2021 CACHE Postdoctoral Research Fellow Michael Spate

CACHE welcomes Dr Michael Spate as one of our 2021 Postdoctoral Research Fellows. Mike is the Edwin Cuthbert Hall Research Fellow in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Sydney focusing on the deep history of human-environment interactions across Eurasia.

Mike completed his doctorate in 2020 at the University of Sydney with a thesis exploring the long-term pastoralist ecology of the Kashmir Valley. His CACHE fellowship project expands upon this research by considering the Central Asian region more broadly. Mike is exploring the ancient and historic ecology of the area through palaeoenvironmental data, rather than archaeological or ethnographic material. Proxies such as pollen, charcoal, fungal spores, and sediments point to past human perturbations in the environmental record, such as periods of land use or abandonment. This information helps to build a diachronic narrative of human ecology in the Central Asian region, with at least 4500 years of diverse and adaptive practices developing to the present day. As a primary outcome of this project, Mike will be publishing a comprehensive review of the current available data, which will assist in identifying future research questions.

Mike’s research project is part of his broader engagement with the environmental and archaeological heritage of Eurasia. From 2012–2014, after completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Sydney, he worked as a research assistant for the geoarchaeology laboratory at the Al-Farabi National University in Kazakhstan, carrying out field research relating to ancient water management systems. Since 2015, Mike has also been a member of the Kashmir Prehistory Project, a collaborative initiative between the University of Sydney and the University of Kashmir to explore the ancient human ecology of this area. Part of his current work as postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Sydney involves publishing and archiving the legacy data from this project as well as investigating past dietary and environmental change in the Himalayas.

Along with his research activities, which have resulted in an extensive list of publications, Mike has also worked closer to home as an archaeological consultant for a number of Australian companies, including GML Heritage, Casey & Lowe, EMM Consulting, Cultural Resources Management, and Lumburra Bimbi, the latter being the corporate entity for the Western Kangoulu native title group in central Queensland.

CACHE is delighted to be supporting Mike’s work in better understanding global environmental heritage. For more information about his research and publications, see his University of Sydney and ResearchGate profiles.