Into the Past: A Step Towards a Robust Kimberley Rock Art Chronology

Abstract

The recent establishment of a minimum age estimate of 39.9 ka for the origin of rock art in Sulawesi has challenged claims that Western Europe was the locus for the production of the world’s earliest art assemblages. Tantalising excavated evidence found across northern Australian suggests that Australia too contains a wealth of ancient art. However, the dating of rock art itself remains the greatest obstacle to be addressed if the significance of Australian assemblages are to be recognised on the world stage. A recent archaeological project in the northwest Kimberley trialled three dating techniques in order to establish chronological markers for the proposed, regional, relative stylistic sequence. Applications using optically-stimulated luminescence (OSL) provided nine minimum age estimates for fossilised mudwasp nests overlying a range of rock art styles, while Accelerator Mass Spectrometry radiocarbon (AMS 14C) results provided an additional four. Results confirm that at least one phase of the northwest Kimberley rock art assemblage is Pleistocene in origin. A complete motif located on the ceiling of a rockshelter returned a minimum age estimate of 16 ± 1 ka. Further, our results demonstrate the inherent problems in relying solely on stylistic classifications to order rock art assemblages into temporal sequences. An earlier than expected minimum age estimate for one style and a maximum age estimate for another together illustrate that the Holocene Kimberley rock art sequence is likely to be far more complex than generally accepted with different styles produced contemporaneously well into the last few millennia. It is evident that reliance on techniques that produce minimum age estimates means that many more dating programs will need to be undertaken before the stylistic sequence can be securely dated.

12,000-Year-old Aboriginal rock art from the Kimberley region, Western Australia

“…Apart from the most recent Wanjina phase, very few motifs from the earlier art periods have absolute age constraints. Only two Kimberley rock art motifs have provided age estimates older than the mid-Holocene (20,21), and only one of these can be attributed to an identified style, but even this date has been the subject of much debate (5,22). Notwithstanding this lack of direct evidence, it has long been thought that the older styles in the Kimberley sequence date back to the Pleistocene [e.g., (23,24)].…”

Unlocking the Kimberley’s past: the applicability of organic spring deposits for reconstructing late Quaternary climatic and environmental change

“…The Kimberley's rock art sequence is thought to be amongst the largest, longest and most complex of any collection in the world, with the region containing tens of thousands of rock art sites (Walsh, 2000;Welch, 2016). Rock art remains central to cultural beliefs of the region's indigenous populations (Ross et al, 2016) with art still produced in the area today (Chalarimeri, 2001;Blundell and Wollagoodja, 2005;O'Connor et al, 2013;Akerman, 2014). Much of the art is located in rock shelters which are ideal locations for painting preservation, since the majority of art-bearing rock shelter substrates are comprised of hard, stable KLS (Schmidt and Williams, 2008) or sandstone from the Warton unit (Green et al, 2017).…”

“…Alternative names have therefore been incorporated into As a result of the challenges posed by chronological control, the antiquity of the Kimberley's rock art remains unknown since there are few absolute dates (e.g. Roberts, 1997;Roberts et al, 1997;Watchman 1997;Watchman et al, 1997;Roberts, 2000;Watchman, 2000;Morwood et al, 2010;Ross et al, 2016). This is predominantly due to the sandstone substrate on which the art is primarily found which limits the use of U-series dating techniques on over/under art mineral accretions since there is little secondary calcium carbonate available (Green et al, 2017).…”

The Timing and Nature of Human Colonization of Southeast Asia in the Late Pleistocene

“…There are other indirect rock art dating methods available, such as optically stimulated luminescence dating (OSL), which has been applied to mud-wasp nests associated with rock art (Roberts et al 1997;Ross et al 2016). However, these have never been applied in Southeast Asia and are not described here.…”