Dating the Dreaming
Extinct fauna in the petroglyphs of the Pilbara region, Western Australia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6038500 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ken Mulvaney (0000-0003-3713-4312, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue | S1 |
| Pages | 40-48 |
| Publication date | 2009-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Archaeology in Oceania/Archæology & physical anthropology in Oceania (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0728-4896 • E-ISSN: 1834-4453 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/j.1834-4453.2009.tb00067.x |
| OpenAlex | W1984060652 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 23 |
| References cited | 8 |
Examples of striped marsupial depictions have been reported from both the coastal and inland Pilbara. Many are regarded as images of the thylacine, an animal that disappeared from mainland Australia some 3000–4000 years ago. Also observable in the rock art is the ‘fat‐tailed macropod’, a distinctive rendition of a marsupial with an extremely thick tail. Recent investigations in the Tom Price area and on the Burrup Peninsula confirm that both motifs pertain to the more ancient rock art corpus. Restricted artistic variation within the depiction of these two species confirms the trend to naturalistic style within animal subjects and suggests a extensive, culturally cohesive, artistic tradition across the Pilbara during the Pleistocene and early Holocene.At two specific locations, aspects of the rock art may be explained in terms of contemporary oral traditions and cultural practices, affording one way of placing temporal parameters on these early graphic traditions. I argue that the rock art is not just representational; that it communicates mythological narratives and behavioural traits, which have a deep antiquity to the Dreaming of more than just a few thousand years
Archaeology · Art · Biology · Cliff · Deep time · Depiction · Fauna · Geography · Holocene · Literature · Mainland · Marsupial · Peninsula · Pleistocene · Rock art · Style (visual arts · Taphonomy · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · History · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology · Ecology · Geology · Paleontology
The Destruction of Heritage
Symbolism and Becoming a Hunter-Gatherer
Towards multiple ontologies
Pictures of Women
From Discovery to Commoditization
Radiocarbon Dating of Rock Paintings
Signalling and Mobility
Art and megafauna in the Top End of the Northern Territory, Australia
Explanations for patterning in the ‘package of traits’ of modern human behaviour within Sahul
Identity Through Iteration
Ancestral Connections
Burrup Peninsula
L'iconographie du désert occidental d'Australie
Seeing and managing rock art at Nganjarli
About time
Iconic imagery
Rock Art In Arid Landscapes
Dampier Archipelago petroglyphs
Invisible or ignored
Hyper-peripheral regional evolution
Western Desert Iconography
The Colonization of Australia and Its Adjacent Islands and the Evolution of Modern Cognition
Extinction, Inscription and the Dreaming
| Unique citing works | 23 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,35 |
| Citation span | 2009 - 2025 (17) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 20 |