Susan Bulmer

Susan Evelyn Bulmer ( Hirsh; 17 February 1933 – 6 October 2016), known as Sue Bulmer, was a pioneering American archaeologist who worked in Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. She was the first archaeologist to carry out excavations in the New Guinea Highlands in 1959–1960 and 1967–1973.

Early life Bulmer was born in Ithaca, New York in 1933. In 1937 the family moved to Pasadena, California, where her father was a researcher at Caltech. A four month long yacht trip from Hawaii through French Polynesia introduced her to the field of archaeology.

In 1978 Bulmer graduated with a PhD from the University of Papua New Guinea. Her thesis topic was prehistoric culture change in the Port Moresby area. Bulmer’s Fruit Bat, a New Guinea megabat, discovered from fossils excavated by Bulmer, is named after her.

From 1970–72 she was on the board of the Papua New Guinea National Museum, along with fellow board member Michael Somare, later Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea.

Bulmer returned to New Zealand in 1973. While she was completing her PhD thesis she began doing site recording using students from the university, an initiative stimulated by the implementation of the Historic Places Amendment Act (1975). Bulmer’s contribution to New Guinea archaeology was commemorated in a special volume of Archaeology in Oceania in 2016. This volume includes a bibliography of Bulmer's publications spanning both her New Guinea and New Zealand work. and domestic animals such as the New Guinea Singing Dog.

Bulmer was active in the World Archaeology Congress, serving as Treasurer in 1990.

Community activism In the mid-1980s Bulmer co-founded the Friends of Maungawhau, a community organisation advocating for the care and management of Maungawhau, an extinct volcanic cone and historic pa site in the Auckland inner city suburb of Mt Eden. The 2014 book Maungawhau: A Short History of Volunteer Action is dedicated to Bulmer.

Personal life Bulmer married the social anthropologist and ethnobiologist Ralph Bulmer in 1959. They had three children and divorced in 1979.