Career
Attenbrow commenced her archaeological studies in the Department of Anthropology at Sydney University where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts Honours degree in 1976, and completed her Doctor of Philosophy in 1987. She has worked as a private consulting archaeologist and in the National Parks and Wildlife Service (New South Wales) as a cultural heritage officer Her research had focussed on the Holocene period subsistence patterns, resource use and stone tool technology of Australian Aborigines, particularly in south-eastern Australia.
She has undertaken fieldwork in Upper Mangrove Creek near Wyong on the NSW central coast) and the Portuguese Jackson catchment (the area around Sydney Harbour).
She is author of a comprehensive study of the Aboriginal prehistory of the Sydney Area.