Jack Golson - Emeritus Professor, archaeologist

This audio interview, with Emeritus Professor Jack Golson, is part of the Emeritus Faculty's Oral History Program, involving retired staff members of ANU who were part of the university in its earlier life. The Oral History Program was initiated and developed by ANU Emeritus Faculty as a contribution to university and community understanding of the beginnings and development of ANU over the past six decades. Emeritus Faculty has a special interest in this era, since the Faculty's membership includes many of the people who helped shape ANU in its early days, to make it the pre-eminent university it is today. Jack Golson is Emeritus Professor and Visiting Fellow in the Department of Archaeology and Natural History at ANU. Born in Rochdale, Lancashire, UK in 1926, he is a graduate of Cambridge University. After appointment in 1954 as Lecturer then Senior Lecturer in Prehistory at Auckland University College (later the University of Auckland), Jack became Fellow in Prehistory in the Research School of Pacific Studies at ANU in 1961. He was appointed Foundation Professor of Prehistory in RSPacS in 1969, and retired from that position in 1991. Jack was President of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association (1980-85), President of the World Archaeological Congress (1990-94), Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities from 1975, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (1987-2002). From 1968-87 he served on a Working Party on Archaeology of the Pacific Science Association and from time to time on the editorial boards of professional journals in the Asia-Pacific region. He received the Order of Australia (AO) in 1997 and an Australian Centenary Medal in 2003. At ANU Jack Golson's main field came to be the origins and development of agriculture in the New Guinea highlands. Jack married Clare Joe in 1962. They have a son and daughter, and live in North Canberra not far from ANU. Jack actively continues his research and writing at ANU, and is a member of Emeritus Faculty