Flinders facility to use the micro realm to understand the past

Australian researchers will soon have greater capacity to analyse our past at the microscopic level, with the Australian Microarchaeological and Palaeosciences Facility (AusMAP) set to be established at Flinders University in Adelaide.

Described as the first of its kind in the world, AusMAP will position Australia at the forefront of micro-scale data generation, aiming to revolutionise the ways scientists address key questions and grand challenges in the fields of archaeology, palaeontology and the geosciences. The laboratory has been made possible with a significant investment from the Australian Research Council’s 2025 Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities scheme.

Lead Chief Investigator Associate Professor Mike Morley, a geoarchaeologist and Director of the Flinders Microarchaeology Laboratory, said the ways scientists study the past and the types of information they can collect are changing at a remarkable pace.

“With huge advances in technological capability, both in the field and the laboratory, the most significant transformations are occurring at the smallest scales of analysis; in the micro realm,” Morley said.

“We are continuing to drill down into new layers of understanding our past and, as each of these advances are made, the techniques required to analyse and contextualise the data are becoming increasingly vital.

“AusMAP aims to be the first of its kind, putting Australia ahead of the curve in these emerging fields of micro-analyses, which are likely to underpin the future of archaeological, palaeontological and Earth science.”

Serving Australia, South-East Asia, the South Pacific and global collaborations, AusMAP will be a state-of-the-art laboratory complex enabling analyses of cultural, fossil and environmental materials at microscopic scales. By combining cutting-edge micro-scale recording and excavation techniques with quantitative analytical instrumentation, the facility will allow Australia to lead the field in micro-scale analyses of artefacts, fossils, ecofacts, rocks and minerals.

“Microarchaeology is already being used by our team in groundbreaking research; from the extinction of the largest ever primate, Gigantopithecus blacki, to understanding the chemical environments that can preserve rock art, as well as reconstructing the environments of the earliest Homo sapiens in South-East Asia,” Morley said.

“Building on the work of Flinders Microarchaeology Laboratory, the establishment of AusMAP and its new high-specification technology will take these analyses to unprecedented heights.

“This is a significant milestone in our quest to understand the past at a microscopic level. This facility will enable us to uncover details that were previously beyond our reach, providing unprecedented insights into human history and environmental changes.”

Image caption: Associate Professor Mike Morley with a microscope slide detailing the change in sediments at Laili rockshelter.