Professor Rachel Popelka-Filcoff will return to Adelaide this month to give a Rock Art Australia public lecture at the SA Museum, covering her novel research on mineral pigments and how they offer an extraordinary view into past cultures – notably the use of ochre by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

University of Melbourne Professor Popelka-Filcoff, who is still affiliated with Flinders University, has extensively researched the composition, structure and provenance of Indigenous Australian ochre and related pigments which “offer an intriguing insight into our deep past, and offer new understandings of current society”.

As Rock Art Australia Minderoo Chair in Archaeological Science at the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Professor Popelka-Filcoff and her team is using technology with ability to identify pigments applied to material culture ,such as rock art.

The public lecture will be in the Pacific Cultures Gallery, South Australian Museum, North Tce, Adelaide from 6-7pm on Wednesday 18 May. Online bookings can be made here – and registrations close on Thursday 5 May.