Jim Allen is an Australian

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

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 remot ...

at the northernmost point of the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

. He also worked on the

Lapita culture The Lapita culture is the name given to a Neolithic Austronesian peoples, Austronesian people and their distinct material culture, who settled Island Melanesia via a seaborne migration at around 1600 to 500 BCE. The Lapita people are believed t ...

, 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 university, public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. Its main campus is located in the suburb of Bundoora, Victoria, Bundoora. The university was established in 1 ...

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 university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

. 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, NGO, 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 ...

. 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