William "Bill" Culican FAHA (21 August 1928 – 24 March 1984) was an Australian archaeologist and lecturer in biblical archaeology and pre-classical antiquity at the University of Melbourne.
Born at New Barn Farm, Great Harwood, Lancashire, he read classics and archaeology at the University of Edinburgh after a period in the Army, then won a scholarship to Queen’s College, Oxford.
[1] In 1967–68, Culican and John Taylor along with students, family and friends undertook excavations on the Fossil Beach Cement Works site near Mornington, Victoria.
Culican's "modest" report (which won several prizes) was undertaken in the spirit that not to do so would be a "dereliction of archaeological duty", despite one visiting nun remarking of the site that "It is no Ur of the Chaldees."
His student, Antonio Sagona, who had just completed his PhD and was tutoring in the department, took over Cullican's teaching duties, and continued his legacy, developing the Archaeology course that Culican had pioneered.