The joint winners of this year’s 2022 Rhys Jones Fieldwork Award are Elisa Scorsini and Hendri Kaharudin. Their research projects respectively focus on the island cultures of the Torres Strait and east Indonesia.

This scholarship provides financial support to students who are undertaking fieldwork in the Australia/Pacific region in the areas of Archaeology and Paleoanthropology. Funding for this award has been provided by a generous donation from Dr Betty Meehan to commemorate the life and achievements of her late husband Professor Rhys Jones (1941- 2001), who had a distinguished archaeological career at Cambridge University, the University of Sydney, and ANU.

Elisa Scorsini, an international student from Italy, applied for the scholarship to help fund her research for the course ARCH8031 as part of her Master of Archaeological and Evolutionary Science (Advanced) program.
Elisa will be joining Dr Duncan Wright’s excavation on Dauar Island in the Torres Strait, where her project will focus on the history of the site.

Elisa chose to study at ANU because of the flexibility of the program and “the possibility to collaborate with progressive researchers in the field of Pacific and environmental archaeology”.

PhD student Hendri Kaharudin is studying prehistoric archaeology in Indonesia with a focus on sea urchin (Echinoidea) and crab (Malacostraca) subsistence in the Indo-Pacific region; namely in the Tanimbar Islands. An international student from Indonesia, Hendri aims to advance Indonesian archaeology and collaboration with ANU researchers.

The financial support from this scholarship will enable Hendri to conduct a more thorough and comprehensive investigation, and access unique local knowledge and ethnoarchaeological data that would be “otherwise extremely difficult to obtain”.

The Rhys Jones Fieldwork Award is offered annually, with applications opening in December. To see if you might be eligible and to find out more information, visit: Rhys Jones Fieldwork Award - ANU.

The School of Archaeology and Anthropology has two additional scholarship opportunities for students, namely the Primate Conservation Travel Grant for students of bioanthropology, and the Vis and Anjeli Nathan Travel Grant for students of anthropology.
Please visit ANU Scholarships for details on these opportunities.