Emilie Dotte-Sarout
Current position
Senior Lecturer in Archaeology
Where did you study?
Paris 1 Sorbonne University and the Australian National University (and University of Minnesota and Montpellier University for my very first archaeology classes)
How did you become interested in archaeology?
Loved dirt, outdoor, ruins, but also books, labs, stories, travels - realised one job could make all of this happen as an actual career!
Also grew up with The Mysterious Cities of Gold if anyone else is from this deep past and can relate...
What archaeological projects are you working on at the moment?
Supposedly just concluded my DECRA project Pacific Matildas, on the history of the first women archaeologists in the Pacific but still working on so much to write on this and hidden figures in the history of our discipline in general.
Also continuing to support and act for the development of archaeobotany in Australia and Oceania at large through the Archaeobotany Lab at the University of Western Australia (UWA), and interdisciplinary projects such as Desert to Sea at UWA, Marra Cultural Heritage Sites with Flinders University, or Past-Atolls with the University of French Polynesia and more Pacific archaeology and collaborations in Vanuatu and New Caledonia.
Tell us about one of your most interesting archaeological discoveries.
Small unassuming charcoal fragments that under the microscope turn out to be tree species demonstrating exchanges between islands (breadfruit from Papua New Guinea in Timor on Alor, or so-called Tahitian chestnut actually from Papua New Guinea and around then found in East Polynesia on Maupiti); or showing that people have longed transformed forests and woodlands into gardens, from Australia to the Pacific islands.
Once you understand this, you never see the landscape around archaeological sites as just a natural background ever again: you start seeing gardens and Country everywhere I guess...
Tell us about a funny / disastrous / amazing experience that you have had while doing archaeology.
Being on Country with Traditional Owners and staying with communities has always been a highlight, everywhere. I guess one recent amazing and could have been disastrous but turned out ok experience was coming back from fieldwork on Emae (Vanuatu) on a very small boat across the mighty Pacific swell for a solid four hours crossing. The Emae captain had solid navigational skills and deep knowledge of the ocean so I was actually never scared but completely ecstatic!
What’s your favourite part of being an archaeologist?
Being able to spend time out wild seeing incredible places and meeting people but also then in amazing archives, libraries and labs!
Also a side note that as a mum-archaeologist I have had to adapt my research to do less fieldwork, more city-based research (archives etc) for a while to be able to take my children around, including to conferences and I am seeing more and more women (sometimes men too) doing so with a normalisation of this, and some support systems being developed, which is great to see!
Follow up reading