Jane Balme is an academic who teaches and researches at the University of Western Australia. Her main research is on past hunter-gatherer societies, particularly the Aboriginal people who first colonized Australia. She is especially interested in the role of symbolic behaviour in the successful colonization of continents and, with Sandra Bowdler has also published on the circumstances in which gender categories first arose. Sandra Bowdler was Professor of Archaeology at UWA from 1983 until 2007, and continues her research as a Senior Honorary Research Fellow in both Archaeology and Music.