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Megafauna Depictions in Australian Rock Art

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Megafauna Depictions in Australian Rock Art Rock Art Research 2013 - Volume 30, Number 2, pp. 197-215. R. G. BEDNARIK 197 KEYWORDS: Megafauna – Rock art – Pleistocene – Iconographic identification – Dating MEGAFAUNA DEPICTIONS IN AUSTRALIAN ROCK ART Robert G. Bednarik Abstract. The numerous published claims concerning the depiction in Australian rock art of megafaunal species or their tracks are examined. Such proposals have appeared for a century now and they have involved both petroglyphs and pictograms. Patterns in the consideration of the evidence presented in their support are analysed and compared with patterns of similar contentions in other parts of the world. The rationales underpinning these various claims are examined and an attempt is presented to explain their apparent causes. Introduction et al. 2005); in Africa, credible claims for Pleistocene rock In comparing the history of the study of Pleistocene art only date from recent years (Beaumont and Bednarik rock art in Australia with that of Europe certain simila- 2010, 2013; Bednarik and Beaumont 2010; Huyge et al. rities are evident. In Europe, the notion of Palaeolithic 2011); and in the Americas, this issue remains to be cave art was vehemently rejected by all archaeologists, resolved. In short, the discovery of Ice Age rock art just as the notion of a Palaeolithic itself (Boucher de has a history marred by rejections and false claims; Perthes 1846) and the proposal of fossil man (Fuhlrott for instance many of the Pleistocene attributions of 1859) had been indignantly scorned a few decades European rock art are falsities (Bednarik 1995a, 2002, previously. The authenticity of the first palaeoart site 2009). At least in that sense the situations in Europe and proposed to be of the Ice Age, Altamira (de Sautuola Australia match closely, in that archaeology seeks to 1880), was only accepted by the gatekeepers of the hu- dictate what are acceptable findings, but usually turns man past 23 years after it had been recognised, and out to be wrong, and the sciences have to contend with only in the face of overwhelming evidence (Cartailhac its dogmas. 1902). In the following year, 1903, the young geologist Basedow was not only the first to correctly recognise Herbert Basedow participated in the South Australian the antiquity of the Aborigines, he was also the first to Government North-West Prospecting Expedition, when suggest that the tracks of extinct species might have he first became acquainted with the petroglyphs of been depicted in Australian rock art. He first proposed South Australia. Although he began publishing on this in 1907 that some of the bird track-like petroglyphs he in the following year (Basedow 1904, 1907), his findings saw at the South Australian site Balparana could be were not comprehensively available for another ten of Genyornis, and later added large tracks at Yunta years (Basedow 1914). His principal proposal was that, Springs and Wilkindinna as possibly representing primarily on geological grounds, some of this rock art Diprotodon (Basedow 1914: 201). He also noted the should be of the Pleistocene. At that time archaeology occurrence of what he thought depicts a platypus assumed that humans had been present in Australia (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), a monotrene now absent for only a few millennia (e.g. Gregory 1904), and Base- in the region, reasoning that it must refer to a much dow’s proposal was rejected for half a century, just as earlier time. However, he presents these possibilities the pronouncements of non-archaeologists had been in as supporting evidence, relying primarily on various Europe. Yet it means that, as soon as the antiquity of the geological observations: the patination concealing most European cave art was accepted, Australia became the petroglyphs at the sites he considers is his ‘strongest second continent where such an age for rock art was evidence’. He also cites the observation of petroglyphs mooted, even if unsuccessfully. In Asia, such claims for on cliff faces that became inaccessible after the rock rock paintings appeared first in the 1970s, but have not shelves on which the rock artist stood had collapsed, been substantiated so far and it was petroglyphs that at Wilkindinna and Deception Creek (also the case at were first soundly attributed to the Pleistocene (Bednarik Yunta Springs; Bednarik 2010), and the occurrence of 198 Rock Art Research 2013 - Volume 30, Number 2, pp. 197-215. R. G. BEDNARIK The main claims made The earliest specific claim is Mountford’s (1929) proposition that the most complex petroglyph motif at the Panaramitee North site near Yunta is a naturalistic depiction of a saltwater crocodile’s (Crocodylus porosus) head. In comparing his recording of the petroglyph with a sketch of the crocodile’s skull Mountford notes that the outline, placing of eyes, nostrils and sutures bear a number of resemblances (Figs 1 and 2). It is not clear, however, why the artist would have depicted a skull rather than a live specimen, unless s/he sought to illustrate a fossil. That might be the case, but it would imply that the image is much more recent than the time the animal lived. Another possibility is that the image is in x-ray style, but this would infer a recent age and x-ray style focuses on internal organs rather than skull sutures. Mountford even mentions the discovery of crocodilian remains, but at sites some 1400 km to the north. Mountford and Edwards later state that [t]he fact that the nearest sea-going crocodile is, at the present day, at least a thousand miles north of the Figure 1. Mountford’s recording of the complex motif rock engraving, suggests that the engraving must be at Panaramitee North, Yunta, South Australia, and of considerable antiquity. It is extremely unlikely that his comparison with the skull of a saltwater crocodile any aboriginal could have engraved a design having (Crocodylus porosus). so many points of resemblance with a living creature if he had not known it intimately (Mountford and Edwards 1962: 98). designs, parts of which had exfoliated while the other Mountford and Edwards also attributed two more parts had remained in situ (Basedow 1914: 198). petroglyphs to the Pleistocene. One, at Yunta Springs Since Basedow’s early speculations there have been (Mountford 1928: Fig. 87), is described as a turtle, ‘which many other proposals that extinct megafauna species on closer examination, proved to be a representation or their tracks had been depicted in Australian rock art, of a marine turtle’ (Mountford and Edwards 1962: 98, most of them postdating the middle of the 19th century. 1963). It was ‘identified’ as such by John Mitchell, then They are the primary subject of this paper, and the most the Curator of Reptiles of the South Australian Museum prominent examples are described. This will then be (Fig. 3). The other, a pisciform figure at Panaramitee followed by an analysis of these claims, and an attempt North (Bednarik 2010: Fig. 29), was ‘identified’ by to explain the relevant neuroscience. Trevor Scott, then the Curator of Fishes at the same museum, ‘as a representation of one of the species of Figure 2. The Panaramitee North complex motif today. It was removed by Mountford with explosives, the fragments were mounted on a plaster of Paris base, and it is stored by the South Australian Museum. Various inaccuracies in Mountford’s recording are apparent and the inclusions/exclusions in his recording are debatable (photographed with permission by Traditional Owner Quenten Agius Narungga and Curator Keryn Walshe). Rock Art Research 2013 - Volume 30, Number 2, pp. 197-215. R. G. BEDNARIK 199 Figure 4. Presumed tracks of Genyornis at Eucolo Creek, near Woomera, South Australia (after Hall et al. 1951). from her examination of the large petroglyph site Sturts Meadows, north of Broken Hill, that an apparent macropod track with a single toe possibly depicted the track of Procoptodon goliah. However, in her subsequent analysis of the site’s macropod track motifs (McDonald Figure 3. Mountford and Edwards’ (1962) 1993) she makes no mention of this notion and does not recording of an apparent zoomorph at Yunta cite the 1983 paper, having apparently abandoned her Springs, South Australia, which they ‘identified’ megafaunal claim. as a marine turtle. The remaining prominent assertions of this nature refer not to tracks, as in all previous cases, but to the marine fish that live on the sea bottom’ (Mountford and depiction of megafauna animals. The first of them is Edwards 1962: 99). They then conclude that ‘[t]hese by Murray and Chaloupka (1984), who consider the facts suggest that, at some time (not yet established), possible presence of images of Palorchestes, Zaglossus, the sea must have been closer to the localities at which Thylacoleo, Protemnodon and Sthenurus in the rock the engravings were found, than at present’. They are paintings of Arnhem Land, northern Australia. They more specific two years later, stating that the present find no convincing support for the identification of sea coast is over 100 miles away from these petroglyphs the last-named genus, primarily because any blunt- (Mountford and Edwards 1964: 850). They present headed, heavy-set macropod images are shown with two more significant claims for great antiquity of the three-toed hind feet, while those with monodactyl petroglyph tradition they describe: the absence of dingo hind feet display typical kangaroo form (op. cit.: 111). tracks, which they say occur in rock paintings but not Similarly, they discount the possibility that another in the petroglyphs (Mountford and Edwards 1962: large kangaroo, Protemnodon, was depicted in Arnhem 98; also Edwards 1965: 227); and the observation that Land rock art. Murray and Chaloupka are circumspect Aborigines consistently deny that petroglyphs were in their assessment of the remaining taxa, they ‘confess made by humans, but insist that they are the work of that [their] results for now remain outside the reach mythical creation heroes (e.g.
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