Catherine Frieman is Associate Professor at The Australian National University studying archaeology. Her research investigates conservatism and innovation in prehistoric societies and she is a specialist in material culture and technology.

Previously, she was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art at the University of Oxford and a Lecturer in archaeology at the University of Nottingham. Catherine received degrees in archaeological studies from Yale University and from the University of Oxford and her research has examined the adoption of metal objects and metallurgy in ancient north-western Europe through a close study of various lithic objects long thought to be skeuomorphs of metal.