseen by Dr. Peter Mouatt (ARL Senior Technical Officer; Teaching Associate).
The ARL has also supported collaborative SCU-UQ ethnobotanical and archaeobotanical investigations. For example, Melody Li (2019) undertook an archaeobotanical and chemical study of contraceptive plant-use in the Greco-Roman world (see Image 3). This was part of a UQ honours thesis project that involved using the ARL in collaboration with Mouatt. Li is now undertaking a doctoral thesis project at the University of Oxford [hyperlink to: https://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/people/melody-li] that also uses an archaeobotanical and chemical approach to tea (Camellia sinensis) found in archaeological sites across China.
[Image 3]. Recreations of Soranus’ contraceptive recipes that identified archaeobotanical and chemical by-products and waste left behind throughout the process [image credit: M. Li].
Taffs remains an Adjunct Associate Professor at Southern Cross. Before retirement, Parr went on to direct the company ‘Plantstone’ and served as an Adjunct Professor at the Fujian Academy of Forestry Sciences (China). Sullivan is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Canberra and director of ‘Acid Sulfate Soil Management Solutions’. Boyd remains an Emeritus Professor and Teaching Associate at Southern Cross.
The legacy of phytolith sciences at Southern Cross University is intertwined with nearby institutions such as the University of Queensland (UQ) in Brisbane (~200 kms north). As a Research Fellow, Lentfer went on to establish the phytolith research program at UQ, where she remains an Adjunct Fellow. We anticipate that future web articles will continue to explore the story of Australasian phytolith research groups, eventually including the UQ group. This blog post was written on unceded Yuin, Dharawal, and Eora Lands in Australia.
References
Balme, J. & Beck, W. (1996). Earth Mounds in Southeastern Australia. Australian Archaeology 42, 39-51.
Boyd, W. E. & Pretty, G. L. (1989). Some prospects for archaeological palaeobotany in Australia: An example from South Australia. Australian Archaeology 28, 40–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.1989.12093190
Boyd, W. E., Lentfer, C. J. & Torrence, R. (1998). Phytolith analysis for a wet tropics environment: Methodological issues and implications for the archaeology of Garua island, West New Britain, Papua New Guinea. Palynology 22, 213–228. https://doi.org/10.1080/01916 122.1998.9989510
Boyd, W.E., Lynch, H., & Pretty G. L. (1991). Phytoliths from Roonka, South Australia: An introductory report. Quaternary Australasia 9, 33.
Bozarth, S. R. (1992). Classification of opal phytoliths formed in selected dicotyledons native to the Great Plains. In: Mulholland, S. C. & Rapp, G. (Eds.), Phytolith Systematics: Emerging Issues. Springer US, New York, pp.193-214.
Gott, B. (1983). Murnong—Microseris scapigera: a study of a staple food of Victorian Aborigines. Australian Aboriginal Studies 2, 2-18.
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Lentfer, C. J. (1997). Extraction of phytoliths and other palynomorphs from sediments. Masters thesis [Southern Cross University, Lismore].
Lentfer, C. J. (2003). Plants, People and Landscapes in Prehistoric Papua New Guinea: A Compendium of Phytolith (and Starch) Analyses. Doctoral thesis [Southern Cross University, Lismore].
Lentfer, C. J. (2009a). Tracing Domestication and Cultivation of Bananas from Phytoliths: An update from Papua New Guinea. Ethnobotany Research and Applications 7, 247–270.
Lentfer, C. J. (2009b). Building a comparative starch reference collection for Indonesia and its application to palaeoenvironmental and archaeological research. In: Haslam, M., Robertson, G., Crowther, A., Nugent, S. & Kirkwood, L. (Eds.), Archaeological Science Under a Microscope: Studies in Residue and Ancient DNA Analysis in Honour of Thomas H. Loy. Terra australis 30, ANU E Press, Canberra, pp. 80-101.
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Li, M. (2019). The Archaeology of Contraception in the Greco-Roman World: An Archaeobotanical Case Study on Contraceptive Plant Use in Soranus’ Gynaecology. Honours thesis [The University of Queensland, Brisbane, School of Social Science]. https://doi.org/10.14264/4c27fc4
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Parr, J. F. & Farrugia, K. (2003). Waste reduction and value adding during fossil phytolith extraction and palaeoenvironmental analysis of volcanic sediments and tephra using microwave digestion and ICP/MS. In: Hart, D. M. & Wallis, L. A. (Eds.), Phytoliths and starch research in the Australian-Pacific-Asian regions: the state of the art. Terra Australis 19, Pandanus Books, Canberra, pp. 19–30.
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Taffs, K. H., Logan, B., Parr, J. F., Jacobsen, G. E. (2010). The evolution of a coastal peatland at Byron Bay, Australia: multi-proxy evidence from the microfossil record. In: Haberle, S., Stevenson, J. & Prebble, M. (Eds.), Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes. Terra Australis 32, ANU E Press, Canberra, pp. 429–442.
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