The Archaeology of Rock Art in Western Arnhem Land, Australia

The Archaeology of Rock Art in Western Arnhem Land, Australia
Author: Bruno David
Publisher: ANU Press
Total Pages: 527
Release: 2017-11-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1760461628

Western Arnhem Land, in the Top End of Australia’s Northern Territory, has a rich archaeological landscape, ethnographic record and body of rock art that displays an astonishing array of imagery on shelter walls and ceilings. While the archaeology goes back to the earliest period of Aboriginal occupation of the continent, the rock art represents some of the richest, most diverse and visually most impressive regional assemblages anywhere in the world. To better understand this multi-dimensional cultural record, The Archaeology of Rock Art in Western Arnhem Land, Australia focuses on the nature and antiquity of the region’s rock art as revealed by archaeological surveys and excavations, and the application of novel analytical methods. This volume also presents new findings by which to rethink how Aboriginal peoples have socially engaged in and with places across western Arnhem Land, from the north to the south, from the plains to the spectacular rocky landscapes of the plateau. The dynamic nature of Arnhem Land rock art is explored and articulated in innovative ways that shed new light on the region’s deep time Aboriginal history.

The Archaeology of Rock-Art

The Archaeology of Rock-Art
Author: Christopher Chippindale
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 398
Release: 1998
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780521576192

Pictures, painted and carved in caves and on open rock surfaces, are amongst our loveliest relics from prehistory. This pioneering set of sparkling essays goes beyond guesses as to what the pictures mean, instead exploring how we can reliably learn from rock-art as a material record of distant times: in short, rock-art as archaeology. Sometimes contact-period records offer some direct insight about indigenous meaning, so we can learn in that informed way. More often, we have no direct record, and instead have to use formal methods to learn from the evidence of the pictures themselves. The book's eighteen papers range wide in space and time, from the Palaeolithic of Europe to nineteenth-century Australia. Using varied approaches within the consistent framework of informed and proven methods, they make key advances in using the striking and reticent evidence of rock-art to archaeological benefit.

Inscribed Landscapes

Inscribed Landscapes
Author: Bruno David
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2002-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780824824723

Annotation. Inscribed Landscapes explores the role of inscription in the social construction of place, power, and identity. Bringing together twenty-one scholars across a range of fields-primarily archaeology, anthropology, and geography-it examines how social codes and hegemonic practices have resulted in the production of particular senses of place, exploring the physical and metaphysical marking of place as a means of accessing social history.

From Palaeoart to Casual Paintings

From Palaeoart to Casual Paintings
Author: George Chaloupka
Publisher:
Total Pages: 60
Release: 1984
Genre: Aboriginal Australians
ISBN: 9780724506040

Continental settlement; physical setting and geology; summary of area prehistory; proposed chronology with detailed motif description and analysis.

Art of the Ancestors: Spatial and temporal patterning in the ceiling rock art of Nawarla Gabarnmang, Arnhem Land, Australia

Art of the Ancestors: Spatial and temporal patterning in the ceiling rock art of Nawarla Gabarnmang, Arnhem Land, Australia
Author: Robert G. Gunn
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 918
Release: 2018-12-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1789690714

This volume, focusing on the ceiling art at Nawarla Gabarnmang, one of the richest rock art sites in Arnhem Land (in Australia’s Northern Territory), presents a new systematic approach to the archaeological recording and documentation of rock art developed to analyse the spatial and temporal structure of complex rock art panels.

Rock Art Studies - News of the World

Rock Art Studies - News of the World
Author: Natalie R. Franklin
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2008-08-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1782975888

This is the third in the five-yearly series of surveys of what is happening in rock art studies around the world. As always, the texts reflect something of the great differences in approach and emphasis that exist in different regions. The volume presents examples from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the New World. During the period in question, 1999 to 2004, there have been few major events, although in the field of Pleistocene art many new discoveries have been made, and a new country added to the select list of those with Ice Age cave art. Some regions such as North Africa and the former USSR have seen a tremendous amount of activity, focusing not only on recording but also on chronology, and the conservation of sites. With the global increase of tourism, the management of rock art sites that are accessible to the public is a theme of ever-growing importance.

Archaeologies of Art

Archaeologies of Art
Author: Inés Domingo Sanz
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2016-07-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1315434318

This international volume draws together key research that examines visual arts of the past and contemporary indigenous societies. Placing each art style in its temporal and geographic context, the contributors show how depictions represent social mechanisms of identity construction, and how stylistic differences in product and process serve to reinforce cultural identity. Examples stretch from the Paleolithic to contemporary world and include rock art, body art, and portable arts. Ethnographic studies of contemporary art production and use, such as among contemporary Aboriginal groups, are included to help illuminate artistic practices and meanings in the past. The volume reflects the diversity of approaches used by archaeologists to incorporate visual arts into their analysis of past cultures and should be of great value to archaeologists, anthropologists, and art historians. Sponsored by the World Archaeological Congress.

Boundary Writing

Boundary Writing
Author: Lynette Russell
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2006-06-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780824830489

Have globalization and the emergence of virtual cultures reduced cultural diversity? Will the world become homogenized or Americanized? Boundary Writing sets out to demonstrate that this oversimplification denies the reality that today there is greater space for cultural diversity than ever before. It explores the desire to categorize individuals and collectivities into racial, ethnic, gender, and sexuality categories (black and white, men and women, gay and straight), which is a feature of most Western societies. More specifically, it analyzes the boundaries and edges of these categories and concepts. Across nine chapters, contributors reveal that such binaries are often too restrictive. Through a series of case studies they consider how these various concepts overlap, coincide, and at times conflict.They investigate the tension between these classifications that in turn produce individual speaking positions. Many people—indigenous, native, Anglo-settler, recent migrants of diverse ethnic backgrounds, gay, transgender, queer—occupy an "in between" position that is strategically shifting with the social, political, and economic circumstances of the individual. In Boundary Writing, the reader will journey through various complex permutations of identity and in particular the ways in which indigeneity, race, sex, and gender interact and even counter-act one another. Contributors: Erez Cohen, Aaron Corn, Bruno David, Neparrna Gumbula, Michele Grossman, Myfanwy McDonald, Clive Moore, Stephen Pritchard, Liz Reed, Lynette Russell.

Rock Art Studies - News of the World Volume 3

Rock Art Studies - News of the World Volume 3
Author: Natalie R. Franklin
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2008-08-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1842173162

This is the third in the five-yearly series of surveys of what is happening in rock art studies around the world. As always, the texts reflect something of the great differences in approach and emphasis that exist in different regions. The volume presents examples from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the New World. During the period in question, 1999 to 2004, there have been few major events, although in the field of Pleistocene art many new discoveries have been made, and a new country added to the select list of those with Ice Age cave art. Some regions such as North Africa and the former USSR have seen a tremendous amount of activity, focusing not only on recording but also on chronology, and the conservation of sites. With the global increase of tourism, the management of rock art sites that are accessible to the public is a theme of ever-growing importance.