John Parkington

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John Parkington
ElandsBay1979.jpg
Rock paintings at Eland's Bay Cave Photo taken in 1979. From left to right, Merrick Posnansky, John Parkington and J. Desmond Clark.
Alma mater Cambridge University
Known for Hunter-gatherers
Paleoenvironmental reconstruction and Human ecology
Prehistoric art
Coastal archaeology
Scientific career
Fields Archaeology
Institutions University of Cape Town
Thesis Follow the San: an analysis of seasonality in the prehistory of the south western Cape  (1977)
Doctoral students Hilary John Deacon
Janette Deacon
Website John Parkington at UCT

John Parkington FRSSAf is an Emeritus professor in archaeology and hunter-gatherers, Paleoenvironmental reconstruction and human ecology, prehistoric art, and coastal archaeology. [1] [2] He has suggested that since fish provide an important nutrient for the brain, the consumption of fish led to the emergence of the first really intelligent humans in the Western Cape region of South Africa. [3] In February 2000 South African President Thabo Mbeki mentioned the letter he had received from Parkington, regarding the protection of archaeological heritage sites, in his address at the opening of South Africa's Parliament. [4]

Contents

Career

Parkington received his education at Cambridge University where he completed a BA (Hons.) in Paleolithic Archaeology in 1966. In the same year he was appointed Junior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and promoted to Lecturer in 1971. He completed his MA at Cambridge in 1973 and was appointed Associate Professor of Archaeology at UCT in 1976. [1]

Parkington completed his PhD in Paleolithic Archaeology in 1977 with a thesis entitled: "Follow the San: an analysis of seasonality in the prehistory of the south western Cape" and was appointed Professor of Archaeology at UCT in 1986. [1]

He has been a Visiting Professor at the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley in semesters during 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1995. In 1988 he was Visiting Professor at the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University and in 1996 at Institut du Quaternaire, University of Bordeaux, Talence, France. [1]

Recognition, memberships, awards

Other projects

In 2002 Parkington started the Clanwilliam Living Landscape Project, a sustainable jobs initiative, in which local inhabitants of the area were trained to interpret rock art and act as tour guides. [6] [7]

Books

Selected publications

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern Cape</span> Province in South Africa

The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley. It includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park and an international park shared with Botswana. It also includes the Augrabies Falls and the diamond mining regions in Kimberley and Alexander Bay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Cape Town</span> Public university in Cape Town, South Africa

The University of Cape Town (UCT) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest university in Sub-Saharan Africa in continuous operation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elands Bay</span> Place in Western Cape, South Africa

Elands Bay is a town in South Africa, situated in the Western Cape Province, on the Atlantic Ocean, at 32°18′S18°19′E. The town is located about 220 kilometres north from Cape Town. It is a world class surfing location and is also noted for its caves, which have a number of rock paintings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhodes Memorial</span> Memorial to British-born South African politician Cecil John Rhodes

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Lewis-Williams</span> South African archaeologist

James David Lewis-Williams is a South African archaeologist. He is best known for his research on southern African San (Bushmen) rock art. He is the founder and previous director of the Rock Art Research Institute and is currently professor emeritus of cognitive archaeology at the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ǀXam and ǂKhomani heartland</span> UNESCO World Heritage Site in Northern Cape, South Africa

The ǀXam and ǂKhomani heartland World Heritage Site consists of regions located to the South and North of Upington, respectively, in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. The ǀXam and ǂKhomani people were linguistically related groups of San (Bushman) people, their respective languages being part of the ǃKwi language group. Descendants of both the ǀXam and Nǁnǂe include Afrikaans-speaking ‘Coloured’ people on farms or in towns in the region amongst whom the precolonial languages are either entirely extinct or can be spoken by but a very few people.

Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre is a rock engraving site with visitor centre on land owned by the !Xun and Khwe San situated about 16 km from Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa. It is a declared Provincial Heritage Site managed by the Northern Cape Rock Art Trust in association with the McGregor Museum. The engravings exemplify one of the forms often referred to as ‘Bushman rock art' – or Khoe-San rock art – with the rock paintings of the Drakensberg, Cederberg and other regions of South Africa being generally better known occurrences. Differing in technique, the engravings have many features in common with rock paintings. A greater emphasis on large mammals such as elephant, rhino and hippo, in addition to eland, and an often reduced concern with depicting the human form set the engravings apart from the paintings of the sub-continent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diepkloof Rock Shelter</span> Rock shelter in South Africa

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Bongani Mawethu Mayosi BMedSci, MB ChB, FCP(SA), DPhil, was a South African professor of cardiology He was the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town and an A-rated National Research Foundation researcher. Prior to this, he was head of the Department of Medicine at the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital. his research interests included rheumatic fever, tuberculous pericarditis and cardiomyopathy. He was a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa and a former President of the College of Physicians of South Africa and he headed numerous other biomedical organisations during his career.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mussel Point</span>

Mussel Point also known as Mike Taylor's Midden (MTM) is possibly the largest of 13 megamiddens found along the South African West Coast. MTM is the only open site with remains from the early pottery period in the Elands Bay and Lamberts Bay areas at 32°18′S18°19′E.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Verlorenvlei Heritage Settlement</span>

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Paternoster Midden is a megamidden on the west coast of South Africa. This megamidden has particular value, as it is one of the few megamiddens in existence that has such a rich and diverse faunal and artefactual content.

Judith Sealy is a Professor and South Africa Research Chairs Initiative Research Chair in Archaeology and Paleoenvironmental Studies and director of the Stable Light Isotope Lab in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cape Town.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FeesMustFall</span> 2015–2016 student movement in South Africa

#FeesMustFall was a student-led protest movement that began in mid-October 2015 in South Africa. The goals of the movement were to stop increases in student fees as well as to increase government funding of universities. Protests started at the University of Witwatersrand and spread to the University of Cape Town and Rhodes University before rapidly spreading to other universities across the country. Although initially enjoying significant public support the protest movement started to lose public sympathy when the protests started turning violent.

Elands Bay Cave is located near the mouth of the Verlorenvlei estuary on the Atlantic coast of South Africa's Western Cape Province. The climate has continuously become drier since the habitation of hunter-gatherers in the Later Pleistocene. The archaeological remains recovered from previous excavations at Elands Bay Cave have been studied to help answer questions regarding the relationship of people and their landscape, the role of climate change that could have determined or influenced subsistence changes, and the impact of pastoralism and agriculture on hunter-gatherer communities.

Floretta Avril Boonzaier is a South African psychologist and Professor of Psychology at the University of Cape Town. She is noted for her work in feminist, critical and postcolonial psychologies, subjectivity in relation to race, gender and sexuality, and gender-based violence, and qualitative psychologies, especially narrative, discursive and participatory methods. She heads the Hub for Decolonial Feminist Psychologies in Africa with Shose Kessi.

Brian A. Stewart is an anthropological archaeologist, assistant professor of anthropology, and curator of Paleolithic archaeology at the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropological Archaeology. He is also an honorary research fellow at the Rock Art Institute of the University of the Witwatersrand. His research focuses primarily on prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies of Africa, especially southern Africa. He is particularly interested in determining when, how, and where humans developed adaptive plasticity. Brian Stewart has directed excavations of many sites, mostly in Lesotho and South Africa, among the most notable are Spitzkloof, Sehonghong, and Melikane.

Kate Jagoe-Davies was a South African artist and anti-apartheid and disability rights activist.

Carolyn Williamson is a South African virologist and microbiologist who is a professor of medical virology at the University of Cape Town. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa and the African Academy of Sciences, and a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. Her research focuses on HIV vaccine development and prevention of the disease.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "JOHN PARKINGTON : PROFESSOR OF ARCHAEOLOGY : DIRECTOR SPATIAL ARCHAEOLOGY RESEARCH UNIT : CV" (PDF). Projects.gibb.co.za. Retrieved 23 September 2019.
  2. "John Parkington". Archaeology.uct.ac.za. Retrieved 23 September 2019.
  3. "Eat fish and swim away with intelligence". The Star (IOL). Retrieved 23 September 2019.
  4. Delmas, Adrien; de la Peña, Paloma (April 2019). "Towards a history of Archaeology from South Africa". Goodwin Series. 12. South African Archaeological Society: 27. ISSN   0304-3460 . Retrieved 23 September 2019.
  5. "Members List « ASSAf – Academy of Science of South Africa". ASSAF.ORG.ZA. 2 January 2009. Archived from the original on 26 July 2018. Retrieved 23 September 2019.
  6. "Living guides to ancient art - IOL Travel". Independent On-Line. 20 September 2019. Retrieved 23 September 2019.
  7. Smith, Andrew (April 2005). "SENIOR SCOUT ADVENTURE 'FOLLOWS THE SAN'" (PDF). The Digging Stick. 22 (1). The South African Archaeological Society: 11. ISSN   1013-7521 . Retrieved 23 September 2019.