Symbols of Power
The Firearm Paintings of Madjedbebe (Malakunanja II)
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12460423 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sally K May (0000-0003-2805-023X, corresponding author), Daryl Wesley (0000-0002-3537-5668, Flinders University), Joakim Goldhahn (0000-0003-4640-8784, Linnaeus University), Mirani Litster (0000-0002-0843-1628, Australian National University), Brad Manera (Anzac Research Institute) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 690-707 |
| Publication date | 2017-02-13 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Historical Archaeology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1092-7697 • E-ISSN: 1573-7748 |
| Publisher | Springer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s10761-017-0393-6 |
| OpenAlex | W2587969981 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 16 |
| References cited | 29 |
Depictions of firearms in Australian Aboriginal rock art provide a unique opportunity to archaeologically explore the roles that this type of material culture played in times of culture contact. From the earliest interactions with explorers to the buffalo shooting enterprises of the twentieth century—firearms played complex and shifting roles in western Arnhem Land Aboriginal societies. The site of Madjedbebe (sometimes referred to as Malakunanja II in earlier academic literature) in Jabiluka (Mirarr Country), offers the opportunity to explore these shifting roles over time with an unprecedented 16 paintings of firearms spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This rock art provides evidence for early firearms as objects of curiosity and threat to local groups, as well as evidence for later personal ownership and use of such weaponry. Moreover, we argue that the rock art suggests increasing incorporation of firearms into traditional cultural belief and artistic systems over time with Madjedbebe playing a key role in the communication of the cultural meanings behind this new subject matter
Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Curiosity · Key (lock · Painting · Power (physics · Rock art · Sociology · Subject (documents · Subject matter · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · History · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology · Psychology · Social Psychology · Ecology
Australia’s First People
Women in Australian Archaeology
The rock art of Madjedbebe (Malakunanja II)
Brilliant blue
Beyond the colonial encounter
The missing Macassans
La Cueva de las Mulas
Aboriginal uses for introduced glass, ceramic and flint from the former Schofields Aerodrome, Western Sydney (Darug Country), New South Wales
Dating Iberian prehistoric rock art
Contact Rock Art
Navigating Contact
Survival, Social Cohesion and Rock Art
Contact’ Rock Art and the Hybrid Economy Model
When the Foreign Becomes Familiar
Resistance and remembering through rock art
Always a Trace
Seeing the Inside
Thermoluminescence dating of a 50,000-year-old human occupation site in northern Australia
The rock art of Madjedbebe (Malakunanja II)
The human colonisation of Australia
Weapons, fighters and combat
Hunting Buffalo in North‐Central Arnhem Land
Indigenous images of a colonial exotic
Convergence of Culture, Ecology, and Ethics
Engraved Biographies
Backfill
Painting History
Changing fortunes of Southern African archaeology
Rock Art and the Prehistory of Atlantic Europe
Rock Art Through Time
Plains Indian Rock Art
Painted shark vertebrae beads from the Djawumbu–Madjawarrnja complex, western Arnhem Land
The long and the short of it
The Getting of the Nganabbarru
Rock Art and the Prehistory of Atlantic Europe
Stratigraphy and statistics at Malakunanja II
Intentionality, Agency and an Archaeology of Choice
How old are the artefacts in Malakunanja II
Two Leggings
The archaeology, chronology and stratigraphy of Madjedbebe (Malakunanja II)
Indian Rock Art of the Columbia Plateau
Creolisation on the Nineteenth-century Frontiers of Southern Africa
Buffalo hunting and the feral frontier of Australia's Northern Territory
Re-Thinking Great Basin Foragers
| Unique citing works | 16 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,78 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2025 (9) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 16 |