Flenley, John (Roger)

views updated

FLENLEY, John (Roger)

PERSONAL: Male. Education: University of Cambridge, M.A., Cert.Ed., Australian National University, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—Palmerston North Campus, Massey University, Private Bag 11 222, Palmerston North, New Zealand. E-mail—[email protected]. nz.

CAREER: University of Hull, Hull, England, reader in geography; Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand, professor of geography, 1989—.

AWARDS, HONORS: Named fellow of Royal Society of New Zealand, 2002; honorary doctorate of science from University of Cambridge, 2004.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) The Water Relations of Malesian Forests: Being the Transactions of the First Aberdeen-Hull Symposium on Malesian Ecology, University of Hull (Hull, England), 1971.

The Equatorial Rain Forest: A Geological History, Butterworths (Boston, MA), 1979.

(Editor, with John Neale) The Quaternary in Britain:Essays, Reviews, and Original Work on the Quaternary Published in Honour of Lewis Penny on His Retirement, Pergamon Press (New York, NY), 1981.

(Editor, with S. A. Burgess and D. Beeson) Paul Müller, Biogeography, Harper (New York, NY), 1986.

(Editor, with Thomas R. R. Johnston) Aspects ofEnvironmental Change, Massey University (Palmerston North, New Zealand), 1991.

(With Paul Bahn) Easter Island, Earth Island, Thames and Hudson (New York, NY), 1992, second edition published as The Enigmas of Easter Island: Island on the Edge, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2003.

Contributor to books, including Themes in Biogeography, Recent Advances in Indo-Pacific Prehistory, and Forest and Civilisations, and to journals, including Nature, Rapa Nui Journal, Geographical, and Journal of Quaternary Science.

SIDELIGHTS: Geographer John Flenley is a specialist in biogeography and quaternary paleoecology—that is, studying land to determine its history. He has long been interested in Easter Island, the South Pacific island famed for its giant stone statues. Because it is so far from other land masses, scientists for many years have been trying to answer the question of who settled the remote island and constructed the statues.

Flenley and Paul Bahn put forth their theories in Easter Island, Earth Island, published in a second edition as The Enigmas of Easter Island: Island on the Edge. The authors believe the island's inhabitants came from Polynesia, not South America, as some others have maintained, and they offer data to support their argument. They also argue that deforestation led to the island's depopulation. Additionally, their book recounts European visits to Easter Island, including that of Captain James Cook in 1774, and deals with the research other scholars have done on the island. These include Steven Fischer, who has deciphered the Rongorongo glyphs, and William Mulloy, considered the leading expert on Easter Island. They are "generous" in giving credit, commented Joan W. Garland, reviewing the revised edition in Library Journal. The book overall, she said, "is an outstanding study, clearly written, impressive in its scope."