Sue O’Connor

Global origins of tuna and billfish fisheries reveal the transition from coastal access to oceanic exploitation

Ocean ecosystems have played a crucial role in people’s lives around the world for millennia. However, questions persist about when, why, and how people first began removing biomass from offshore habitats and established fisheries in distant, oceanic environments. We explore the...

4000-year-old painted plaque from Southeast Indonesia reveals Austronesian Painting Tradition preceded Neolithic pottery

The Austronesian dispersal is the largest such event in human history, with descendants of people from Taiwan colonizing islands from Rapa Nui to Madagascar. The extent to which this dispersal was facilitated by an economic package or a particular ideology is uncertain. The “Aust...