This is the personal website of Patrick Nunn, Professor of Geography at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia. Trained in the UK as a geographer and geologist, specializing in the effects of sea-level changes on landscape evolution, he spent much of his academic career at the University of the South Pacific where he became immersed in Pacific geological histories and cultural worldviews. Here he also developed interests in past and future climate changes and their impacts, especially in island worlds, first becoming part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the 1990s, an organization with which he remains involved. He has lived in Australia for a decade, extending his research interests throughout this region. Author of more than three hundred and seventy peer-reviewed articles and several books, Patrick has also received a number of awards for his work, including the Marion Newbigin Prize of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society (2023), the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland (2018) and the Gregory Medal of the Pacific Science Association (2003). For his sustained service to the IPCC, he shared its award of the Nobel Peace Prize (2007).
NEWS and LINKS
December 2024 – I was honoured to deliver the KEYNOTE ADDRESS at the DevNet 2024 Conference in balmy Dunedin on the subject of Shifting Development: Navigating the Future Pacific. Recording coming soon.
November 2024 – With my PhD student Leigh Franks and colleague Adrian McCallum, I co-authored a fascinating STUDY about memories of ancient volcanic eruptions that were encoded in people’s oral traditions. You can read the full study here. From more than 2300 eruptions identified, we selected twenty that remain the subject of surviving ‘stories’ (myths to some) and twenty that appear to have been forgotten.
July 2024 – I gave an illustrated TALK to the History Council of New South Wales about History and Memory: Oral Histories and the Science of the Dreaming. You can see the whole thing here on YouTube.
June 2024 – With my colleagues Tricia King and Roselyn Kumar, we have received a RESEARCH GRANT from the Endangered Material Knowledge Programme (EMKP) at the British Museum to make a study of artificial-island construction in the western Pacific Ocean.
May 2024 – I led a STUDY of Ngarrindjeri (First Nations Australian) stories about the folk hero Ngurunderi that are likely to recall several observations of landscape changes that took place thousands of years ago, in one case at least 10,100 years ago. The article is free to read here.
May 2024 – Excellent ARTICLE by Hugo Hodge for the ABC about the story of the “vanished island” of Teonimenu (Solomon Islands) that Tony Heorake (Solomon Islands National Museum) and I wrote up. You can read the article here – the graphics are superb – and I think it really strengthens the case for regarding certain ‘myths’ as truths rather than fictions. The television clip is out on YouTube here and there is a German-language report by Barbara Barkhausen here.
March 2024 – I was part of a CONVERSATION at the World Science Festival in Brisbane on 24 March 2024 about Everything You Need To Know About Volcanoes with ABC’s Nate Byrne and Dr Teresa Ubide (University of Queensland), just named as one of the 50 most influential women in Australian science. It was a full house!
March 2024 – With 27 co-authors, most Pacific Islanders, I have just written an ARTICLE on ‘Traditional Knowledge for Climate Resilience in the Pacific Islands‘ that shows, I hope, that Pacific peoples did not survive on these islands by luck, but by design … through evolving a robust system of traditional knowledge that allowed them to read the skies and the seas and the unusual behaviours of animals and plants. The article is free to download here and there is a companion piece in The Conversation here.
February 2024 – Very proud to have written an ARTICLE about the ‘legends’ of Lyonesse (southwest Britain) with Prof Rita Compatangelo-Soussignan. Just published in the journal Folk Life, it is well illustrated and avoids scientific jargon! The article argues that stories about Lyonesse (which may have been called something else at the time) are likely to have originated in the oral traditions of people living on the Scilly Isles some 4000-6000 years ago when these changed from being one island to several islands. Article is freely available here.
September 2023 – Humbled and honoured to have received the AWARD of the 2023 Marion Newbigin Prize from the Royal Scottish Geographical Society for my article in the Scottish Geographical Journal entitled “First a wudd, and syne a sea: postglacial coastal change of Scotland revealed in ancient stories”. More details here.
August 2023 – Nice ARTICLE about how 2500-year old memories of a volcanic eruption in Fiji are well known in numerous nearby communities. See the piece in The Conversation, and the original study in Oral Tradition.
August 2023 – Great new RESEARCH with Duane Hamacher and others in The Conversation, based on our research just out in the Journal of Archaeological Science which shows that Australian Indigenous traditions (‘stories’) recalling when people were displaced from the ‘land bridge’ that once connected now-mainland Australia with the now-island of Tasmania (Lutruwita) – and spotted Canopus, the Great Southern Star – are plausibly around 12,500-14,000 years old. This is unequivocal evidence to show that in oral societies, knowledge can be stored and communicated intelligibly across hundreds of generations … and that the edge of memory lies over ten millennia ago.
June 2023 – my short ARTICLE with Johannes Luetz on ‘Harnessing traditional knowledge for climate resilience in the Pacific‘ has just been published online in the East Asia Forum. Consider this – People have lived continuously on islands in the Western Pacific Ocean — far from continental shores — for more than 3000 years, surviving the effects of volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and different manifestations of climate change. This did not happen by luck …. Read the article here.
June 2023 – in preparation for the upcoming Lapita archaeology conference in Fiji, I prepared a POSTER showing the results of our 2019 survey of ancient hill forts on the island of Ono in the Kadavu group of southern Fiji. You can view the poster here in both English and iTaukei Bauan.
June 2023 – Delighted to have contributed to a great ARTICLE for the journal titled Oral Tradition (out of Harvard University) concerning recently-recorded memories of the nature and effects of a volcanic eruption two thousand five hundred years in Fiji. The title of the article is Driva Qele, which means ‘Stealing Earth’ in Fijian. A great example of the enduring preservation of oral traditions, written with my former PhD student Loredana Lancini and several others – some of whom contributed original stories. You can download the whole thing here.
April 2023 – I wrote an ARTICLE for Aeon Magazine (online and free) about how the stories of oral societies are not myths … they are records. Entitled ‘Memories within Myth‘, you can read it here.
February 2023 – You might think that two weeks in balmy tropical Fiji (even for research work) would be the perfect opportunity to unwind, but as this BLOG explains, things didn’t turn out quite as expected. Jikai na leqwa! You can find the meaning in here.
January 2023 – The comprehensive REPORT that Rosie Kumar and I compiled last year on Traditional and Local Knowledge for Coping with Climate Change and Disasters in the Pacific Islands, funded by the Australian Government, is now online here (note you must click ‘APCP Resources’ on the left and then ‘Traditional Knowledge’ to get to the report). For anyone interested in traditional and local knowledge (TLK) in the Pacific, especially for coping either with environmental adversity, this report is likely to be of interest. There is also a section devoted to the cross-validation of particular knowledges between Pacific Island and Western sciences. The authors feel there is a lot more TLK in the Pacific that is as yet unrecorded so, if you have any leads, please let me know.
January 2023 – Some of my thoughts about why Research Matters with Dr Marcus Bussey. RECORDING here.
January 2023 – Great discussion with Suzanne Hill on ABC Nightlife about my research into the depth and longevity of oral traditions, especially of catastrophic climactic events like volcanic eruptions and post-glacial sea-level rise. RECORDING available here.
December 2022 – From the 14th to the 19th century the port of Calicut on the Malabar (Kerala) coast of western India was well known to ocean-going traders and others. But was there only one Calicut … or two? Did Vasco da Gama find the right one? See my new ARTICLE with Rosie Kumar, free to read here, or listen to the PODCAST here.
November 2022 – Ancient stories of sea level rise was the title of an EPISODE I recorded in conversation with Bobby Bascomb for Living on Earth, a US-based independent media programme, available here.
October 2022 – I delivered the Sustainability Week Guest LECTURE at the Fiji National University, discussing Traditional understandings of climatic and geological phenomena in Fiji and asking whether these are relevant to the future.
October 2022 – honoured to be invited to give a TALK at the Institute for Northern Studies at the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland. I talked about my recent research on ancient Scottish stories and why we are wrong to regard most as ‘myth’ or ‘legend’. Talk on YouTube here.
October 2022 – my recent publication with Margaret Cook in World Archaeology which is entitled Island tales: culturally-filtered narratives about island creation through land submergence incorporate millennia-old memories of postglacial sea-level rise has become the focus of thoughtful REVIEW articles in Hakai Magazine and The Atlantic.
September 2022 – if you are interested in Irish Mythology, then you might be interested in the PODCAST recorded with me by scholar and folklorist Chris Thompson accessible here. Our conversation ranged from Irish stories and their parallels with those elsewhere in the Celtic world as well as their extraordinary similarities to Indigenous Australian stories and some from the Pacific Islands.
September 2022 – I contributed to a ROUNDTABLE discussion, just published in the Journal of Australian Studies, that reflected on how the oceans shaped deep human pasts … and how we can recover ocean history from the ocean depths. Fascinating stuff with some really big names.
September 2022 – new ARTICLE in The Conversation here with psychologist Rachael Sharman unpacks the nature of climate denialists and suggests they are a dying breed, albeit still quite an influential one. Based on research done in collaboration with our former student, Breanna (Bree) Fraser, recently published here.
September 2022 – proud to have co-authored a REPORT (with many others!) explaining A National Study For Just Adaptation that aims to broaden and rescope the way adaptation policy, planning, and action are framed. It purposely poses itself as a counter-narrative to previously developed strategies and was launched at Parliament House in Canberra on 6th September. You can read it the whole thing and view the launch here.
August 2022 – After almost two years in review, my controversial STUDY has been published in the Scottish Geographical Journal. Entltled “First a wudd, and syne a sea : postglacial coastal change of Scotland recalled in ancient stories“, it argues that many groups of Scottish ‘legends’ are grounded in memories of coastal change dating back from than 5000 years. The article is available for a fee here but you could contact me and ask for a personal copy.
August 2022 – To mark the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, I gave a TALK (with Taniela Bolea and Roselyn Kumar) at the Indigenous Knowledge Institute at the University of Melbourne on Traditional Knowledge in Fiji for Anticipating, Averting and Accommodating Environmental Risk. Recording here.
July 2022 – Honoured to have delivered a KEYNOTE ADDRESS at the annual conference of the Institute of Australian Geographers, choosing to discuss Memories of Thin Places: The Deep Roots of Contemporary Ecoanxiety and arguing that our distant ancestors’ encounters with climate change are preserved in ancient stories from every part of the world – and can help us understand how to confront future climate change.
July 2022 – I have been APPOINTED as Honorary Professorial Fellow in Science at the University of Melbourne, the top-ranked university in Australia, specifically to work with members of its Indigenous Knowledge Institute.
June 2022 – I gave an invited ADDRESS to a gathering of scientists in Naples (Italy) on Sustaining Memories of Natural Disasters in Pre-Literate Societies explaining how societies in which no-one could read or write were no less risk-averse and risk-aware than we are today. The talk is online here, starting 51.51 minutes in.
June 2022 – I got to deliver an ADDRESS to scientists and decision-makers across the Asia-Pacific region about Climate Change Adaptation in Asia-Pacific Islands: Insights from the IPCC 6th Assessment Report, highlighting the decades of failed interventions and the need to replace trends of dependency with ones of autonomy.
June 2022 – Thousands of years ago, sea level rising, islands started forming. My new ARTICLE with Margaret Cook (@MCookHistory) is published in the journal World Archaeology. So traumatising was the experience for people of being islandised that associated stories have been retold for millennia in Indigenous Australian and Celtic cultures.
May 2022 – Why there is nothing wrong if you worry about climate change (and don’t listen to people who tell you otherwise!). Proud to have co-authored a LETTER to The Lancet: Planetary Health, available to read here.
April 2022 – My discussion with Eric O’Dea on Can Ancient Sea Level Rise Prepare Us for the Future? is now a PODCAST from the Boston Museum of Science available here.
February 2022 – As a Lead Author on the ‘Small Islands’ CHAPTER of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Working Group II Assessment Report on Adaptation, it was gratifying to see this released – after four years of work. It felt like a child who had finally left home to make its way in the world. Summary for Policymakers is freely available here.
February 2022 – Collaborated on a STUDY of what climate action looks like for island peoples in a post-pandemic world, free to download here.
January 2022 – Following the volcanic eruption in Tonga, I was featured on Talanoa with Dr T in a Facebook Live WEBINAR now available on YouTube (little bit in Fijian, most in English) here.
December 2021 – Proud to have led a STUDY looking at the geological meaning of Celtic submergence stories in northwest Europe, just published in the journal Geoarchaeology in collaboration with seven France- and UK-based colleagues. Lots of details here.
December 2021 – I gave a TALK on 2nd December to the 2nd Neptune Workshop in Italy entitled Losing Ground: The Trauma of Postglacial Submergence and Lessons for the Future. Recording here.
December 2021 – I gave a SEMINAR on 1st December in the Department of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University entitled From the Edge of Memory: Eyewitness Accounts of Catastrophe Thousands of Years Ago from Australia, Europe and India. YouTube recording here.
November 2021 – I contributed to the BEST BOOKS WEB SITE (Like Browsing the Best Bookstore in the World), so you can read about my Best Books on Submerged Lands and my Best Books on Ancient Oral Traditions.
November 2021 – I featured on Talanoa with Dr T to talk about the archaeology of Bua Province in Fiji. Entire WEBINAR program is here.
November 2021 – on newsstands now is the November edition of National Geographic Traveller (UK) in which I have an ARTICLE about submerged lands in Fiji – more details here.
October 2021 – I gave a LECTURE (online) on 21st October 2021 at the Smithsonian Institution where I discussed Drowned Worlds: Submerged Lands in Science, Memory and Myth, details here.
September 2021 – my new BOOK, Worlds in Shadow, is one of Nature‘s five of the week’s best science picks – details here.
September 2021 – WEBINAR on 12th October 2021 hosted by the Boston Museum of Science, where I talked on Worlds in Shadow: The Truths and Myths of Submerged Lands. Full talk is here.
August 2021 – Research shows that climate change is aggravating water scarcity across Africa and that, somewhat unrealistically, most responses assume that a return to ‘business as usual’ is possible. My ARTICLE with numerous others on Understanding responses to climate-related water scarcity in Africa is published in the journal Science of the Total Environment. Free to download for 50 days here.
August 2021 – fascinating ARTICLE with Jimmy Rantes and Cherise Addinsall looking at sustainable traditional agricultural practices in Vanuatu and how they fortuitously align with national policy – in the journal Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems here.
August 2021 – WEBINAR on 23rd September 2021 hosted by the Geological Society of Australia (Tasmania Division) where I spoke about Traditional Understandings of Geological Phenomena in the Pacific Islands. Entire talk can be viewed here.
August 2021 – Could Ancient Myths be Rooted in Scientific Fact? , FutureProof with Jonathan McCrea, Newstalk Radio INTERVIEW on 28th August 2021.
August 2021 – Ancient beliefs in underwater worlds can help us cope with rising sea levels today – you can read my FRIDAY ESSAY (20th August 2021) in The Conversation here.
August 2021 – Ancient and (surprisingly) young volcanoes in Fiji – learn more atTalanoa ni Vulivatu mai Kadavu (Talking about the the geology and early human history of Kadavu) with Patrick Nunn in DISCUSSION with Dr Tarisi Sorovi-Vunidilo, 8th August 2021 – view here.
August 2021 – Chatting about the new BOOK, Late Night Live with Phillip Adams, ABC National Radio on 4th August 2021.
August 2021 – my new BOOK, Worlds in Shadow: Submerged Lands in Science, Memory and Myth – is published in the UK and in Australia by Bloomsbury. See below. Some memorable quotes are here, some reviews here.
July 2021 – Worlds in Shadow: Submerged Lands in Science, Memory and Myth, PRESENTATION at the 2021 Edinburgh Science Festival on 7th July 2021, view here.
June 2021 – Why successful adaptation to climate change in the Pacific Islands cannot ignore people’s spiritual beliefs. Patrick Nunn and Johannes Luetz in DISCUSSION with Dr Simon Kennedy on The Millis Podcast – listen here.
June 2021 – Three-thousand year old pottery and the oldest complete human skeleton from the Pacific Islands – learn more atTalanoa ni Kelikeli mai Moturiki (Talking about the Moturiki [Fiji] archaeological dig) with Patrick Nunn in DISCUSSION with Dr Tarisi Sorovi-Vunidilo, 27th June 2021, view here.
June 2021 – Communicating Climate Change is a massive challenge, dwarfing most outstanding science questions. DISCUSSION featuring Patrick Nunn (+ 3 others) at the MET Maroochydore on Saturday 19th June.
May 2021 – Brilliant collaboration between Fijian researchers Roselyn Kumar and Elia Nakoro and myself (mainly Rosie!) shows how analysis of the mineral composition of ancient Fiji pottery can be used to reconstruct trading networks in Fiji 3000 years ago! Read the ARTICLE for free in the journal Geosciences here. See the graphic Abstract below.
May 2021 – readable and entertaining ARTICLE reflecting on my several decades of geo-research in the Pacific Islands, free to read in Geosciences here. Described as an ‘outstanding read’ by journalist Michael Field (@MichaelFieldNZ).
May 2021 – Excellent ARTICLE by Mark Piesing for BBC Future about the use of ancient oral traditions in planning for human futures here.
April 2021 – Free WEBINAR on “Innovative Responses to Climate Change in Island and Small States” featuring Patrick Nunn and others. View on YouTube here.
April 2021 – Ever wondered why scientific messages about climate change often make so little impact in the Pacific Islands? Some answers are in my NEW BOOK (co-edited with Dr Johannes Luetz) titled Beyond Belief: Opportunities for Faith-Engaged Approaches to Climate-Change Adaptation in the Pacific Islands, published this month by Springer Nature.
March 2021 – Are there “lost continents” in the centre of the ocean basins? Have islands ever truly “vanished”? The answers to these questions and more are in my PRESENTATION about Vanished Islands and Continents in the World’s Oceans to Hacettepe University (Ankara) on 12th March 2021. You can view the entire presentation here (it’s a big file!).
February 2021 – Ever wondered why people living on ‘small’ islands like to build seawalls … and why this is rarely a good idea. See my new ARTICLE – Seawalls as maladaptations along island coasts – with Carola Klöck and Virginie Duvat in Ocean and Coastal Management, free to download before 10th April 2021 here.
February 2021 – Is this the Oldest Story Ever Told? In Conversation with Tom Dunne – RADIO INTERVIEW on The Moncrieff Show, Newstalk, Ireland – Listen here.
February 2021 – Great ARTICLE (featuring my research) in Discover Magazine about how Indigenous oral traditions can guide archaeology and also throw light on past climate changes. Indigenous knowledge has been hugely undervalued by many scientists, but its future looks bright!
November 2020 – PRESENTATION – Patrick delivered the University of Queensland Diamantina Institute’s 2020 NAIDOC Week Seminar on the topic of Original Histories: Indigenous Memories of Ancient Disasters and their Future Implications on 12 November 2020. The presentation was recorded and is available here
October 2020 – PRESENTATION – Patrick spoke in a webinar about Oceanic Histories: How Seas Shaped Australia’s Past on 29th October 2020 at 12 noon (AEST) in the Australian National University’s Deep Conversations: History, Environment, Science series. Recording available here.
October 2020 – PRESENTATION – Patrick spoke about Ancient Indigenous Observations and Memories of Land Submergence on 22 October 2020 in the international SPLOSH Workshop, recording available here
August 2020 – After years of being told they are helpless and needy, some Pacific Islanders are pushing back against such global narratives. NEW ARTICLE – Pacific people have been ‘pummelled and demeaned’ for too long – now they’re fighting back. – The Conversation
August 2020 – How it sometimes helps to look back in order to move forward … NEW ARTICLE – Rediscovering the past to negotiate the future: how knowledge about settlement history on high tropical Pacific Islands might facilitate future relocations is published in Environmental Development
August 2020 – The manifold dangers of dependency spelled out … NEW ARTICLE – Pacific Islands must stop relying on foreign aid to adapt to climate change, because the money won’t last – The Conversation
July 2020 – How the pandemic spread to the Pacific Islands … and what slowed its progress. NEW ARTICLE – Coronavirus: COVID-19 Transmission in Pacific Small Island Developing States is published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
July 2020 – Understanding how many worthy attempts to help Pacific Island peoples adapt to climate change have failed … and what can be done. NEW ARTICLE IN NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE with a complementary piece in The Conversation – Their fate isn’t sealed: Pacific nations can survive climate change – if locals take the lead
June 2020 – Why many of the world’s coastal cities are being submerged … and what we might do about this. NEW ARTICLE in COSMOS Magazine – Doomed to Drown (Issue 87)
May 2020 – What people thousands of years ago thought and did about rising sea level … and the ways this knowledge can help us today. NEW ARTICLE – In Anticipation of Extirpation: How Ancient Peoples Rationalized and Responded to Postglacial Sea Level Rise … And Why It Matters is published in Environmental Humanities
April 2020 – Thinking about those once-inhabited lands that now lie submerged beneath the ocean surface – and our ways of remembering and forgetting them. The manuscript of my NEW BOOK, Worlds in Shadow, delivered to publisher
September 2018 – Understanding where the edge of memory might lie in this entertaining quickfire DISCUSSION– In Conversation with Richard Fidler (ABC National Radio)
August 2018 – Have you ever wondered how long humans can retain memories …? My NEW BOOK, The Edge of Memory, is published