2026 Tom Austen Brown Lecture

Serendipity and the Three Princes of Archaeological Discovery

Professor Adam Brumm | Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University

Tuesday, 27 October | 5:30pm doors for 5:45pm start

Some of archaeology’s most celebrated discoveries are popularly portrayed as lucky accidents – unexpected finds stumbled upon by chance and brought to light through serendipity. Such accounts tend to minimise the role of the discoverer, attributing success instead to blind luck or happenstance. Yet major archaeological discoveries rarely emerge from nowhere.

This talk argues that archaeology would benefit from reclaiming an older understanding of serendipity – one that emphasises not chance alone, but the qualities that enable unexpected discoveries to come to light in the first place.

The word serendipity was coined in 1754 by the English writer Horace Walpole after the Persian tale The Three Princes of Serendip. Its titular heroes repeatedly solve mysteries through exceptional powers of observation and inference. In one famous episode, they correctly deduce the condition of an unseen camel – lame, blind in one eye, and missing teeth – from subtle traces left in the landscape. Although the modern meaning of serendipity has shifted towards fortunate accidents or random discoveries, the original story places emphasis on the observer’s preparedness, insight, and reasoning.

Drawing on my team’s fieldwork in Indonesia – including the discovery of ancestral fossils of Homo floresiensis on Flores and the world’s oldest known cave art in Sulawesi – I argue that so-called accidental discoveries in archaeology often depend on three interrelated qualities that are largely invisible to the public but fundamental to archaeological practice.

Figuratively, these are archaeology’s own “three princes”: curiosity, the drive to ask new questions; acuity, the ability to perceive subtle patterns and clues; and persistence, the determination to continue despite uncertainty and repeated setbacks.

The final discovery may look like a fortunate accident from the outside, but it is these qualities that make the accident possible.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Adam Brumm is a professor of archaeology at Griffith University’s Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution. An internationally recognised archaeologist, he has spent more than two decades investigating the human past in Indonesia, particularly the Wallacean islands of Flores and Sulawesi. His team’s research has transformed our understanding of human evolution in Wallacea, from ancient hominins and ocean crossings to some of the world’s oldest rock art, including evidence for early storytelling and supernatural imagery. Formerly an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow and ARC College of Experts member, he has published more than 80 academic papers, including 15 in Nature and Science, and his research has received international recognition, including the Achmad Bakrie Award and the Shanghai Archaeology Forum’s Field Discovery Award. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the Society of Antiquaries of London, and a passionate science communicator and educator.

Please join us for refreshments after the lecture.

ABOUT THE TOM AUSTEN BROWN LECTURE
This annual lecture is made possible through the generosity of University of Sydney graduate Tom Austen Brown (LLB ’46 BA ’74). In his early professional life, Tom was a lawyer but had the heart of an archaeologist after seeing Aboriginal artefacts in the sand dunes and desert flats around Broken Hill, where he lived. He completed archaeology studies at the University of Sydney in 1973 and put together one of the most significant bequests for the study of Pre-colonial Indigenous archaeology.

During his life, Tom gave $1.6 million to the University, and on his passing in 2009, left a $6.9 million bequest to the Department of Archaeology. Tom’s bequest has created the Tom Austen Brown Research and Grants Program which aims to improve the representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and community in archaeology and support research in First Nations and other Indigenous archaeologies. Tom has helped create a future for Australia’s past.


Image: Dated Pig painting at Leang Tedongnge - AA Oktaviana.