Ian Lilley

Ian Lilley is Professor in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies at the University of Queensland in Australia. He has worked in Australasian and Indo-Pacific archaeology and cultural heritage for 40 years. He conducts fieldwork in Australia and New Caledonia and leads major projects examining Indigenous issues and human rights in World Heritage management.

Ian is Secretary-General of the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on Archaeological Heritage Management, and an ICOMOS Expert World Heritage Assessor. He also serves on the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas and IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy. Ian is Convenor of the International Heritage Group, a heritage capacity-building initiative, as well as Secretary-General of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, the region’s peak professional body. In addition, he chairs the Society for American Archaeology International Government Affairs Committee. He was Secretary of the World Archaeological Congress and served three consecutive terms as President of the Australian Archaeological Association. He is also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and the Australian Academy of Humanities, and a member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

He has written widely on ancient migration and trade, archaeology and social identity, archaeological ethics, and the role of archaeology and cultural heritage in contemporary society. His heritage-management volume on Early Human Expansion and Innovation in the Pacific was published by ICOMOS in 2010, and his university textbook Archaeology of Oceania: Australia and the Pacific Islands was published by Blackwell in 2006.