Pictures, jargon and theory—our own ethnography and roadside rock art. In F.D. McCarthy, Commemorative Papers (Archaeology, Anthropology, Rock Art), ed. Jim Specht

Abstract

The roadside pictures of an area in suburban Sydney were examined as valuable 'things to think with' for prehistorians in particular and other students of rock art. It was discovered that several traits which had been considered unique to, and characteristic of, European palaeolithic rock art are also characteristic of the pictures of suburban Sydney. New light is shed on the concepts of 'art' and 'style' when they are confronted with essentially familiar materials whose ethnography is at once known and intangible.