Arnhem Land prehistory in landscape, stone and paint

Abstract

Western Arnhem Land is a small area (by Australian standards) on the north coast where remarkable sequences of sediment illuminate its complex landscape history. Matching the enviromental succession is an archaeological sequence with lithic sites running back into the Pleistocene. The famous richness of the region's rock-art also documents the human presence, again over a great time-depth, and gives a direct report of how ancient Arnhem Landers depicted themselves. By ‘bridging’ between these three themes, a rare and perhaps unique synthesis can be built.

Megafaunal extinction in the late Quaternary and the global overkill hypothesis

“…The oldest spear-throwers from Europe are less than 20,000 years old (Knecht 1994). The woomera in Australia is thought to date to around 5,000 years ago (Flood 1999), although Tacon & Brockwell (1995) suggest early Holocene.…”

The Artification Hypothesis and Its Relevance to Cognitive Science, Evolutionary Aesthetics, and Neuroaesthetics

“…Second, the physical and neurological coordination of participating with others in temporally organized activity has at least three stabilizing effects: satisfying predictability, tension-producing-andresolving manipulation of expectation, and neurophysiological coordination that is felt subjectively as emotional coordination or integration, which ultimately provides individuals and groups with a sense of coping through social support (Caporael 1997). Several studies report that ritual and artful behavior increased in prehistory at times of resource stress, as in populations of Mimbres (Brody 1977: 210), Late Dorset (Taçon 1983), prehistoric Arnhem Land (Taçon and Brockwell 1995;Taçon, Wilson and Chippindale 1996), and Numic-speaking peoples (Garfinkel, Marcom and Schiffman 2003).…”

How old is X-ray art? Minimum age determinations for early X-ray rock art from the ‘Red Lily’ (Wulk) Lagoon rock art precinct, western Arnhem Land

“…Significant changes occur in archaeological assemblages during this period, such as the appearance of shell middens at Ngarradj Warde Djobkeng (Allen and Barton 1989;Kamminga and Allen 1973), major changes in stone artefact technologies (Hiscock 1999(Hiscock , 2011 and the occupation of Birriwilk to the south of Red Lily Lagoon Site 3 (Shine et al 2013). Taçon and Brockwell (1995) and Taçon et al (1996) suggest that these archaeological changes in the early to mid-Holocene parallel the development of new rock art traditions. The radiocarbon age determinations produced in this study support that proposition.…”

“…Taçon rightly notes that freshwater animal species begin to predominate in early X-ray paintings. As such, the commencement of early X-ray art is thought by many researchers to correspond with mid to late Holocene environmental conditions, such as are evident in the Kakadu wetlands of today (Brockwell 1996;Taçon and Brockwell 1995). As the subject matter of Motif 3 is formally a generic depiction of a snake, and as snakes are known to exist in both wet and dry environments, the faunal taxon cannot itself be used as an indicator of the painting's age.…”