Debbie Argue

Debbie is an Honorary Associate Professor in the School of Culture History and Languages at the Australian National University. Her fields of expertise encompass human evolution, biological anthropology? and archaeology. Debbie has a BA Honours degree in Archaeology, in which she focused on the prehistory of the Australian Alps. She worked as a consultant archaeologist, then as Heritage Officer in local government for fourteen years. Developing a keen interest in human evolution, Debbie undertook a PhD based upon extensive analyses of original hominin fossil material held in museums and other institutions in Africa, Europe and Asia. Soon after Debbie commenced her PhD research, a new species of hominin, Homo floresiensis, was discovered. This species became a special focus of her subsequent research. She has continued to carry out international collaborative research projects to resolve key questions about Homo floresiensis, including its place on the human evolutionary tree, while investigating other major questions in human evolution. Her book about Homo floresiensis, ‘Little Species Big Mystery’, was published by Melbourne University Publishing in 2022 and that same year won the John Mulvaney Book Award. 

Homo floresiensis; human evolution in Africa, Asia and Europe; palaeoanthropology.