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Indigenous Australian art includes art made by Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, including collaborations with others. It includes works in a wide range of media including painting on leaves, bark painting, wood carving, rock carving, watercolour painting, sculpting, ceremonial clothing and sandpainting; art by Indigenous Australians that pre-dates European colonisation by thousands of years, up to the present day.
In archaeology, rock art is human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type also may be called cave art or parietal art. A global phenomenon, rock art is found in many culturally diverse regions of the world. It has been produced in many contexts throughout human history. In terms of technique, the four main groups are:
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New Guinea II is a limestone cave and rockshelter on the Snowy River at the end of New Guinea Track, near Buchan, Victoria. The cave was within the country of the Krowathunkooloong clan of the Gunaikurnai nation. The deep cave system has an overhanging cliff that creates a rock shelter at the entrance facing the river. Excavations in the 1980s carried out by archaeologist Paul Ossa and a team from La Trobe University found stone artefacts, and other signs of occupation that were dated to almost 20,000 BP.
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Parramatta Sand Body Conservation Area and Military Barracks Site is a heritage-listed archaeological site relating to both Aboriginal and European occupation at George and Harris Streets, Harris Park, City of Parramatta, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 8 July 2011.
Bambata Cave is one of the Southern Africa prehistoric sites situated in Motobo National Park along with Inanke, Nswatugi, Pomengwe and Silozwane caves in Zimbabwe.
Earlwood Aboriginal Art Site is a heritage-listed Aboriginal cultural site at Earlwood, City of Canterbury-Bankstown, New South Wales, Australia. It is also known as Aboriginal Art and Midden. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 27 November 2009.
Calga Aboriginal Cultural Landscape is a heritage-listed site at Peats Ridge Road, Calga, Central Coast Council, New South Wales, Australia. It is also known as Calga Aboriginal Women's Site and Calga Aboriginal Sites. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 1 October 2019.
References
- ↑ R.G. Gunn. Mudgegonga 2, Aboriginal rock art site (Site 8224/001) : a detailed recording of the art and its context with an assessment of its archaeological significance, Victoria Archaeological Survey, Melbourne, 1987
- ↑ Aldo Massola, The rock-shelter at Mudgegonga, Field Naturalists Club of Victoria, Vol. 83 No. 4 April 1966
- ↑ Graham Frederick Perham, Mud and stone: a technological analysis of a quartz industry in North East Victoria, La Trobe University, Dept. of Archaeology, 1985
- ↑ Rock art restoration plan seen as desecration, Jewel Topsfield, The Age December 8, 2008
- Josephine Flood, Archaeology of the Dreamtime, J. B. Publishing