Ron Vanderwal (born 1938)[1] was an American-Australian Archaeologist who specialised in the prehistoric archaeology of the Pacific and New Guinea in particular.

He moved to Australia in the 1970s undertaking a PhD in the prehistory of Papua at the Australian National University and subsequently taking on a role at the Tasmanian Museum.

[5] He was the first in 1969 to excavate the Yule Island site of Oposisi where the first millennium AD decorated Early Papuan pottery style horizon was defined.

[6] He taught archaeology and prehistory at La Trobe University in 1978 with David Frankel in Australian coastal archaeology including fieldwork in remote places such as his pioneering work on the Papuan coast into prehistoric pottery, also with Nigel Oram on the history of the material culture exchange system.

[7] In 1981 he excavated the artificial mounds in the middle of Kinomere Village on Urama Island in the Papuan Gulf.