Researching Sandra Bowdler

Bowdler completed an Honours degree in archaeology at the University of Sydney in 1971 and received her PhD from the Australian National University in 1979. Bowdler's PhD thesis was on the Aboriginal archaeology of Hunter Island in the Bass Strait near Tasmania, which was later published in 1984.

Bowdler was appointed Professor of Archaeology at the University of Western Australia in 1983, where her research covered Australian Indigenous archaeology, and in particular Shark Bay, Tasmania and coastal New South Wales, known as part of New England, as well as the pre-neolithic archaeology of East and Southeast Asia. She was at various times a tutor of prehistory at the University of Papua New Guinea, a research scholar with the Department of Prehistory Research, School of Pacific Studies at the Australian National University, lecturer in archaeology at the University of New England, Aboriginal sites consultant for the Forestry Commission of New South Wales and in private practice in Sydney, and professor of archaeology at the University of Western Australia. From 2008, Bowdler was an emeritus professor/honorary research fellow in archaeology, and an honorary senior research fellow in the School of Music, at UWA.

As a member of the Australian Museum in 1964, she documented the Aboriginal burial site in the Balls Head rock shelter, and has written extensively on the Aboriginal ceremonial Bora rings.

In 2008, a special volume of the journal Australian Archaeology was published in Bowdler's honour. Edited by Jane Balme and Sue O'Connor, the special volume was titled More Unconsidered Trifles: Papers to Celebrate the Career of Sandra Bowdler and featured contributions from many of Bowdler's students.

From 2015 to 2019, Bowdler was editor of the journal Australian Archaeology.