About Professor Roland John Fletcher
Over the past thirty years Professor Roland Fletcher has developed a global and interdisciplinary perspective in Archaeology, that integrates research, teaching and service.
Professor Fletcher's fields of expertise are the theory and philosophy of archaeology, the study of settlement growth and decline and the analysis of large-scale cultural phenomena over time. In 1995 he published The Limits of Settlement Growth: a theoretical outline - an analysis of the past 15,000 years of settlement-growth and decline - with Cambridge University Press. He has an international reputation as a radical theorist and as the instigator of the Greater Angkor Project, which derives from his theoretical work and is part of a major research program in Cambodia. As well as teaching across a wide spectrum of archaeology, he has initiated new teaching programs in the Archaeology of Asia and has taught a generation of diverse, innovative professional archaeologists. Professor Fletcher's combination of teaching and research has created a multi-disciplinary research team of local and international research students and staff, linking the Humanities and the Sciences. This program of research on Angkor has developed international collaborations for the University and has enhanced its public profile through media presentations, such as the National Geographic International TV program “Lost City”. The Angkor research team also serves the intentional community through the applied research of the Living with Heritage Project at Angkor, in collaboration with the Cambodian government and UNESCO.
Research Projects: • Living with Heritage (LWH) (Fletcher, Bruce, Johnson)
• Greater Angkor Project (GAP) (Fletcher)
• The Limits of Settlement Growth (Fletcher)
Selected publications
Settlement Studies - Fletcher, Roland J. (1977) in Clarke, David L. (ed) Spatial Archaeology
Issues in the Study of Settlement Space - Fletcher, Roland J. (1978) in Green, David L. et al. (ed) Social Organisation and Settlement
Alternatives and Differences - Fletcher, Roland J. (1977) in Spriggs, M (ed) Archaeology and Anthropology
People and Space - Fletcher, Roland J. (1981) in Hodder, Ian et al. (ed) Pattern of the Past: Essays in Honour of David Clarke
Identifying Spatial Disorder: a case study on a Mongol fort - Fletcher, Roland J. (1984) in Hietala, H. F. (ed) Intrasite Spatial Analysis in Archaeology
Very Large Mobile Communities: interaction stress and residential dispersal - Fletcher, Roland J. (1991) in Gamble, C.S. et al. (ed) Ethnoarchaeological Approaches to Mobile Campsites: Hunter-gatherer and Pastoralist Case-studies
Time perspectivism, Annales, and the potential of archaeology - Fletcher, Roland J. et al. (1992) in Knapp, A.B. (ed) Archaeology, Annales, and Ethnohistory
The Evolution of Human Behaviour - Fletcher, Roland J. (1993) in Burenhult, G. (ed) The Illustrated History of Humankind Volume 1: The First Humans
The mammoth bone huts of Mezirich - Fletcher, Roland J. (1993) in Burenhult, G. (ed) The Illustrated History of Humankind Volume 1: The First Humans
Olduvai Gorge - window on the past - Fletcher, Roland J. (1993) in Burenhult, G. (ed) The Illustrated History of Humankind Volume 1: The First Humans
Settlement area and communication in African towns and cities - Fletcher, Roland J. (1993) in Shaw, T et al. (ed) The Archaeology of Africa: Foods, metals and towns
The Urban Future - Fletcher, Roland J. (1994) in Burenhult, G. (ed) The Illustrated History of Humankind Volume 5: Traditional peoples today: Continuity and change in the modern world
Organized dissonance in cultural message systems - Fletcher, Roland J. (1996) in Maschner, Herbert D. G. (ed) Darwinian Archaeologies
African Urbanism: scale, mobility and transformations - Fletcher, R et al. (1989) in Connah, G. (ed) Africa: pre-colonial achievements
David Clarke: analytical archaeologist - Fletcher, Roland J. (1999) in Murray, Tim (ed) Archaeologists: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Volume I
Appraising the urban future: an archaeological time perspective - Fletcher, Roland J. (1999) in Murray, Tim (ed) Time and archaeology
David Clarke: A brief life - Fletcher, Roland J. (2000) in Murray, Tim (ed) Encyclopedia of the History of Archaeology
Materiél Culture: The Archaeology of 20th Century Conflict. Schofield, J. et al., 2002
Angkor - Fletcher, Roland J. in, (ed) Encyclopedia of historical archaeology, Orser, Charles E., 2002 (Routledge)
Materiality, space, time and outcome - Fletcher, Roland J. et al. (2004) in Bintliff, J.L. (ed) The Blackwell Companion to Archaeology
CA Comment on C.C. Kolb, Demographic Estimates in Archaeology. Fletcher, Roland J. (1985) Current Anthropology 26
Settlement Archaeology: world-wide comparisons. Fletcher, Roland J. (1986) World Archaeology 18
Archaeology and Philosophy. A review article on M. Salmon. Philosophy and Archaeology [1983]. Fletcher, Roland J. (1986) Mankind 16
Human Behaviour Evolution. Fletcher, Roland J. (1988) Tracks thought Time. The Story of Human Evolution. Australian National History, Supplement 2
Social theory and archaeology: diversity, paradox and potential. Fletcher, Roland J. (1989) Mankind 19
Refutation and tradition: an uneasy relationship. Fletcher, Roland J. (1991) Australian Archaeology 33
Sneak Preview – The Limits of Settlement Growth. Fletcher, Roland J. (1994)
American Anthropological Newsletter 1994
Seeing Angkor - New views of an old city. A.R. Davis Memorial Lecture. Fletcher, Roland (2001) Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia 32-33
The Gossamer City - a new enquiry. Fletcher, Roland J. et al. (2002) Museum International 54
Barbed wire was an invention to control American cows: What is required in a Neo-Darwinian theory of cultural behaviour?. Fletcher, Roland J. (2003) Cambridge Archaeological Journal 13
Angkor. Great temples - vast city. Fletcher, Roland J. (2003) Lotus Leaves 6
Redefining Angkor: Structure and environment in the largest, low density urban complex of the pre-industrial world. Fletcher, R et al. (2003) Udaya 4
Bounded space: the continuous galleries at Angkor. Polkinghorne, Martin et al. (2003) TAASA Review, The Journal of the Asian Art Society of Australia 12 – 2
The contribution of 14C AMS dating to the Greater Angkor archaeological project. Zoppi, U et al. (204) Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B 223
Vegetation and land-use at Angkor, Cambodia: a dated pollen sequence from the Bakong temple moat. Penny, Dan et al. (2006) Antiquity 80
House Form and Family Arrangement (Fletcher, Roland J) in
Space and Community Behaviour (Fletcher, Roland J) in
Intensification and Interaction. A Material Behaviour analysis of Mug House (Fletcher, Roland J) in
The messages of material behaviour: an analysis of non-verbal meaning (Fletcher, Roland J) in
Residential densities, group size and social stress in Australian Aboriginal Settlements (Fletcher, Roland J) in
East Coast City: The Post-Modern City and New York in the 21st Century (Fletcher, Roland J) in
The risks of urban development: A long term perspective (From the conference on The Effect on Humans of Development, University of Sydney, September 1992). Fletcher, Roland J. (1993) People and Physical Environment Research. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Person-Environment Studies 43
The China TimeMap Project: China and the Silk Roads (Fletcher, Roland J. et al) in
Angkor: Extent, settlement pattern and ecology. Preliminary results of an AIRSAR survey in September 2000. Fletcher, R et al. (2004) Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 24
The Greater Angkor Project 2005-2009: Issues and Program (Fletcher, Roland J. et al) in
The Formation of Urban Settlements. Fletcher, Roland J., 1981
Human Physical and Behavioural Evolution. Fletcher, Roland J., 1986
The use of AMS 14C dating to explore issues of occupation. Penny, Dan et al. (2007) Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B 259
Computational Archaeology (Bordes, N. et al) in
Living with heritage: site monitoring and heritage values in Greater Angkor and the Angkor World Heritage Site, Cambodia. Fletcher, Roland J. et al. (2007) World Archaeology 39 - 3