Josephine Flood

Josephine Flood
Born c.1938
Great Britain
Residence Australia
Nationality Australian
Fields Archaeology
Institutions Australian National University, Australian Heritage Commission
Alma mater Cambridge University
Notable awards Centenary Medal (2001)

Josephine Flood, FASSA, (born 1938) is an English-born Australian archaeologist, mountaineer, and author.

Early life and education

Josephine Flood was born Josephine Scarr in Yorkshire, England. She took a BA in Classics at Girton College, Cambridge, in 1959, later receiving an MA (1968)[1] and a PhD (1973) from the Australian National University.[2] Her PhD thesis was published as: The Moth Hunters: Aboriginal prehistory of the Australian Alps in 1980.[3]

In 1963, Flood moved to Australia. She married an Australian diplomat the following year, subsequently having three children.[4]

Professional career

At ANU Flood was appointed as a lecturer in Classical archaeology at ANU, but from 1964, she commenced lecturing in Australian archaeology. In 1978 Flood was appointed Senior Conservation Officer with the Australian Heritage Commission in Canberra, becoming Assistant Director from 1979 to 1991, where in 1984 she headed the Aboriginal Environment Section. Over 2000 Aboriginal archaeological sites were added to the Register of the National Estate during her time at the AHC. She also contributed to the World Heritage Listing of Kakadu National Park, the Tasmanian South West Wilderness Area and the Willandra Lakes Region of NSW.[5]

Flood indicates that she discovered Cloggs Cave near Buchan, Victoria while driving to another site in eastern Victoria. Her subsequent excavations revealed extensive evidence of Aboriginal stone tools from the Australian Small Tool Tradition, with the basal layer dated to the last 1,000 years.[6][7]

Flood has followed a theoretical approach involving the use of recent ethnographic information to reinterpret the evidence of prehistoric archaeological material on the basis that "there have only been minor changes in the "stone-age, foraging, semi-nomadic way of life" of Aboriginal people throughout history".[8]

Awards and prizes

Flood received the Centenary Medal in 2001 For service to Australian society and the humanities in prehistory and archaeology.[9] Her most recent book, The Original Australians was a finalist in the Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History in 2007.[10]

Other Interests and retirement

Flood is also a mountaineer. She was possibly the only female member of the roof climbing group at Cambridge University, who practiced and honed their rock and mountain climbing skills by scaling the university's stone buildings.[11] In 1961, she led the Women’s Kulu Expedition[12] and the following year she joined the Women’s Jagdula Expedition to Lha Shamma in Nepal.[13]

She retired early to devote time to research, writing and travel.[14] In retirement she has also provided support and field data for archaeological projects in the Australian Alps, rock art in the Northern Territory at sites of the ‘Land of the Lightning Brothers’,[15] and dating of the extinction of Australian megafauna.[16]

Publications

References

  1. ↑ Archaeology of Yarar shelter, Flood, Josephine, Australian National University Thesis accepted: 1968
  2. ↑ Josephine Flood The moth-hunters investigations towards a prehistory of the south eastern highlands of Australia, Thesis (Ph. D.) Australian National University, 1973. manuscript
  3. ↑ Flood, Josephine; Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (1980), The moth hunters : Aboriginal prehistory of the Australian Alps / Josephine Flood, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, ISBN 0855750855
  4. ↑ Himalayan Dreaming: Australian mountaineering in the great ranges of Asia, 1922–1990 Will Steffen, Part 8: New summits— beyond the trade routes ANU Press 2010
  5. ↑ Henry Cleere, Archaeological Heritage Management in the Modern World (Google eBook) Routledge, 12 Nov 2012, Chapter 8
  6. ↑ Josephine Flood, 'Pleistocene Man at Cloggs Cave: his Tool Kit and Environment', Mankind Volume 9, Issue 3, pages 175–188, June 1974
  7. ↑ Josephine Flood, 'Pleistocene human occupation and extinct fauna in Cloggs Cave, Buchan, South-east Australia'. Nature 1973 Nov 30;246(5431):303.
  8. ↑ ABC News in Science Ancient Australia not written in stone
  9. ↑ Australian Honours, commonwealth government Website
  10. ↑ ANU Rock Art Research Centre, 'People'
  11. ↑ Cambridge night climbing history, transcript of talk by Richard Williams to the Cambridge Society of Victoria at the Kelvin Club, Melbourne, Wednesday 21st October 2009. www.cambridgesociety.org.au. published by Oleander Press, Cambridge, as the introduction to the omnibus edition of The Roof-Climber’s Guide to Trinity oleanderpress.com
  12. ↑ The Himalaysan Journal Women's Kulu Expedition, 1961 Josephine Scarr
  13. ↑ The Jagdula Expedition, 1962 Denise Evans
  14. ↑ University of Queensland Press, Author Profile
  15. ↑ David, B., McNiven, I., Attenbrow, V. and Flood, J. 1994 Of Lightning Brothers and White Cockatoos: dating the antiquity of signifying systems in the Northern Territory, Australia. Antiquity 68:241-251.
  16. ↑ ABC Science, News in Science, Ancient Australia not written in stone, Published 19 June 2008
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