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A WA winery will provide a $1000 research grant and additional funding based on the sale of their specialist Batavia red wine for archaeology honours students at UWA.

The Batavia UWA Archaeology Research Grant from Bellamarine Wines was named after the famous archaeological shipwreck and survivor’s camp on WA’s coast. It will be awarded to one of 14 honours students studying in 2018, UWA’s largest intake of honours students ever.

Tentative topics for the grant include the use of pineapple juice in defleshing corpses, examining ancient shell from the Pilbara to understand human behaviour, and plant-human relationships in Kimberley rock art.

Dr Sven Ouzman, UWA’s discipline chair of archaeology and the Centre for Rock Art Research & Management, said the grant enables projects that would not have been possible. Honours students typically have the least access to funding in this field, with grants usually going to researchers and PhD students.

“The grant allows honours students to explore their topic better and gives them a good chance of being published both in peer-reviewed and public media, and to present at the annual Australian Archaeological Association conference, further building their networks,” Dr Ouzman said.

“For 2018, $1000 is available and the more Batavia wine is purchased the greater the pot of funding potentially will be!”

Honours students will be submitting a proposal and budget in late March/early April to Dr Ouzman and will be selected based on merit and financial need.