Join Madeline Shanahan and a panel of experts to explore food as a powerful lens onto Australia’s past.
Twenty-first century Australia is a nation somewhat obsessed with food. From cookbooks to television screens, we are surrounded by conversations about what and how we eat. This fixation highlights the fact that food is, and always has been, a central component of human culture – especially in a diverse nation like Australia.
In recent years, this contemporary food focus has increasingly looked to the past for answers relating to health and sustainable practices. While historians in Australia have contributed extensively to these discussions, there has been surprisingly little input from archaeologists. This is even more surprising when we consider that so much of what archaeologists excavate – such as faunal remains, ceramics and cesspits – can collectively tell the story of food culture when drawn together and considered as a whole.
To open up this dialogue, Archaeologies of Food in Australia addresses the archaeology of food from deep time to the recent past. It showcases the many varied approaches to the study of food in Australia, from the archaeological sciences (such as zooarchaeology and archaeobotanical analysis) through to discussions of historic kitchens and cookery.
Archaeologies of Food in Australia spans diverse cultural groups, including First Nations peoples, European migrants and Chinese diaspora communities, and examines evidence across millennia. Contributors demonstrate the breadth and richness of archaeological food research currently undertaken in Australia, and in doing so, they address critical questions about diet, cookery, dining and food culture.
This panel discussion, featuring the editor of Archaeologies of Food in Australia, contributing authors and other experts, explores food as a powerful lens onto Australia’s past. Grounded in archaeology, it examines how food practices are deeply connected to community, identity, and cultural life. Crossing deep time to the recent past, the conversation considers how archaeological and historical approaches to material culture illuminate changing foodways and the social worlds they sustained.
About the panel
Dr Madeline Shanahan is the Director of Underground Heritage and an expert member of the ACT Heritage Council. With more than two decades of experience in heritage, she is the author of a range of publications on food and identity, including the recently released Archaeologies of Food in Australia (Sydney University Press). Her research focuses on food, recipe books, domestic life and ritual.
Dr Jacqui Newling is a historian and museum curator whose practice is shaped by a hungry mind. With a background in gastronomy, Jacqui uses food as a lens into Australian settler-colonial history, heritage and identity. She takes a hands-on approach to culinary research, placing emphasis on process and practice, often by replicating a dish or technique to better appreciate the less tangible elements of a recipe or style of cookery, including practical, sensory and social considerations that influence what - and often what we don’t - eat.
Dr Tim Owen is an archaeologist with 25 years’ experience in Aboriginal cultural heritage and landscape research, with expertise spanning excavation, bioarchaeology, and community collaboration. He is a senior research fellow at Flinders University and an award-winning leader of major projects nationwide.
Dr Nick Pitt is a historian and archaeologist who focuses on the human and more-than-human networks shaped by British colonisation and empire, specialising in eastern Australia during the first half of the nineteenth century. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow with the Laureate Centre for History and Population at UNSW Sydney, and has previously worked as an historical archaeologist in Sydney.
Copies of the book will be available for purchase and be signed by the author.
When: 2-3.30pm, Thursday 21 May 2026
Where: The Theatre, Australian National Maritime Museum, 2 Murray Street, Sydney NSW 2000
Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/author-talk-archaeologies-of-food-in-australia-tickets-1799228202989?aff=oddtdtcreator