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Depictions of firearms in Australian Aboriginal rock art provide a unique opportunity to archaeologically explore the roles that this type of material culture played in times of culture contact. From the earliest interactions with explorers to the buffalo shooting enterprises of the twentieth century-firearms played complex and shifting roles in western Arnhem Land Aboriginal societies. The site of Madjedbebe (sometimes referred to as Malakunanja II in earlier academic literature) in Jabiluka (Mirarr Country), offers the opportunity to explore these shifting roles over time with an unprecedented 16 paintings of firearms spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This rock art provides evidence for early firearms as objects of curiosity Int J Histor Archaeol (2017)

Apart from eschatological aspects, death is more important for the living than the dead. It is argued that funerals are one of the most important settings for recreating society through the re-establishment of alliances. When an important person dies, his or her former social relations and alliances come to an end and have to be re-established from a societal point of view. At funerals not only are gifts given to the deceased, but it is equally important that the ritual participants make new alliances and re-negotiate old ones by the exchange of gifts. Thus, the distributions of artefacts, or the construction of different funeral monuments, are here seen as the outcome of such transactions. By emphasising transactions and re-negotiations of alliances in different funerals we argue that the distribution of prestige goods in Europe is not only part of trade or warfare. Exchange of gifts and prestige items as part of reciprocal relations was crucial in the structuring of inter-regional areas. Funerals were such occasions where the descendants and the living could legitimate future hierarchies by transferring the deceased's social status and power to themselves by re-negotiating former alliances and creating new ones.

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In this paper, a previously undescribed rock art style consisting of large human figures and animals with stroke-line infill is introduced. These depictions have been named Maliwawa Figures. They are primarily found in northwest Arnhem Land and to date have been recorded at 87 sites from Awunbarna (Mount Borradaile area) to the Namunidjbuk clan state of the Wellington Range. There are solitary figures and others arranged in compositions or scenes. We describe the features of this style, its distribution, subject matter and probable age. The results of a detailed analysis of all sites are discussed and a new, refined Arnhem Land rock art chronology is presented. It is concluded that Maliwawa Figures are most likely to date between 6,000 to 9,400 years of age and to be contemporaneous with Northern Running Figures and Yam Figures found at sites to the south.

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Early depictions of anthropomorphs in rock art provide unique insights into life during the deep past. This includes human engagements with the environment, socio-cultural practices, gender and uses of material culture. In Australia, the Dynamic Figure rock paintings of Arnhem Land are recognized as the earliest style in the region where humans are explicitly depicted. Important questions, such as the nature and significance of body adornment in rock art and society, can be explored, given the detailed nature of the human figurative art and the sheer number of scenes depicted. In this paper, we make a case for Dynamic Figure rock art having some of the earliest and most extensive depictions of complex anthropomorph scenes found anywhere in the world.

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