Jennifer (Jenny) Atchison

Position:        Senior Research Assistant, Honorary Fellow
Email:            jennya@uow.edu.au

AUSCCER (Australian Centre for Cultural Environmental Research)

CAS (Centre for Archaeological Science)
 

Research Interests

I am a geographer and environmental scientist interested in the relationship between plants and people in contemporary life, as well as over longer time frames. My research utilises scientific as well as qualitative social science and cultural research methods. My PhD examined the late Holocene and post contact vegetation history of the Keep River region of the Northern Territory, specifically Aboriginal use and management of fruit trees, and use and management of Australian yams (Dioscorea sp.).

More recently my postdoctoral research within AUSCCER examined the cultural geography of wheat in Australia, focusing on the transformation and mobility of wheat as a food and industrial substance, and on the experience of climate change in the everyday lives of wheat farmers in NSW. I am currently working on a project with Lesley Head about the social life of invasive plants.

Current projects

• The Social Life of Invasive Plants
• The Wheat Project:  Ingrained: A Human Bio-geography of Wheat

Publications and in press

Atchison, J. and L. Head (accepted) Eradicating bodies in invasive plant management. Environment and Planning D.

Dáithí C. Murray, Stuart G. Pearson, Richard Fullagar, Brian M. Chase, Jayne Houston, Jennifer Atchison, Nicole E. White, Matthew I. Bellgard, Edward Clarke, Mike Macphail, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, James Haile, Michael Bunce. (2012)  High-throughput sequencing of ancient plant and mammal DNA preserved in herbivore middens. Quaternary Science Reviews 58: 135-145

Head, L., Atchison, J., and A. Gates (2012). Ingrained: a human bio-geography of wheat. Burlington: Ashgate

Atchison, J. and L. Head (2013). Exploring human-plant entanglements: the case of Australian Dioscorea yams, in D. Frankel, J. Webb and S. Lawrence (Eds.) Archaeology in Environment and Technology: Intersections and Transformation. New York, Routledge pp167-180

Atchison, J. and L. Head. 2012. Yam landscapes; the biogeography and social life of Australian Dioscorea, in L. Russell & Z. Ma Rhea (Eds) The world of plants in Aboriginal Australia: essays in honour of Beth Gott. The Artefact, volume 35

Waitt, G., Adams, M., Atchison, Head, L., J., Jones, M., Macquarie, P., Saltzman, K., Setten, G., and M. Stenseke (in press) Spotlight on The teleconference and its implications for Geographical knowledge sharing. Geography 97(1): 42-46

Head, L., Atchison, J., Gates, A. and P. Muir (2011) A fine-grained study of the experience of drought, risk and climate change among Australian wheat farming households. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 101(5): 1089-1108

Atchison, J. M., Head, L. M. and A.S. Gates (2010) Wheat as food, wheat as industrial substance; comparative geographies of transformation and mobility. Geoforum, 41: 236-246

Denham, T., Atchison, J., Austin, J., Bestel, S., Bowdery, D., Crowther, A. et al. (2009) Archaeobotany in Australia and New Guinea: Practice, potential and prospects. Australian Archaeology, 68:1-10

Atchison J. (2009) Human impacts on Persoonia falcata. Perspectives on post-contact vegetation change in the Keep River region, Australia, from contemporary vegetation surveys. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 18:147-157

Head, L. and J. Atchison (2008) Cultural ecology: emerging human-plant geographies. Progress in Human Geography, 33(2): 236-245

Atchison J. L. Head and R. Fullagar (2005) Archaeobotany of fruit seed processing in a monsoon savanna environment: evidence from the Keep River region, Northern Territory, Australia. Journal of Archaeological Science, 32:167-181

Head L., J. Atchison and R. Fullagar (2002) Country and garden. Ethnobotany, archaeobotany and Aboriginal landscapes near the Keep River, northwestern Australia. Journal of Social Archaeology, 2(2):173-196

Atchison J., L.M. Head, and L.P. McCarthy (2000) Stomatal parameters and atmospheric change since 7500 years before present. Evidence from Eremophila deserti (Myoporaceae) leaves from the Flinders Ranges South Australia. Australian Journal of Botany, 48:223-232

Atchison J. and L. Head (1999) Preparing sub-fossil leaves from Leporillus spp. (Stick-nest rat) middens for measuring stomatal parameters. Quaternary Australasia, 17:27-30

Atchison J. and R. Fullagar (1998) Starch residues on pounding implements from Jinmium rock-shelter in A Closer Look: Recent Australasian Studies of Stone Tools (R. Fullagar Ed). Sydney Archaeology Laboratories, Sydney

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