Roots and Routes of Rock Art: A Kernel Density Analysis of Newly Recorded Rock Art Sites to Understand Human Mobility in the North East Kimberley, Australia

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Art of Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

A large corpus of 1034 rock art sites in Australia's NE Kimberley has recently been recorded within the Kimberley Visions Australian Research Council Linkage Project. Rock art analysis in the Kimberley has often focused on distinctive iconographic signatures to structure images in rigid sequences. This approach is inadequate for the understanding of the complex dynamics behind the diachronic development of different stylistic phases. This presentation follows a different approach by showing the results of a two-step geospatial analysis focused on mobility behaviour with topographic, archaeological and rock art data stored and manipulated as a GIS dataset (ArcMAP 10.5). The first step is identifying the density and directional distribution patterns of motifs. Second is modelling possible travel routes for the spread of figurative rock art conventions. Kernel Density (Spatial Analyst Toolbox) is used to quantify and display clustering/dispersal patterns in the distribution of motifs and figurative conventions, highlight spatial relationships between topographical features and rock art sites, and help re-assess the extent of rock art styles' boundaries. The outcome can provide new insights into human mobility as one of the factors that contributed to the formation of distinctive rock art provinces in a constantly changing natural and cultural landscape.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• The Art of Archaeology

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23657