EmPr Marc Oxenham

Marc F Oxenham is Professor of Bioarchaeology in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology, The Australian National University, Canberra. He gained his bioanthropological and archaeological training at the Northern Territory University (Charles Darwin University) where he was awarded a PhD in 2001. He has held teaching and research positions at Colorado College, USA, and the ANU. He was president of the Australasian Society of Human Biology (2012-14), an Australian Future Fellow (2013-17), elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2011 and elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2016. Since 2009, he has acted as a consultant (pro bono) for the Unrecovered War Casualties Unit-Army (Australian Department of Defence) in which capacity he has searched for, recovered and identified defence force personnel from conflicts ranging from WWI to the Vietnam War, in France, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and northern Australia. In 2018 he was awarded a Silver Commendation by the Deputy Chief of Army in recognition of this work. Over the past two decades he has undertaken archaeological and/or bioanthropological research in Japan, China, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. His research specialisations include the reconstruction of health from human skeletal and dental remains, mortuary archaeology, and human identification and estimation of the time since death in forensic anthropological contexts. He is best known as a bioarchaeologist, focusing on human biological and socio-cultural adaptation to climate and technological variability/change in Holocene Southeast Asia.

In 2019 he was awarded a British Academy Global Professorship, which he will take up in the School of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, between 2020 and 2024. 

PhD FSA FSAScot FAHA

British Academy Global Professor, Department of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen, Scotland: 2020-24

I have expertise in human biology, bioarchaeology (osteoarchaeology), palaeopathology, archaeology, and forensic anthropology. I have been privileged to have collaborated with a number of outstanding PhD students that has led to: (1) a completely new sub-disciple: the Bioarchaeology of Care; (2) new methods for reconstructing ancient population demography; (3) an entirely novel methodological approach to the analysis of physiological stress signatures in dental remains; and (4) unique time since-death models for forensic applications. Internationally, I am recognised as a leader in Southeast and East Asian population mobility, health and disease over the past ten millennia. Most recently I have led a team recovering ancient pathogenic aDNA associated with a range of diseases in medieval Scottish material. I have been primary supervisor of 34 Honours; 20 Masters (2 with the UoA); and 12 PhD student completions in mortuary archaeology, bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology. Over the past decade I have volunteered a substantive amount of time as a consultant to the Australian Defence Forces (ADF).

Research outputs summary 

Competitive research grant income A$4.1M (£ 2.2M), h-index 35, i-10th index 90, 345 outputs: 9 books (1 single, 1 co-authored, 7 edited), 48 chapters, 87 papers, 2 encyclopaedia articles, 74 forensic reports, and 127 (25 invited) conference papers/posters

A current list of publications can be found at:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marc_Oxenham/research

The Centre for Osteoarechaeology web page can be foud here:

http://www.osteoarchaeology.co.uk/

The new Master of Science in Osteoarchaeology, Directed by Dr Rebecca Crozier, (which I will be teaching into at Aberdeen from 2020-2024) can be found here:

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/geosciences/departments/archaeology/msc-osteoarchaeology-1196.php

Dr Rebecca Crozier's Webpage can be found here:

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/geosciences/people/profiles/rebecca.crozier

Selected Publications

Hayman J, Oxenham MF. (in press). Estimation of the Time Since Death. Academic press, Elsevier. 

Hayman J, Oxenham MF. 2016. Human Body Decomposition. Amsterdam: Academic Press, Elsevier.

Oxenham MF. 2016. Bioarchaeology of Ancient Vietnam. BAR International Series 2781: Hadrian Books.

Oxenham MF, Buckley H, editors. 2016. The Routledge Handbook of Bioarchaeology in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. London and New York: Routledge.

Behie AM, Oxenham MF, editors. 2015. Taxonomic Tapestries: The Threads of Evolutionary, Behavioural and Conservation Research. Canberra: ANU Press.

Pechenkina K, Oxenham MF, editors. 2013. Bioarchaeology of East Asia: Movement, Contact, Health. University of Florida Press.

Oxenham MF, Matsumura H, Nguyen KDD, editors. 2011. Man Bac: The Excavation of a Neolithic Site in Northern Vietnam. The Biology. Terra Australis 33. Australian National University Press.

Oxenham MF, editor. 2008. Forensic Approaches to Death, Disaster and Abuse. Queensland: Australian Academic Press.

Oxenham MF, Tayles N, editors. 2006. Bioarchaeology of Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.