Simon Wyatt-Spratt
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swyattspratt.bsky.social
Simon Wyatt-Spratt
@swyattspratt.bsky.social
3.1K followers 1.2K following 510 posts
#Archaeology PhD student at the University of Sydney researching the lithic technologies of the ancestors of Indigenous Australians

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5976-3614
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swyattspratt.bsky.social
Simon Wyatt-Spratt @swyattspratt.bsky.social · Jan 24
For #FlintFriday I'm shameless promoting my paper that was published this week in Lithic Technology: "Core Concept: Defining Cores in the Archaeology of Indigenous Australia". doi.org/10.1080/0197...
#AustralianArchaeology #Archaeology 1/5 🏺🧵
Core Concept: Defining Cores in the Archaeology of Indigenous Australia
One of the biggest impediments to the analysis of cores in the archaeology of Indigenous Australia is the slippery use of terminology. This impairs comparative analyses and limits our ability to ex...
doi.org
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
lachiescarsbrook.bsky.social
🚨 PNAS Special Feature 2 🐕

We used ancient DNA and dietary isotopes to show that landscape modification and the introduction of European dogs impacted dingo populations across Australia.

🔗 Full paper here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
November 24, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
mdap-unimelb.bsky.social
We're hiring! Collaborate to boost HASS, digital humanities & Indigenous research:

👩‍💻Research Software Engineer
go.unimelb.edu.au/zta2

🗺️Research Assistant in Digital Humanities
go.unimelb.edu.au/qta2

Apps close 8 Dec #ResearchSky #AcademicSky
November 25, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
tetzoo.bsky.social
One of my favourite #Pleistocene mammals - and, yes, it has a role in #PrehistoricPlanetIceAge - is the big predatory marsupial #Thylacoleo. Here's an introduction to this fantastic animal.... tetzoo.com/blog/2025/11... #marsupials
Thylacoleo, the Incredible Marsupial Lion — Tetrapod Zoology
Among the most striking and interesting of extinct mammals is the so-called marsupial lion of Australia, or Thylacoleo carnifex …
tetzoo.com
November 24, 2025 at 10:51 PM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
grogsgamut.bsky.social
"Poverty is not evidence, the presumption of innocence must apply to everyone" Smashing column by @kristin8x.antipovertycentre.org & @maiyazize.bsky.social #ThePoint
thepoint.com.au/opinions/251...
Poverty is not evidence, the presumption of innocence must apply to everyone
In the final days of October, the Federal Government quietly inserted a last-minute amendment into an unrelated bill. It has been trying to rush through a change that would allow police and the Home A...
thepoint.com.au
November 23, 2025 at 11:38 PM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
austarchj.bsky.social
An outstanding new study documents hundreds of plant fibre artefacts from Windmill Way, Quinkan Country (Cape York), revealing enduring fibre technologies.🔓⤵️
Read in Australian Archaeology: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
November 23, 2025 at 9:43 PM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
pollytics.bsky.social
NT News headline tomorrow morning: Great Head beats dud Root every time. #ashes
November 22, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
higherjobz.bsky.social
Project Coordinator – University of Cambridge, UK
ERC-funded STEPS project in #HumanEvolution Research

Deadline: 2 Jan 2026
🔗 Details: higherjobz.com/project-coor...

#UKJobs #AcademicJobs #PartTimeJobs #ResearchOpportunities #ERCFunded
@universitypress.cambridge.org @mcdonaldinstitute.bsky.social
Project Coordinator – Human Evolution Research Cambridge | HigherJobz
Join the University of Cambridge as a Project Coordinator in Human Evolution Research. Part-time, fixed-term, apply by 2 Jan 2026.
higherjobz.com
November 21, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
joschuaknuppe.bsky.social
Results from the Flocking #paleostream!
Lepidodendron, Baryonyx, Champsosaurus and Genyornis.
November 22, 2025 at 4:59 AM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
austarchaeology.bsky.social
It is with great sorrow that we share the news of the passing of our colleague Emeritus Professor Jim Allen. Jim was a founding member of the Australian Archaeological Association and made major contributions to the field of archaeology and his passing is a great loss to Australian archaeology. Vale
November 20, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
redrabbleroz.bsky.social
There are far more South Australians than Asian Australians (currently zero) in the NSW Liberal parliamentary party room #nswpol #auspol
November 21, 2025 at 6:44 AM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
moudhy.bsky.social
Well this 2,600-year-old clay letter was a journey.

It comes from the archive of a goldsmith named Nabû-zeru-iddin in the heart of ancient Assyria. We’ve got someone left on read, a lawsuit, a mean step-mom, and people who get drunk and steal silver.
Photo of a map of the ancient city of Assur with a section in the middle zoomed in on in a separate box in the bottom right corner. The zoomed in part shows the plan of the house for a goldsmith archive
November 21, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
lrussellwolpe.bsky.social
Albanese Govt failure to progress oral health policy is exacerbating health inequities & contributing to preventable illness, suffering & hospitalisations.
Where is new National Oral Health Plan?
www.croakey.org/is-oral-heal...
Is oral health a priority for the Albanese Government? Apparently not…
Introduction by Croakey: In between the political jockeying over public hospital funding, perhaps the Prime Minister and Treasurer could ask
www.croakey.org
November 21, 2025 at 8:30 AM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
cstross.bsky.social
Looks like LLMs are *very* vulnerable to attack via poetic allusion: "curated poetic prompts yielded high attack-success rates (ASR), with some providers exceeding 90% ..."

https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
November 20, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
huwgroucutt.bsky.social
(1/18) New paper alert, a thread! Just published in PLoS ONE, our study: “Novel archaeological and palaeontological findings in cave and palaeoriver landscapes of inland northeast Arabia”. Link: journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
Novel archaeological and palaeontological findings in cave and palaeoriver landscapes of inland northeast Arabia
Knowledge about environmental change and the evolutionary history of hominins in Arabia has been rapidly developing over the last two decades. Interdisciplinary research on humans and environments acr...
journals.plos.org
November 20, 2025 at 7:07 PM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
agnessmack.bsky.social
David Pope in Canberra Times
November 19, 2025 at 9:52 AM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
nickfeik.bsky.social
A government that can’t bring itself to tax fossil fuel, big tech or any wealth properly but defunds its critical institutions is not a good government, sorry
November 18, 2025 at 8:17 PM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
nataliajagielska.bsky.social
AI slop gracing the cover of Royal Society B. Not only in AI yellow but scientifically nonsensical. Come on. I'm certain human photographs and artworks were ignored to platform ... this.
Royal Society B cover with AI generated image of endocasts.
November 18, 2025 at 10:49 AM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
caa-ssla.archaeo.social.ap.brid.gy
Thanks to everyone, who already took part in our survey for meeting days and time slots. 📆 ✅
📢 We will close the survey Wednesday, 19th Nov, 23:59 CET 📢
so please remember to add your vote until then. If you have any further comments about your availability, send us an email or message. 🙂
November 17, 2025 at 8:33 AM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
antonygreenelec.bsky.social
An analysis of the changing pattern between 2010 and 2025 of Greens support across electoral divisions, and the continuing increase in the flows of Green preferences to Labor. antonygreen.com.au/comparing-gr... #auspol
November 17, 2025 at 1:33 AM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
drdragases.bsky.social
The golden age of diversity and democracy in Oz.
November 16, 2025 at 7:04 AM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
microburin.bsky.social
#FindsFriday #FlintFriday #Archaeology reprise. I offer a typical N Yorkshire (England) uplands Mesolithic flint portfolio from the overlap period between the hunter-gatherers and first Neolithic farmers, pot & salt makers around 3800 BCE. More C14 dates due soon. timevista.co.uk/about/resear...
Selection of flint artefacts from the Late Mesolitic period (8000-3800 BCE) from the upland North York Moors, England. Microliths (narrow blade tools including arrow points & barbs) to the L side, Blades (knives) top R, and a typical core - what's left after removing the blades from a flint pebble with an antler hammer is bottom R. This selection is around (dated) 5000 to 3800 BCE. Flint here originated and was transported by people from beach deposits several miles/kms away, dragged by glaciers more than 12,000 years ago through what is now the North Sea (sea level rise).
November 14, 2025 at 11:25 PM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
grugstan.bsky.social
If you're interested in some of these ideas, you can read my paper here. Otherwise, I'll hopefully have some more articles coming out soon exploring some of these concepts in more detail.
2025 09 - Green shoots for the grassroots: Maintaining trust in our democracy by restoring participation in democratic institutions (Travis Jordan's 2025 JSCEM paper)
Thursday 11 September 2025 GREEN SHOOTS FOR THE GRASSROOTS MAINTAINING TRUST IN OUR DEMOCRACY BY RESTORING PARTICIPATION IN DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS This paper proposes interconnected reforms that ai...
docs.google.com
November 13, 2025 at 12:14 AM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
grugstan.bsky.social
Two months ago, I wrote a paper for the Electoral Matters Committee. It clocked in at 23,000 words with 16 data tables, 11 graphs, 204 footnotes and 30,000 datapoints.

I made the case that we should take advantage of this historic juncture to expand participation in our representative democracy.
GREEN SHOOTS FOR THE GRASSROOTS MAINTAINING TRUST IN OUR DEMOCRACY BY RESTORING PARTICIPATION IN DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS This paper proposes interconnected reforms that aim to rebuild trust in Australia’s democratic institutions — our Parliament, our political parties and the ecosystem of creative conflict they drive. These institutions are a great strength in our system and shouldn’t be circumvented, dismissed or ignored by policymakers. For decades, Australia was the world’s laboratory for democratic reforms. We led the way on the secret ballot, women’s suffrage (for some at least), a living wage for MPs, compulsory and preferential voting and more. But since the turn of the millennium, we’ve stalled out. For too many people, our democracy isn’t working — not the way it should and not the way we say it does. While better than many other countries, our system still leaves people feeling like their voice isn’t being heard or their vote doesn’t count. This term, we can fix that.
November 12, 2025 at 11:30 PM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
historymatterssyd.bsky.social
One year postdoc in Australian history at Sydney Uni - details below. It’s a very short window - please spread among networks

Might suit someone already in the GLAM sector who wants to work on their research/practice - all applications welcome of course

usyd.wd105.myworkdayjobs.com/USYD_EXTERNA...
Colonel George Johnson Fellowship in Australian History
A 12-month fixed-term opportunity at 0.8FTE, with the possibility of variation work Inviting applications for the 2026 Colonel George Johnston Fellowship in Australian History Base Salary Level A $109...
usyd.wd105.myworkdayjobs.com
November 12, 2025 at 10:12 AM
Reposted by Simon Wyatt-Spratt
cameronwilson.bsky.social
In an Australia first, I used FOI to get the AI chat logs of Australia's top national security bureaucrat.

They show how he used Microsoft Copilot to ghostwrite speeches and messages to colleagues.

This comes as the government looks to push AI use in the public service.
www.crikey.com.au/20...
November 12, 2025 at 2:01 AM