Jim Allen is an Australian

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

specialising in the archaeology of the South Pacific. Allen led the first professional excavation of a European site in Australia, the 1840s military settlement of Victoria, which was established at

Port Essington Port Essington is an inlet and historic site located on the Cobourg Peninsula in the Garig Gunak Barlu National Park in Australia's Northern Territory. It was the site of an early attempt at British settlement, but now exists only as a remote ...

at the northernmost point of the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

. He also worked on the

Lapita culture The Lapita culture is the name given to a Neolithic Austronesian people and their material culture, who settled Island Melanesia via a seaborne migration at around 1600 to 500 BCE. They are believed to have originated from the northern Philipp ...

, tracing the expansion of Polynesian settlement through its distinctive pottery style. In the 1990s, he played a prominent role in the debate over the forced repatriation of Aboriginal remains.Kathy Laster.
Law as Culture
'. Federation Press; 2001. . p. 230. Allen was the Foundation Professor of Department of Archaeology at

La Trobe University La Trobe University is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Its main campus is located in the suburb of Bundoora. The university was established in 1964, becoming the third university in the state of Victoria an ...

from 1985 to 1993. Prior to that, he taught in the department of prehistory at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

. From 1993, he was a professorial fellow of the

Australian Research Council The Australian Research Council (ARC) is the primary non-medical research funding agency of the Australian Government, distributing more than in grants each year. The Council was established by the ''Australian Research Council Act 2001'', ...

and research associate at La Trobe. In 2012 he was elected a foreign associate of the United States

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

. In 2018, by then a Professor Emeritus, Allen co-authored a paper showing evidence of earlier-that- expected arrival of humans in Australia."Aboriginal Australians Shocked by Volcanic Eruption 37,000 Years Ago Could Still Be Telling the Tale"
''Haaretz'', 12 March 2020, by Ruth Schuster

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Further reading