Josephine Flood

Archaeology of the Dreamtime : the story of prehistoric Australia and its people

This text explores how the first inhabitants reached Australia over 50,000 years ago. Using archaelogical evidence and aboriginal oral traditions, the book tells the history of these people. It examines the ways in which the Aborigines adapted to and modified their environment, and how their art and culture developed. This revised edition incorporates information on recent archaelogical discoveries. It features a revision of the chapters on Pleistocene rock art and the extinction of the megafauna.

Of Lightning Brothers and White Cockatoos: dating the antiquity of signifying systems in the Northern Territory, Australia

Northern Australia is one of the very few regions of the world where an established tradition of rock-art has continued and extends into present-day knowledge. Excavation of deposits under the painted surfaces allows the age of the paintings to be estimated, by linking across to these deposits and their dateable contexts. One can begin to assess the antiquity of those systems of knowledge and of ‘signifying’.