Rock Art Thematic Study
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Rock Art Thematic Study Jo McDonald and Lucia Clayton 26 May 2016 Report to the Department of the Environment and the Australian Heritage Council Centre for Rock Art Research and Management, University of WA Rock Art Thematic Study Page ii Table of Contents 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 1 2 Rock art overview ............................................................................................................................................... 2 2.1 Introduction to rock art ............................................................................................................................... 2 2.2 Regional overview of Australian Aboriginal rock art ..................................................................................... 3 2.2.1 Australian Capital Territory (ACT) ....................................................................................................................... 7 2.2.2 New South Wales ................................................................................................................................................ 7 2.2.3 Northern Territory ............................................................................................................................................. 14 2.2.4 Queensland ....................................................................................................................................................... 23 2.2.5 South Australia .................................................................................................................................................. 30 2.2.6 Tasmania ........................................................................................................................................................... 31 2.2.7 Victoria .............................................................................................................................................................. 33 2.2.8 Western Australia .............................................................................................................................................. 35 2.3 Overview of rock art chronology ............................................................................................................... 44 3 Heritage registers.............................................................................................................................................. 56 3.1 National Heritage List ................................................................................................................................ 56 3.2 Listed heritage places ................................................................................................................................ 57 4 Assessment of rock art places ............................................................................................................................ 59 4.1 Survey ...................................................................................................................................................... 59 4.2 Assessment Frameworks ........................................................................................................................... 60 4.2.1 Thematic framework ......................................................................................................................................... 60 4.2.2 Typological framework ...................................................................................................................................... 62 4.2.3 Chronological framework .................................................................................................................................. 62 5 Assessment of places ........................................................................................................................................ 63 5.1 Summary of National Heritage List criteria and framework assessments .................................................... 80 5.1.1 National Heritage criteria assessment summary .............................................................................................. 81 5.1.2 Geographic assessment summary .................................................................................................................... 81 5.1.3 Thematic framework assessment summary ..................................................................................................... 85 5.1.4 Typological framework assessment summary .................................................................................................. 86 5.1.5 Chronological framework assessment summary .............................................................................................. 86 5.1.6 Summary ........................................................................................................................................................... 86 6 Conclusions ...................................................................................................................................................... 87 Centre for Rock Art Research and Management, UWA May 2016 Rock Art Thematic Study Page iii 7 Recommendations ............................................................................................................................................ 88 8 References ........................................................................................................................................................ 90 9 Appendices ....................................................................................................................................................... 97 9.1 National Heritage List Criteria ................................................................................................................... 97 9.2 Listed places on the National Heritage List with rock art specified in the criteria. ........................................ 98 9.3 Heritage places with rock art on the WHL, CHL, NHL and RNE. ...................................................................101 9.4 Detailed criteria assessment against NHL criteria of proposed rock art places. ........................................... 107 9.5 Bibliography of shortlisted rock art places ................................................................................................127 Figures Figure 1: Early map showing the distribution of petroglyphs (Davidson (1936) 2011: Figure 1)............................. 3 Figure 2: Early map showing the distribution of painting sites (Davidson (1936) 2011: Figure 28). ....................... 3 Figure 3: Map of Australia with location of 30 major rock art regions indicated (Taçon 2001: Figure 17.1). ......... 4 Figure 4: Major rock art regions in Australia (Morwood 2002: Figure 2.1). ............................................................. 5 Figure 5: Australian Rock Art regions as identified in the present study. ............................................................... 6 Figure 6: Engravings at Devil's Rock (NSW) showing the two culture heroes at the edges of the composition (McDonald 2008: Figure 11.34). ..................................................................................................................... 10 Figure 7: Map showing the Keep River and Victoria River District with the main recorded locations with rock art (NT) (McNickle 1991: Figure 2). ...................................................................................................................... 15 Figure 8: Location of Wardaman Country and sites mentioned in the text (Clarkson 2007: Figure 4.1). ............. 16 Figure 9: Map of the Keep River study region (NT) (Taçon et al. 2003: Figure 1). ................................................. 17 Figure 10: Central Australian (NT) rock art sites (from Gunn 2004: Figure 1). ....................................................... 21 Figure 11: Kalkadoon motifs, northwest central Queensland (NT) (Ross et al. 2008: Figure 4). ........................... 24 Figure 12: Rock art styles in Victoria (Gunn 1984: Figure 1). ................................................................................. 33 Figure 13: Overlay of Pilbara art provinces with Tindale's 1974 socio-linguistic territories .................................. 36 Figure 14: Location of Western Desert main rock art provinces. ........................................................................... 39 Figure 15: Map of Australia, showing the distribution of Maynard's (1979) styles (Franklin 1991: Figure 1). ...... 46 Figure 16: Anthropomorphs and characteristic fauna in the Murujuga art phases. .............................................. 51 Figure 17: Map showing location of regions interpreted as containing Pleistocene regional style signatures and other early forms of symbolic behaviour (from Veth et al. 2011: Figure 9.4). ............................................... 54 Figure 18: Ross’s 2003 relative stylistic sequence for Central Australia (from Smith 2013: Table 7.5). ................ 55 Centre for Rock Art Research and Management, UWA May 2016 Rock Art Thematic Study Page iv Tables Table 1: Stratigraphic and direct dates for rock engravings in the arid zone (from Smith 2013: Table 7.2) ......... 49 Table 2: McDonald’s 2014 model (2014: Table 1) with proposed archaeological correlates showing landscape, sea level and