Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T02:52:33.834Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Culture in Early Aboriginal Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2008

Josephine Flood
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

On the basis of recent archaeological evidence it seems that humans first entered the Australian continent about 60,000 years ago. These first ocean-going mariners had a high level of technological and economic skill, and had spread right across Australia into a wide variety of environments by about 35,000 years ago. Pigment showing clear signs of use occurs in almost all Australia's oldest known occupation sites, and evidence of self-awareness such as necklaces and beads has been found in several Pleistocene rock shelters. Rituals were carried out in connection with disposal of the dead, for at Lake Mungo there is a 25,000-year-old cremation, and ochre was scattered onto the corpse in a 30,000-year-old inhumation. Complex symbolic behaviour is attested at least 40,000 years ago by petroglyphs in the Olary district, and other evidence suggests a similar antiquity for rock paintings. The special focus of this article is cognitive archaeology, the study of past ways of thought as derived from material remains, particularly the development of early Australian artistic systems.

Type
Articles
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , April 1996 , pp. 3 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, H. & Barton, G., 1989. Ngarradj Warde Djobkeng. White Cockatoo Dreaming. (Oceania Monograph 37.) Sydney: Oceania Publications, University of Sydney.Google Scholar
Allen, J., 1989. When did humans first colonise Australia? Search 20, 149–54.Google Scholar
Allen, J. & Holdaway, S., 1995. The contamination of Pleistocene radiocarbon determinations in Australia. Antiquity 69, 101–12.Google Scholar
Allen, J., Golson, J. & Jones, R. (eds.), 1977. Sunda and Sahul: Prehistoric Studies in Southeast Asia, Melanesia and Australia. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Allen, J., Gosden, C. & White, J.P., 1989. Human Pleistocene adaptations in the tropical island Pacific: recent evidence from New Ireland, a Greater Australian outlier. Antiquity 63, 548–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, A., 1994. Comment on J. Peter White's paper, Site 820 and the evidence for early occupation in Australia. Quaternary Australasia 12(2), 21–3.Google Scholar
Aslin, G.D., Bednarik, E.K. & Bednarik, R.J., 1985. The Parietal Markings Project — a progress report. Rock Art Research 2(1), 71–4.Google Scholar
Bahn, P.G. & Rosenfeld, A. (eds.), 1991. Rock Art and Prehistory. Oxford: Oxbow Books.Google Scholar
Bahn, P.G. & Vertut, J., 1988. Images of the Ice Age. London: Windward.Google Scholar
Basedow, H., 1914. Aboriginal rock carvings of great antiquity in South Australia. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 44, 195–211.Google Scholar
Bednarik, R.G., 1986. Parietal finger markings in Europe and Australia. Rock Art Research 3(1), 30–61.Google Scholar
Bednarik, R.G., 1988. Comment on F.D. McCarthy, Rock art sequences: a matter of clarification. Rock Art Research 5(1), 35–8.Google Scholar
Bednarik, R.G., 1990. The cave petroglyphs of Australia. Australian Aboriginal Studies 2, 64–8.Google Scholar
Bednarik, R.G., 1992. The Palaeolithic art of Asia, in Goldsmith, et al. (eds.) 383–90.Google Scholar
Bednarik, R.G., 1994a. A taphonomy of palaeoart. Antiquity 68, 68–74.Google Scholar
Bednarik, R.G., 1994b. The discrimination of rock markings. Rock Art Research 11, 23–44.Google Scholar
Bednarik, R.G., 1994c. Art origins. Anthropos 89, 169–80.Google Scholar
Bednarik, R.G., 1995. Taking the style out of the Panaramitee style. AURA Newsletter 12(1), 1–5.Google Scholar
Bellwood, P., 1990. From late Pleistocene to early Holocene in Sundaland, in The World at 18,000 BP, vol. 2, eds. Gamble, C. & Soffer, O.. London: Unwin Hyman, 255–63.Google Scholar
Bowdler, S., 1977. The coastal colonization of Australia, in Allen, et al. (eds.), 327–43.Google Scholar
Bowdler, S., 1991. Some sort of dates at Malakunanja II: a reply to Roberts, et al. Australian Arcltaeology 32, 50–51.Google Scholar
Bowdler, S., 1993. Sunda and Sahul: a 30kyr culture area?, in Smith, et al. (eds.), 60–70.Google Scholar
Bowler, J.M., 1976. Recent developments in reconstructing late Quaternary environments in Australia, in Kirk, & Thorne, (eds.), 55–77.Google Scholar
Bowler, J.M. & Thorne, A.G., 1976. Human remains from Lake Mungo, in Kirk, & Thorne, (eds.), 127–38.Google Scholar
Bowler, J.M., Jones, R., Allen, H.R. & Thorne, A.G., 1970. Pleistocene human remains from Australia: a living site and human cremation from Lake Mungo. World Archaeology 2, 39–60.Google Scholar
Bowler, J.M., Thorne, A.G. & Polach, H., 1972. Pleistocene Man in Australia: age and significance of the Mungo skeleton. Nature 240, 48–50.Google Scholar
Brandl, E., 1973. Australian Aboriginal Paintings in Western and Central Arnhem Land: Temporal Sequences and Elements of Style in Cadell River and Deaf Adder Creek Art. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Brown, S., 1991. Art and Tasmanian prehistory: evidence for changing cultural traditions in a changing environment, in Bahn, & Rosenfeld, (eds.), 98–108.Google Scholar
Butlin, N.G., 1993. Economics and the Dreamtime: a Hypothetical History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chaloupka, G., 1977. Aspects of the chronology and schematisation of two prehistoric sites on the Arnhem Land Plateau, in Ucko, (ed.), 243–59.Google Scholar
Chaloupka, G., 1984. From Palaeoart to Casual Paintings: The Chronological Sequence of Arnhem Land Plateau Rock Art. (Monograph Series 1.) Darwin: Northern Territory Museum of Arts and Sciences.Google Scholar
Chaloupka, G., 1993a. Journey in Time: the World's Longest Continuing Art Tradition. Sydney: Chatswood & Reed.Google Scholar
Chaloupka, G., 1993b. You gotta have style, in Lorblanchet, & Bahn, (eds.), 77–98.Google Scholar
Chappell, J., 1993. Late Pleistocene coasts and human migrations in the Austral region, in A Community of Culture: the People and Prehistory of the Pacific, eds. Spriggs, M., Yen, D.E., Ambrose, W., Jones, R., Thorne, A. & Andrews, A.. (Occasional Papers in Prehistory 21.) Canberra: Department of Prehistory, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, 43–8.Google Scholar
Chappell, J. & Grindrod, A., 1983. Proceedings of the First CLIMANZ Conference, 1981. Canberra: Department of Biogeography and Geomorphology, Research School of Pacific Studies Australian National University.Google Scholar
Chippindale, C. & Taçon, P., 1993. Two old painted panels from Kakadu: variation and sequence in Arnhem Land rock art, in Steinbring, et al. (eds.), 32–56.Google Scholar
Clark, J., 1983. The Aboriginal People of Tasmania. Hobart: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.Google Scholar
Clegg, J., 1993. Style at Sturts Meadows and Gap Hills, in Lorblanchet, & Bahn, (eds.), 115–26.Google Scholar
Cole, N.A., 1995. Rock art in the Laura-Cooktown region, S.E. Cape York Peninsula, in Morwood, & Hobbs, (eds.), 51–70.Google Scholar
Cole, N.A., Watchman, A. & Morwood, M.J., 1995. Chronology of Laura rock art, in Morwood, & Hobbs, (eds.), 147–60.Google Scholar
Cook, N., Davidson, I. & Sutton, S., 1990. Why are so many ancient rock paintings red? Australian Aboriginal Studies 90(1), 30–32.Google Scholar
Corbett, L., 1995. The Dingo in Australia and Asia. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.Google Scholar
Cosgrove, R., Allen, J. & Marshall, B., 1990. Palaeo-ecology and Pleistocene human occupation in south central Tasmania. Antiquity 64, 59–78.Google Scholar
Crawford, I.M., 1968. The Art of the Wandjina. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Crawford, I.M., 1977. The relationship of Bradshaw and Wandjina art in northwest Kimberley, in Ucko, (ed.), 357–69.Google Scholar
David, B., 1991. Fern Cave, rock art and social formations: rock art regionalisation and demographic models in southeastern Cape York Peninsula. Archaeology in Oceania 26, 41–57.Google Scholar
David, B., 1993. Nurrabullgin Cave: preliminary results from a pre-37,0000 year old rock shelter, North Queensland. Archaeology in Oceania 28(1), 50–54.Google Scholar
David, B. & Cole, N., 1990. Rock art and inter-regional interaction in northeastern Australian prehistory. Antiquity 64, 788–806.Google Scholar
Davidson, D.S., 1936. The spearthrower in Australia. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 76, 445–83.Google Scholar
Davidson, I. & Noble, W., 1989. The archaeology of perception: traces of depiction and language. Current Anthropology 30(2), 125–55.Google Scholar
Davidson, I. & Noble, W., 1992. Why the first colonisation of the Australian region is the earliest evidence of modern human behaviour. Archaeology in Oceania 27, 135–42.Google Scholar
Dorn, R.I., 1994. Dating petroglyphs with a three-tier rock varnish approach, in New Light on Old Art, eds. Whitley, D.S. & Loendorf, L.L.. Los Angeles (CA): Institute of Archaeology, University of California, 13–36.Google Scholar
Dortch, C., 1984. Devil's Lair: a Study in Prehistory. Perth: Western Australian Museum.Google Scholar
Dragovich, D., 1986. Minimum age of some desert varnish near Broken Hill, New South Wales. Search 17, 149–51.Google Scholar
Edwards, R., 1966. Comparative study of rock engravings in south and central Australia. Proceedings of the Royal Society of South Australia 90, 33–8.Google Scholar
Edwards, R., 1971. Art and Aboriginal prehistory, in Aboriginal Man and Environment in Australia, eds. Mulvaney, D.J. & Golson, J.. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 356–67.Google Scholar
Flood, J., 1987. The rock art of the Koolburra Plateau. Rock Art Research 4, 91–126.Google Scholar
Flood, J., 1995. Archaeology of the Dreamtime. 3rd edition. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.Google Scholar
Flood, J., in press. Rock Art of the Dreamtime. Sydney, London & New York (NY): Angus & Robertson.Google Scholar
Flood, J. & David, B., 1994. Traditional systems of encoding meaning in Wardaman rock art, Northern Territory, Australia. The Artefact 17, 6–22.Google Scholar
Flood, J., David, B. & Frost, R., 1992. Dreaming into art: Aboriginal interpretations of rock engravings, Yingalarri, Northern Territory (Australia), in Rock Art and Ethnography, eds. Morwood, M.J. & Hobbs, D.R.. Melbourne: Australian Rock Art Research Association, 33–8.Google Scholar
Forbes, S., 1983. Aboriginal rock engavings at N'Dhala Gorge, Northern Territory, in Smith, (ed.), 199–213.Google Scholar
Forge, A., 1991. Handstencils: rock art or not art, in Bahn, & Rosenfeld, (eds.), 39–44.Google Scholar
Franklin, N., 1991. Explorations of the Panaramitee style, in Rock Art and Prehistory, eds. Bahn, P. & Rosenfeld, A.. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 120–35.Google Scholar
Franklin, N., 1993. Style and dating in rock art studies: the post-stylistic era in Australia and Europe?, in Lorblanchet, & Bahn, (eds.), 1–14.Google Scholar
Frayer, D.W., Wolpoff, M.H., Thorne, A.G., Smith, F.H. & Pope, G.G., 1993. Theories of modern human origins: the paleontological test. American Anthropologist 95(1), 14–50.Google Scholar
Fredericksen, C., Spriggs, M. & Ambrose, W., 1993. Pamwak rock shelter: a Pleistocene site on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, in Smith, et al. (eds.), 144–52.Google Scholar
Gallus, A., 1971. Results of the exploration of Koonalda Cave, 1956–1968, in Wright, 87–133.Google Scholar
Gamble, C., 1982. Interaction and alliance in Palaeolithic society. Man 17, 92–107.Google Scholar
Goldsmith, S., Gavrie, S., Selin, D. & Smith, J. (eds.), 1992. Ancient Images, Ancient Thought: the Archaeology of Ideology. (Proceedings of the 1990 Chacmool Conference, Calgary University.) Calgary: University of Calgary.Google Scholar
Gosden, C., 1993. Understanding the settlement of Pacific Islands in the Pleistocene, in Smith, et al. (eds.), 131–6.Google Scholar
Groube, L., Chappell, J., Muke, J. & Price, D., 1986. A 40,000 year old human occupation site at Huon Peninsula, Papua New Guinea. Nature 324, 453–5.Google Scholar
Habgood, P.J., 1986. The origin of the Australians: a multivariate approach. Archaeology in Oceania 21(2), 130–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habgood, P.J., 1989. The origin of anatomically modern humans in Australia, in Mellars, & Stringer, (eds.), 245–73.Google Scholar
Haskovec, I., 1992. Northern running figures of Kakadu National Park: a study of a regional style, in McDonald, & Haskovec, (eds.), 148–58.Google Scholar
Hope, G., 1994. Comment on ODP site 820 and the inference of early human occupation in Australia. Quaternary Australasia 12(2), 32–3.Google Scholar
Jones, R., 1977. The Tasmanian paradox, in Stone Tools as Cultural Markers, ed. Wright, R.V.S.. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 189–204.Google Scholar
Jones, R., 1993. A continental reconnaissance: some observations concerning the Pleistocene archaeology of Australia, in Smith, et al. . (eds.), 97–122.Google Scholar
Kershaw, A.P., 1994a. Pleistocene vegetation of the humid tropics of northeastern Queensland, Australia. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimalology, Palaeoecology 109, 399–422.Google Scholar
Kershaw, A.P., 1994b. Site 820 and the evidence for early occupation in Australia: a response. Quaternary Australasia 12(2), 24–9.Google Scholar
Kershaw, A.P., McKenzie, G.M. & McMinn, A., 1993. A Quaternary vegetation history of northeastern Queensland from pollen analysis of ODP site 820. Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program, Scientific Results 133, 107–14.Google Scholar
Kirk, R.I. & Thorne, A.G. (eds.), 1976. The Origin of the Australians. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Layton, R., 1992. Australian Rock Art. A New Synthesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, D., 1988. The Rock Paintings of Arnhem Land: Social, Ecological, and Material Culture Change in the Post-Glacial Period. (BAR International Series 415.) Oxford: BAR.Google Scholar
Loendorf, L.L., 1991. Cation-ratio dating and petroglyph chronology in southeastern Colorado. Antiquity 65, 246–55.Google Scholar
Lorblanchet, M., 1992. The rock engravings of Gum Tree Valley and Skew Valley, Dampier West Australia: chronology and function of the sites, in McDonald, & Haskovec, (eds.), 39–59.Google Scholar
Lorblanchet, M. & Bahn, P.G. (eds.), 1993. Rock Art Studies: the Post-Stylistic Era or Where do We Go from Here? Oxford: Oxbow Books.Google Scholar
Loy, T.H., 1993. On the dating of prehistoric organic residues. The Artefact 16, 46–9.Google Scholar
Loy, T.H., 1994. Direct dating of rock art at Laurie Creek (NT), Australia: a reply to Nelson. Antiquity 68, 147–8.Google Scholar
Loy, T.H., Jones, R., Nelson, D.E., Meehan, B., Vogel, D., Southon, J. & Cosgrove, R., 1990. Accelerator radiocarbon dating of human blood proteins in pigments from Late Pleistocene art sites in Australia. Antiquity 64, 110–16.Google Scholar
McCarthy, F.D., 1958. Australian Aboriginal Rock Art. Sydney: Australian Museum.Google Scholar
McDonald, J., 1983. The identification of species in a Panaramitee style engraving site, in Smith, (ed.), 236–72.Google Scholar
McDonald, J., 1993. On a clear day, you can see Mount Yengo, in Steinbring, et al. (eds.), 84–91.Google Scholar
McDonald, J. & Haskovec, I., 1992. State of the Art: Regional Art Studies in Australia and Melanesia.(Occasional Publication 6.) Melbourne: AURA.Google Scholar
McDonald, J., Officer, K., Jull, T., Donahue, D., Head, J. & Ford, B., 1990. Investigating 14C AMS: dating prehistoric rock art in the Sydney sandstone basin, Australia. Rock Art Research 7(2), 83–92.Google Scholar
McGowan, A., Shreeve, R., Brolsma, H. & Hughes, C., 1993. Photogrammetric recording of Pleistocene cave paintings in southwest Tasmania, in Smith, et al. (eds.), 225–32.Google Scholar
McNiven, I., Marshall, B., Allen, J., Stern, N. & Cosgrove, R., 1993. The Southern Forests archaeological project, an overview, in Smith, et al. (eds.), 313–24.Google Scholar
Maynard, L., 1979. The archaeology of Australian Aboriginal art, in Exploring the Visual Art of Oceania, ed. Mead, S.M.. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 83–110.Google Scholar
Maynard, L. & Edwards, R., 1971. Wall markings, in Wright, 61–80.Google Scholar
Mellars, P. & Stringer, C. (eds.), 1989. The Human Revolution: Behavioural and Biological Perspectives on the Origins of Modern Humans. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Morphy, H., 1980. What circles look like. Canberra Anthropology 3, 17–36.Google Scholar
Morphy, H., 1991. Ancestral Connections: Art and an Aboriginal System of Knowledge. Chicago (IL): Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Morse, K., 1993. Shell beads from Mandu Mandu Creek rock shelter, Cape Range peninsula, Western Australia, dated before 30,000 bp. Antiquity 67, 877–83.Google Scholar
Morwood, M.J., 1990. Edge-ground axes in Pleistocene Greater Australia — more evidence from S.E. Cape York Peninsula: a reply to Sutton. Queensland Archaeological Research 7, 110–14.Google Scholar
Morwood, M.J., 1992. Aboriginal rock art in S.E. Cape York Peninsula: an archaeological approach, in Goldsmith, et al. (eds.), 417–26.Google Scholar
Morwood, M.J. & Hobbs, D.R. (eds.), 1995. Quinkan Prehistory: the Archaeology of Aboriginal Art in S.E. Cape York Peninsula, Australia. (Tempus 3.) St Lucia, Qld: Anthropology Museum, University of Queensland.Google Scholar
Morwood, M.J. & Trezise, P.J., 1989. Edge-ground axes in Pleistocene Australia: new evidence from SE Cape York Peninsula. Queensland Archaeological Research 6, 77–87.Google Scholar
Morwood, M.J., Walsh, G.L. & Watchman, A., 1994. The dating potential of rock art in the Kimberley, N.W. Australia. Rock Art Research 11 (2), 79–87.Google Scholar
Morwood, M.J., Hobbs, D.R. & Price, D.M., 1995. Excavations at Sandy Creek 1 and 2, in Morwood, & Hobbs, (eds.), 71–92.Google Scholar
Mountain, M.J., 1983. Preliminary report on excavatiuons at Nombe Rock shelter, Simbu Province, Papua New Guinea. Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association Bulletin 4, 84–9.Google Scholar
Mountford, C.P. & Edwards, R., 1963. Rock engravings of Panaramitee Station. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 86, 131–46.Google Scholar
Munn, N.D., 1973. Walbiri Iconography. Ithaca (NY): Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Murray, P. & Chaloupka, G., 1984. The Dreamtime animals: extinct megafauna in Arnhem Land rock art. Archaeology in Oceania 19 (3), 105–16.Google Scholar
Nelson, D.E., 1993. Second thoughts on a rock art date. Antiquity 67, 893–5.Google Scholar
Nelson, D.E., Chaloupka, G., Chippindale, C., Alderson, M.S. & Southon, J., 1995. Radiocarbon dates for beeswax figures in the prehistoric rock art of northern Australia. Archaeometry 37 (1), 151–6.Google Scholar
Nobbs, M.F., 1984. Rock art in Olary Province, South Australia. Rock Art Research 1, 91–111.Google Scholar
Nobbs, M.F. & Dorn, R.I., 1988. Age determinations for rock varnish formation within petroglyphs: cation-ratio dating of 24 motifs from the Olary region, South Australia. Rock Art Research 5 (2), 108–24, with comments and replies also in vols. 6(1 & 2) and 7(1).Google Scholar
Nobbs, M.F. & Dorn, R.I., 1993. New surface exposure ages for petroglyphs from the Olary Province, South Australia. Archaeology in Oceania 28(1), 18–39.Google Scholar
O'Connor, S., 1995. Carpenter's Gap rock shelter 1:40,000 years of Aboriginal occupation in the Napier Ranges, Kimberley, WA. Australian Archaeology 40, 58–9.Google Scholar
Ossa, P., Marshall, B. & Webb, C., 1995. New Guinea II Cave: a Pleistocene site on the Snowy River, Victoria. Archaeology in Oceania 30(1), 22–35.Google Scholar
Pavlides, C. & Gosden, C., 1994. 35,000-year-old sites in the rainforests of West New Britain, Papua New Guinea. Antiquity 68, 604–10.Google Scholar
Roberts, R.G. & Jones, R., 1994. Luminescence dating of sediments: new light on the human colonisation of Australia. Australian Aboriginal Studies 2, 2–17.Google Scholar
Roberts, R.G., Jones, R. & Smith, M.A., 1990. Thermoluminescence dating of a 50,000-year-old human occupation site in northern Australia. Nature 345, 153–6.Google Scholar
Roberts, R.G., Jones, R. & Smith, M.A., 1993. Optical dating at Deaf Adder Gorge, Northern Territory, indicates human occupation between 53,000 and 60,000 years ago. Australian Archaeology 37, 58–9.Google Scholar
Roberts, R.G., Jones, R. & Smith, M.A., 1994. Beyond the radiocarbon barrier in Australian prehistory: a critique of Allen's commentary. Antiquity 68, 611–15.Google Scholar
Rosenfeld, A., 1991. Panaramitee: dead or alive?, in Bahn, & Rosenfeld, (eds.), 136–44.Google Scholar
Rosenfeld, A., 1993. The Panaramitee tradition, in Smith, et al. (eds.), 71–80.Google Scholar
Rosenfeld, A., Horton, D. & Winter, J., 1981. Early Man in North Queensland. (Terra Australis 6.) Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
Singh, G. & Geissler, E., 1985. Late Cainozoic history of fire, lake levels and climate at Lake George, New South Wales, Australia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B. 311, 378–447.Google Scholar
Smith, M.A. (ed.), 1983. Arclmeology at ANZAAS 1983. Perth: Western Australian Museum.Google Scholar
Smith, M.A., 1987. Pleistocene occupation in arid Australia. Nature 328, 710–11.Google Scholar
Smith, M.A., 1989. The case for a resident human occupation in the Central Australian Ranges during full glacial aridity. Archaeology in Oceania 24(3), 93–105.Google Scholar
Smith, M.A., 1993. Biogeography, human ecology and pre-history in the sandridge deserts. Australian Archaeology 37, 35–49.Google Scholar
Smith, M.A. & Sharp, N.D., 1993. Pleistocene sites in Australia, New Guinea and Island Melanesia: geographic and temporal structure of the archaeological record, in Smith, et al. (eds.), 37–59.Google Scholar
Smith, M.A., Spriggs, M. & Fankhauser, B. (eds.), 1993. Sahul in Review: Pleistocene Archaeology in Australia, New Guinea and Island Melanesia. (Occasional Papers in Prehistory 24.) Canberra: Department of Prehistory, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Steinbring, J. & Lanteigne, M., 1991. The petroglyphs of west Yorkshire. Explorations in analysis and interpretation. Rock Art Research 8(1), 13–28.Google Scholar
Steinbring, J., Watchman, A., Faulstich, P. & Taçon, P.(eds.), 1993. Time and Space: Dating and Spatial Considerations in Rock Art Research. (Occasional Publication 8.) Melbourne: AURA.Google Scholar
Sutton, P. (ed.), 1988. Dreamings: the Art of Aboriginal Australia. New York (NY): Braziller.Google Scholar
IIISwisher, C.C., Curtis, G.H., Jacob, T., Getty, A.G., Suprijo, & Widiasmoro, F., 1994. Age of the earliest known hominids in Java, Indonesia. Science 263, 118–21.Google Scholar
Taçon, P., 1987. Internal–external: a re-evaluation of the X-ray concept in western Arnhem Land rock art. Rock Art Research 4, 36–50.Google Scholar
Taçon, P., 1988. Identifying fish species in the recent rock paintings of western Arnhem Land. Rock Art Research 4(1), 36–50.Google Scholar
Taçon, P., 1989. From the ‘Dreamtime’ to the present: the changing role of Aboriginal rock paintings in western Arnhwm Land, Australia. Canadian journal of Nature Studies 9(2), 317–39.Google Scholar
Taçon, P., 1991. The power of stone: symbolic aspects of stone use and tool development in western Arnhem Land, Australia. Antiquity 65, 192–207.Google Scholar
Taçon, P., 1992. Somewhere over the rainbow: an ethno-graphic and archaeological analysis of recent rock paintings of western Arnhem Land, Australia, in McDonald, & Haskovec, (eds.), 202–15.Google Scholar
Taçon, P., 1993. An Assessment of Rock Art in the Mann River Region, Arnhem Land, NT: a Report to the Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation and the Djomi Museum, Sydney (NSW): Australian Museum.Google Scholar
Taçon, P., 1994. Socialising landscapes: the long-term implications of signs, symbols and marks on the land. Archaeology in Oceania 29, 117–29.Google Scholar
Taçon, P. & Brockwell, S., 1995. Arnhem Land prehistory in landscape, stone and paint. Antiquity 69, 676–95.Google Scholar
Taçon, P. & Chippindale, C., 1994. Australia's ancient warriors: changing depictions of fighting in the rock art of Arnhem Land, N.T.. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 4(2), 211–48.Google Scholar
Taylor, L., 1987. The Same but Different: Social Reproduction and Innovation in the Art of the Kunwinjku of Western Arnhem Land. Unpublished Ph.D thesis, Department of Prehistory & Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra.Google Scholar
Thorne, A.G., 1976. Morphological contrasts in Pleistoocene Australians, in Kirk, & Thorne, (eds.), 95–112.Google Scholar
Thorne, A.G., 1977. Separation or reconciliation? Biological clues to the development of Australian society, in Allen, et al. (eds.), 187–204.Google Scholar
Thorne, A.G. & Raymond, R., 1989. Man on the Rim. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.Google Scholar
Ucko, P.J., 1977. Form in Indigenous Art: Schematization in the Art of Aboriginal Australia and Prehistoric Europe. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Veth, P.M., 1993. Islands in the Interior. (International Mono-graphs in Prehistory, Archaeological Series 3.) Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Walsh, G.L., 1979. Mutilated hands or signal stencils? Australian Archaeology 9, 33–41.Google Scholar
Walsh, G.L., 1983. Composite stencil art: elemental or specialised? Australian Aboriginal Studies 2, 34–44.Google Scholar
Walsh, G.L., 1994. Bradshaws. Ancient Rock Paintings of Australia. Limited edition. (P.O. Box 1204, 1277, Carouge-Geneva, Switzerland).Google Scholar
Watchman, A., 1987. Preliminary determinations of the age and composition of mineral salts on rock art surfaces in the Kakadu National Park, in Archaeometry: Further Australasian Studies, eds. Ambrose, W.R. & Mummery, J.M.J.. Canberra: Australian National University, 36–42.Google Scholar
Watchman, A., 1990. A summary of occurrences of oxalate-rich crusis in Australia. Rock Art Research 7(1), 44–50.Google Scholar
Watchman, A., 1992. Doubtful dates for Karolta engravings. Australian Aboriginal Studies 1990/1, 51–5.Google Scholar
Watchman, A., 1993a. Perspectives and potentials for absolute dating prehistoric rock paintings. Antiquity 67, 58–65.Google Scholar
Watchman, A., 1993b. Evidence of a 25,000-year-old pictograph in northern Australia. Geoarchaeology 8(6), 465–73.Google Scholar
Watchman, A. & Cole, N., 1993. Accelerator radiocarbon dating of plant-fibre binders in rock paintings from northeastern Australia. Antiquity 67, 355–8.Google Scholar
Webb, S.G., 1989. The Willandra lakes Hominids. (Occasional Papers in Prehistory.) Canberra: Department of Prehistory, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Welch, D., 1990. The bichrome art period in the Kimberley, Australia. Rock Art Research 7(2), 110–24.Google Scholar
Welch, D., 1993. Stylistic change in the Kimberley rock art, Australia, in Lorblanchet, & Bahn, (eds.), 99–113.Google Scholar
White, J.P., 1994. Site 820 and the evidence for early occupation in Australia. Quaternary Australasia 12(2), 21–3.Google Scholar
White, J.P., Crook, K.A. & Ruxton, B.P., 1970.Kosipe: a late Pleistocene site in the Papuan highlands. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 36, 152–70.Google Scholar
White, R., 1989a. Production complexity and standardization in Early Aurignacian bead and pendant manufacture: evolutionary implications, in Mellars, & Stringer, (eds.), 366–90.Google Scholar
White, R., 1989b. Visual thinking in the Ice Age. Scientific American 261(1), 74–81.Google Scholar
Wickler, S. & Spriggs, M.J.T., 1988. Pleistocene human occupation of the Solomon Islands, Melanesia. Antiquity 62, 703–6.Google Scholar
Wolpoff, M.H., Wu, X. & Thorne, A.G., 1984. Modern Homo sapiens origins: a general theory of hominid evolution involving the fossil evidence from East Asia, in The Origins of Modern Humans: a World Survey of the Fossil Evidence, eds. Smith, F.H. & Spencer, F.. New York (NY): Alan R. Liss, 411–83.Google Scholar
Wright, R.V.S. (ed.), 1971. Archaeology of the Gallus site, Koonalda Cave. (Australian Aborigines Studies 26.) Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Wright, R.V.S., 1986. How old is zone F at Lake George? Archaeology in Oceania 21, 138–9.Google Scholar