Morwood, Mike 1950-
Morwood, Mike 1950-
PERSONAL:
Born October 27, 1950. Education: University of Auckland, M.A.; Australian National University, Ph.D., 1980.
ADDRESSES:
Office—School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, New South Wales 2522, Australia. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].
CAREER:
Anthropologist and archaeologist. Queensland Government, Australia, researcher; University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia, professor, 1981-2004, professorial fellow, 2004—; University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia, professor, 2007—.
MEMBER:
Australian Rock Art Research Association (president, 1992-2000), Australian Academy of the Humanities (elected fellow, 2003), Australian Archaeological Association.
AWARDS, HONORS:
John Mulvaney Book Award, 2007, for The Discovery of the Hobbit.
WRITINGS:
(Edited, with D.R. Hobbs) Rock Art and Ethnography: Proceedings of the Ethnography Symposium (H), Australian Rock Art Research Association Congress, Darwin 1988, Australian Rock Art Research Association (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 1992.
Visions from the Past: The Archaeology of Australian Aboriginal Art, Smithsonian Institution Press (Washington, DC), 2002.
(With Penny van Oosterzee) The Discovery of the Hobbit: The Scientific Breakthrough That Changed the Face of Human History, Random House Australia (Milsons Point, New South Wales, Australia), 2007.
(With Penny van Oosterzee) A New Human: The Startling Discovery and Strange Story of the "Hobbits" of Flores, Indonesia, also published as A New Human: The Strange Story of the "Hobbit": How the Biggest Discovery in Anthropology since Lucy Shattered More than a Century of Textbook Science, Smithsonian Books/Collins (New York, NY), 2007.
SIDELIGHTS:
Anthropologist and archaeologist Mike Morwood was born on October 27, 1930. He earned his M.A. from the University of Auckland in Auckland, New Zealand, and his Ph.D. in 1980 from the Australian National University in Canberra. He holds a research fellowship with the Australian Academy of the Humanities and is a professional research fellow at the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia. He also holds a concurrent appointment as a professor at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales. An expert on Australian Aboriginal art and Indonesian anthropology and archaeology, Morwood studies environmental changes, evolution, and human migration throughout Indonesia and the surrounding landmasses.
Morwood's book Visions from the Past: The Archaeology of Australian Aboriginal Art examines the history and significance of Australian rock art. The book explains rock carvings as a means of prehistoric communication, and details the various archaeological research techniques, methods of analysis, and interpretations of artifacts. Calling Visions from the Past "an ambitious and important book," Meg Conkey, in her review for Archaeology in Oceania, wrote that "Morwood's book has much to offer, especially to the student and reader who want to find, in a single source, an integrated, single-authored overview of not just Australian rock art, but the contexts—historical, methodological, theoretical, and professional—within which rock art is and has been studied."
Morwood's work came to the attention of the general public in 2003 when, as part of a research team working on the Indonesian island of Flores, he discovered the remains of a small human being, whom he called a "hobbit" after the mythical creatures in J.R.R. Tolkien's book of that name. Morwood determined that the skeleton was a female about three feet tall and thirty years old at the time of her death, who walked upright and had lived about 18,000 years ago. Similar remains found on the nearby island of Liang Bua were dated to 95,000 years ago and supported the idea that there may have been similar family groups occupying the area. Flores was well known as a place where significant dwarfing occurred among other animals, inspiring a debate among archaeologists over the role of disease and adaptation on the diminutive human specimens.
The discovery caused a stir worldwide as political and scientific interests were brought to bear on Morwood's research. One Indonesian anthropologist resorted to stealing bones from Morwood's lab and refusing to allow access to them, insisting they were the remains of modern humans with microcephaly, a pathological condition that causes small skull size. Eventually the bones were returned to Morwood, but not before improper handling had damaged them.
Morwood provided a more complete account of this adventure in A New Human: The Startling Discovery and Strange Story of the "Hobbits" of Flores, Indonesia. Authored with science writer Penny van Oosterzee, the book was also published under the title A New Human: The Strange Story of the "Hobbit": How the Biggest Discovery in Anthropology since Lucy Shattered More Than a Century of Textbook Science. In his review of A New Human for American Scientist, Peter Andrews wrote: "This well-written, entertaining book is both scholarly and accessible to the general public."
The Discovery of the Hobbit: The Scientific Breakthrough That Changed the Face of Human History, also authored with Oosterzee, covered much of the same subject matter as A New Human, with new discoveries (the bones of at least eight more individuals were discovered, dating from 95,000 to 12,000 years old) and a more detailed account of the political difficulties the team faced. Told in the first person, The Discovery of the Hobbit is a more personal account than A New Human and written in a more accessible style for lay readers. Morwood describes his intense research into this group of individuals and his attempt to discover who they were, how they lived, and how they related to each other. In 2007 The Discovery of the Hobbit won the John Mulvaney Book Award for its significant contribution to Australian archaeology.
In her review of The Discovery of the Hobbit for the Sunday Star Times, Nicola Jennings described the book as "intelligent, pacey, and evocative" and called Morwood "unexpectedly good at describing the local characters who worked on the dig in Flores." She further commented on Morwood's enjoyment in creating contraptions to help out with the work, saying: "He lingers lovingly over DIY aspects of the dig." Bruno David, in his review for Archaeology in Oceania, praised the writers: "Morwood and Oosterzee do a marvelous job in this book of unfolding and interconnecting the rich historical, intellectual and physical landscapes of the Hobbit's discovery and its public reaction…. It manages wonderfully to bridge the gap between scientific and popular writing."
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:
PERIODICALS
American Scientist, July 1, 2007, Peter Andrews, "Choosing One's Relatives," p. 354.
Archaeology, July 1, 2007, Zach Zorich, "Homo Hobbittus (A New Human)," p 17.
Archaeology in Oceania, July 1, 2003, Meg Conkey, review of Visions from the Past: The Archaeology of Australian Aboriginal Art, p. 127; October 1, 2007, Bruno David, review of The Discovery of the Hobbit: The Scientific Breakthrough That Changed the Face of Human History, p. 112.
Australasian Business Intelligence, December 8, 2005, Carmelo Amalfi and Leigh Dayton, "Hobbits May Be Earliest Australians."
Book World, July 8, 2007, Marc Kaufman, "A New Human: The Startling Discovery and Strange Story of the ‘Hobbits’ of Flores, Indonesia," p. 11.
Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, February 1, 2008, E. Delson, review of A New Human, p. 1019.
Nature, April 26, 2007, Henry Gee, "In a Hole in the Ground … What Happens When You Find a Hobbit—or a Unicorn?," p. 979.
New Scientist, December 11, 2004, "Tug of War over Access to ‘Hobbit’ Bones," p. 4.
Science Teacher, November 1, 2005, "Hobbit Was Human," p. 14.
Sunday Star Times (Auckland, New Zealand), May 23, 2007, Nicola Jennings, September 23, 2005, "The Discovery of the Hobbit—Mike Morwood and Penny Van Oosterzee," review of The Discovery of the Hobbit.
UPI NewsTrack, September 23, 2005, "Researcher Says Hobbit Was Human."
ONLINE
AASV Lecture Series Web site,http://home.vicnet.net.au/ (July 3, 2008), short author profile.
Australian Archaeological Association Web site,http://www.australianarchaeologicalassociation.com.au/ (July 3, 2008), announcement of John Mulvaney Book Award for The Discovery of the Hobbit.
HarperCollins Web site,http://www.harpercollins.com/ (July 3, 2008), short author profile.
Science Dissemination Unit Web site,http://sdu.ictp.it/dl/ (July 3, 2008), short author profile.
University of New England, Australia, Web site,http://www.une.edu.au/ (July 3, 2008), short author profile.