Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Fiona Hook

@fionahook.bsky.social

670 followers 420 following 68 posts

Australian Archaeologist | CEO, Archae-aus | Archaeomalacology, Island & coastal archaeology, worked shell experiments | Researching Australia’s oldest Aboriginal marine invertebrate use (51 ka) | Desert People Project & Adjunct Lecturer, UWA

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Nov 15

My latest PhD paper is now out on the late Pleistocene tusk shell beads from Boodie Cave, Barrow Island, northwest Australia. The paper also includes discussion of usewear analysis and experimental archaeology.

doi.org/10.1080/0312...

Late Pleistocene scaphopod beads from Boodie Cave and deep time traditions of personal ornamentation in northwest Australia

Tubular segments of Scaphopoda (tusk shell) were traditionally used by Aboriginal peoples in the manufacture of ornate bead necklaces across northwest Australia. Twenty-seven scaphopod shell beads ...

doi.org

2 4 31

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Jul 2

It is indeed :) PhD done; all chapters published bar one and I’ve got a lab full of new scaphopod beads and fragments of Melo to investigate :)

Hope you are well too

1 1

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Jun 30

Great research Chris !

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Jun 29

The oldest shell beads are from Morocco. 142,000 years old - and made from Tritia gibbosula

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Early Middle Stone Age personal ornaments from Bizmoune Cave, Essaouira, Morocco

Shell beads from Bizmoune Cave (Morocco) show the early appearance and continuity of symbolic behavior among early Homo sapiens.

www.science.org

1 1

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Jun 21

I’ll be there. I arrive in Darwin last night. I’m presenting in the T1/8. Palaeolandscapes and People in Australian Deserts on the consumption and use (as tools and ornaments) of marine invertebrates for 51,000 years in north Western Australia.

1 3

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Jun 21

One day I’ll come visit - it looks amazing !

1 1

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Jun 21

They are an amazing species indeed! I have more research to come on their manufacture into large bowls using fire and percussion.

1 2

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · May 3

Ooh I can’t wait to read this!

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Apr 19

This is what I was doing in the lab this week — working through the MNI counts for chitons as part of my reanalysis of the marine invertebrate assemblage from Haynes Cave. Applying a method that is more accurate.
#archaeomalacology #zooarchaeology #chiton #australianarchaeology #MontebelloIslands

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Apr 17

Using archaeological, ethnographic & experimental datasets, we establish a full chaîne opératoire for Melo shell knives—proving manufacture began 46,000 years ago in northern Australia. doi.org/10.1016/j.ja... #zooarchaeology #archaeomalacology #australianarchaeology #experimentalarchaeology

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Apr 14

There is also no evidence of resin on any of the knive and Boodie Cave. Ethnographically in the Wellesley Islands they had wrapped bark handles.

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Apr 14

The shoulder spines are a natural part of Melo amphora. The shell was broken using a hammer stone detaching the lip of the shell which is the knife blade and retaining part of the shell with the spines still attached. Flaking Melo doesn’t work very well owing to its micro structure

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Apr 13

The reduction sequence of a juvenile Melo into a knife followed a set process. The same as technique observed by Tindale in the 1960s in the gulf of Carpentaria. Which is 2,452 km away from Boodie Cave! #archaeomalacology #experimentalarchaeology #australianarchaeology #shelltools

1 8

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Apr 13

The spikes are known as spines and yes they were kept by the makers to allow for a handle wrap of some sort. Perhaps melaleuca.

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Apr 13

This would be wonderful!

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Apr 13

Part of my PhD research looked at shell knives from Boodie Cave, Barrow Island (Hook et al. 2024). We found a 46,000-year tradition of Melo shell knife production—some of the earliest known shell tools made by Homo sapiens.
#archaeomalacology #australianarchaeology #experimentalarchaeology

2 15 61

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Apr 3

Been a bit quiet—waiting on TO approval for my final PhD paper. I’ve moved into my own lab in the Peter Veth Arch Lab + kicked off archaeomalacological reanalysis of the late Pleistocene and early Holocene Haynes + Noala Caves, Montebello Islands, 1980s digs

#shellfish #uwa #australianarchaeology

2 22

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Mar 2

New article on rock art in the Kimberley #australianarchaeology #rockart #kimberley #westenaustralia

Australian Archaeology @austarchj.bsky.social · Feb 19

New article by Motta and colleagues introduces a new Mid-to-Late Holocene rock art style - Linear Naturalistic Figures - from the Kimberly, suggesting a change in how people perceive their landscape and interpreted it through art. 🔓🔑🔽
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Feb 21

Can you add me please :) my two latest papers are on Australian Aboriginal shell beads and shell knives using experimental archaeology to investigate manufacture characteristics, debitage patterns and usewear.

1 1

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Feb 15

New postdoc in Australian archaeology from Sydney University

#auatralianarchaeology #coastalarchaeology #archaeomalacology

School of Humanities @usyd-humanities.bsky.social · Feb 14

A #USyd postgraduate research scholarship in Archaeology
A scholarship to support a PhD student to undertake research on the coastal archaeology of GunaiKurnai Country (Gippsland, Victoria)
www.sydney.edu.au/scholarships...

Postgraduate Research Scholarship in Coastal Archaeology

www.sydney.edu.au

2 4

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Jan 27

I get to research scaphopod shells used as ornaments 13,000 years ago in Australia :)

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Jan 26

Who needs a cure from archaeomalacology awesomeness ! Plus a dose of experimental archaeology too

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Jan 26

bsky.app/profile/did:...

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Jan 26

Whhohoo ! I put together a feed for archaeomalacologists last year - if you want to see what fellow researchers are posting

Fiona Hook @fionahook.bsky.social · Jan 13

Rethinking Australian archaeology narratives: WA’s Aboriginal Heritage Act once centred Aboriginal perspectives, but science now dominates. Using Ingold’s taskscape, we reconnect sites, stories & significance in Nyiyaparli Country.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
#taskscape #Aboriginalsites

Tracing pathways: writing archaeology in Nyiyaparli country

The Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 (WA) uniquely placed Aboriginal perspectives at the heart of assessing significance and protecting Aboriginal places, alongside “historical, anthropological, archaeol...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

1 7