Rock Art: A Biographical Perspective from Western Arnhem Land, Australia

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Painting the Past: Interpretive Approaches in Global Rock Art Research" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In recent decades, studies of contact rock art have significantly contributed to rock art research globally. A key reason for this is that such artworks can represent a reverse gaze across cross-cultural encounters. Another reason is that contact rock art affords us neatly chronological points of time, before and after colonial engagements with First Nation societies. A common thread for such research is that it views contact rock art from a cultural-historical perspective but what happens if we move beyond such cultural perceptions and perceive contact rock art from a biographical perspective? In this presentation, we will use known rock art artists in western Arnhem Land, their lives, artworks, and biographies to explore how this is reflected in their rock art.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Painting the Past: Interpretive Approaches in Global Rock Art Research

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39839.0