Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T05:36:02.620Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Trends in the Hunter-Gatherer Rock Art of Western Europe and Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

Robert Layton
Robert Layton
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Durham, 43 Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HN
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Rock art associated with modern human populations has a comparable antiquity in Western Europe and Australia (table 1). In Western Europe personal adornment, human and animal statuettes and some carved stone blocks date from the early Aurignacian. In Australia a date of 30,000 BP has been claimed for the origin of the geometric art tradition of the Olary Province of Southern Australia, a date which would make it contemporary with the modern human community at Lake Mungo 150 miles to the east, who were practising deliberate burial (Bowler and Thome 1976, 129,138). This date, however, depends on the cation ratio method, whose calibration is still open to question (Nobbs and Dorn 1988; Clarke 1989; Watchman 1989).

Secure dates based on C14 measurements show that both geometric motifs and engraved animal silhouettes in northern Australia are contemporary with the flowering of European Palaeolithic art during the Magdalenian (for Dampier, see Lorblanchet 1988, 286; for Laura, see Rosenfeld 1981, 12, 53).

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , 1991 , pp. 163 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1991

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

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, H. R. 1972. Where the crow flies backwards: man and land in the Darling Basin. Unpublished D.Phil, thesis, Australian National University.Google Scholar
Bahn, P. G. and Vertut, J. 1988. Images of the Ice Age. London: Windward.Google Scholar
Barrett, C. 1941. Coast of Adventure: Untamed North Australia. Melbourne: Robertson and Mullens.Google Scholar
Binford, L. R. 1977. Forty-seven trips. In Wright, R. V. S. (ed.), Stone Tools as Cultural Markers, 24–36. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Binford, L. R. 1979. Organizing and formation processes: looking at curated technologies, Journal of Anthropological Research 35, 255–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binford, L. R. 1980. Willow smoke and dogs' tails: hunter-gatherer settlement systems and archaeological site formation. American Antiquity 45, 4–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binford, S. 1968. A structural comparison of disposal of the dead in the Mousterian and Upper Palaeolithic. South-western Journal of Anthropology 24, 139–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boas, F. and Codere, H. 1966. Kwakiutl Ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bowler, J. and Thorne, A. 1976. Human remains from Lake Mungo: discovery and excavation of Lake Mungo III. In Kirk, R. and Thorne, A. (eds), The Origin of the Australians, 127–38. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Brokensha, P. 1975. The Pitjantjatjara and Their Crafts. Sydney: Aboriginal Arts Board, Australia Council.Google Scholar
Cashdan, E. 1983. Territoriality among human foragers: ecological models and an application to four Bushman groups. Current Anthropology 24, 47–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chaloupka, G. 1984. From Palaeoart to Casual Paintings Darwin: Northern Territory Museum of Arts and Sciences Monograph Series 1.Google Scholar
Clarke, J.D. 1989. Comment on Nobbs and Dorn 1988. Rock Art Research 6(1), 63–65.Google Scholar
Conkey, M. 1985. Ritual communication, social elaboration and the variable trajectories of Palaeolithic material culture. In Price, T. D. and Brown, J. A (eds.), Prehistoric Hunter-gatherers, 299–323. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Dyson-Hudson, R. and Smith, E. A. 1978. Human territoriality: an ecological reassessment. American Anthropologist 20, 21–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flood, J. M. 1980. The Moth Hunters: Aboriginal Prehistory of the Australian Alps. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Flood, J. M. 1983. Archaeology of the Dreamtime. Glasgow: Collins.Google Scholar
Gamble, C. 1991. The social context for European Palaeolithic art. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 57 (1), 3–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, R. A. 1969. Yiwara: Foragers of the Western Desert. Glasgow: Collins.Google Scholar
Gould, R. A. 1980. Living Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hayden, B. 1979. Palaeolithic Reflections — Lithic Technology and Ethnographic Excavations among Australian Aborigines. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Jochim, M. 1983. Palaeolithic cave art in ecological perspective. In Bailey, G. N. (ed.), Hunter-gatherer Economy in Prehistory, 212–19. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, R. 1980. Hunters in the Australian coastal savanna. In Harris, D. R. (ed.), Human Ecology in Savanna Environments, 107–46. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Jones, R. 1985. Archaeological conclusions. In Jones, R. (ed.), Archaeological Research in Kakadu National Park, 291–98. Canberra: Australian National Parks and Wildlife.Google Scholar
Kiernan, K., Jones, R. and Ranson, D. 1983. New evidence from Fraser Cave. Nature 301, 28–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Layton, R. 1983. Ambilineal descent and traditional Pitjant-jatjara rights to land. In Peterson, N. and Langton, M. (eds), Aborigines, Land and Land Rights, 15–32. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Layton, R. 1986a. Uluru: An Aboriginal History of Ayers Rock. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Layton, R. 1986b. Political and territorial structures among hunter-gatherers. Man (n.s.) 21, 18–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Layton, R. 1987. The use of ethnographic parallels in interpreting Upper Palaeolithic rock art. In Holy, L. (ed.), Comparative Anthropology, 210–39. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Layton, R. 1989. Are sociobiology and social anthropology compatible? The significance of socio-cultural resources in human evolution. In Standen, V. and Foley, R. (eds), Comparative Socioecology, 433–55. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. 1988. The Rock Paintings of Arnhem Land: Social, Ecological and Material Culture Change in the Post-glacial Period. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports S415.Google Scholar
Lewis-Williams, J.D. 1981. Believing and Seeing: Symbolic Meanings in Southern San Rock Paintings. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Lorblanchet, M. 1988. De l'art pariétal des chasseurs de rennes à l'art rupestre des chasseurs de kangourous. L'Anthropologie, 92, 271–316.Google Scholar
Lourandos, H. 1976. Aboriginal settlement and land use in southwestern Victoria: a report on current fieldwork. The Artefact 1, 174–93.Google Scholar
Lourandos, H. 1977. Aboriginal spatial organization and population: southwestern Victoria reconsidered. Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Oceania 12, 202–25.Google Scholar
Lourandos, H. 1985. Intensification and Australian prehistory. In Price, T. and Brown, J. (eds), Prehistoric Huntergatherers: The Emergence of Cultural Complexity. Orlando, Florida: Academic.Google Scholar
Mellars, P. 1989. Major issues in the emergence of modern humans. Current Anthropology 30, 349–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mithen, S. J. 1988. To hunt or to paint: animals and art in the Upper Palaeolithic. Man (n.s.) 23, 671–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mithen, S. J. 1991. Ecological interpretations of Palaeolithic art. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 57 (1), 103–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morwood, M. J. 1984. The prehistory of the Central Queens-land Highlands. In Wendorf, F. and Close, A. E. (eds), Advances in World Archaeology, 3, 325–80. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Nobbs, M. and Dorn, J. 1988. Age determination for rock varnish formation within petroglyphs: cation-ratio dating of 24 motifs from the Olary region, South Australia. Rock Art Research 5, 108–46.Google Scholar
Peterson, N. 1972. Totemism yesterday: sentiment and local organization among the Australian Aborigines. Man (n. s.) 7, 12–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, N. 1975. Hunter-gatherer territoriality: the perspective from Australia. American Anthropologist 77, 12–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, A. 1986. The control of productive resources on the northwest coast of North America. In Williams, N. and Hunn, E. (eds), Resource Managers: North American and Australian Hunter-gatherers, 93–112. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Rosenfeld, A. 1981. Excavations at the Early Man shelter. In Rosenfeld, A., Horton, D. and Winter, J., Early Man in North Queensland, 5–44. Terra Australis 6. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
Schutz, A. S. 1956. North-west Australian rock paintings. Memoirs of the National Museum of Victoria 20, 7–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, E. A. 1988. Risk and uncertainty in the ‘original affluent society’. In Ingold, T., Riches, D. and Woodburn, J. (eds), Hunters and Gatherers: History, Evolution and Social Change, 222–51. London: Berg.Google Scholar
Smith, M. A. 1986. The antiquity of seed grinding in arid Australia. Archaeology in Oceania 21, 29–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, M. A. 1987. Pleistocene occupation in arid Australia. Nature 328, 710–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spiess, A. E. 1978. Reindeer and Caribou Hunters: An Archaeological Study. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Taçon, P. S. C. 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
Torrence, R. 1983. Time budgeting and hunter-gatherer technology. In Bailey, G. (ed.), Hunter-gatherer Economy in Prehistory, 11–22. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ucko, P. J. 1977. Opening remarks. In Ucko, P. J. (ed.), Form in Indigenous Art, 5–10. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Vinnicombe, P. 1976. People of the Eland. Pietermaritzburg: Natal University Press.Google Scholar
Watchman, A. 1989. Comment on Nobbs and Dorn 1988. Rock Art Research 6, 65–66.Google Scholar
Williams, E. 1987. Complex hunter-gatherers: a view from Australia. Antiquity 61, 310–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar