Person
Thorne, Alan Gordon (1939 - 2012)
- Born
- 1 March 1939
Neutral Bay, New South Wales, Australia - Died
- 21 May 2012
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia - Occupation
- Anthropologist
Summary
Alan Thorne was an anthropologist whose ideas were at the core of international debate about the origins of modern humans, especially Indigenous Australians. He gave palaeoanthropology a solid empirical foundation in the form of Pleistocene and Holocene human remains from the Australian continent and testable models for the origins of Indigenous Australians. He worked on late Pleistocene skeletons from Kow Swamp in northern Victoria and reconstructed the remains know as Mungo Lady. From this Thorne conceived the Regional Continuity Theory on the evolution of humans that contradicted the generally accepted idea of human development. His work on the Lake Mungo remains led to a significant improvement in the relationship between archaeologists and indigenous Australians in the excavation of Aboriginal archaeological sites. Thorne was an effective communicator of science to the public in several media.
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Details
Chronology
- 1963
- Education - Bachelor of Arts (BA), University of Sydney
- 1968
- Education - Master of Arts (MA), University of Sydney
- 1971
- Career event - Appointed Research Fellow (later Senior Fellow), Department of Prehistory, ANU
- 1976
- Education - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Sydney
- 1979 - 1982
- Career position - Co-editor, Australian Archaeology
- 1994
- Career position - Fellow, Australian Academy of the Humanities
- 1994
- Award - Riversleigh Medal, Riversleigh Society
Published resources
Journal Articles
- Bowler, Jim and Brady, Maggie, 'Alan Gordon Thorne 1939 - 2012', Quaternary Australasia, 29 (1) (2012), 50-2. Details
- Curnoe, Darren, 'Obituary: Alan Thorne: Scientist, communicator, 'bridge-builder' and mentor (1939 - 2012)', Australian Archaeology, 75 (2012), 134-5. Details
- Groves, Colin, 'Alan Gordon Thorne 1939 - 2012', PaleoAnthropology, 2012 (2013), 28-32. Details
- Groves, Colin, 'Alan Gordon Thorne 1939 - 2012', Annual Report, Australian Academy of the Humanities, 2012 (2013), 43-5. Details
Resources
- Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q4707908. Details
- VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/68423713. Details
- 'Thorne, A G (19390301-20120521)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-535159. Details
See also
- Bowler, Jim, 'Unlikely encounters: Geology and archaeology' in Dhoombak goobgoowana: a history of Indigenous Australia and the University of Melbourne - Volume 1: The Truth, Ross L. Jones, James Waghorne and Marcia Langton, eds (Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 2024), pp. 107-124, https://www.mup.com.au/books/dhoombak-goobgoowana-paperback-softback. Details
Helen Cohn
Last modified: 21 August 2019