Archaeology and art in context: Excavations at the Gunu Site Complex, Northwest Kimberley, Western Australia.

Mark W Moore,Kira Westaway,Yinika Perston,Michael J Morwood,June Ross,Kim Newman,Jillian Huntley,Samantha Keats,Michael D Petraglia

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0226628

Mark W Moore, Kira Westaway + Show 7 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226628

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Abstract

The Kimberley region of Western Australia is one of the largest and most diverse rock art provenances in the world, with a complex stylistic sequence spanning at least 16 ka, culminating in the modern art-making of the Wunumbal people. The Gunu Site Complex, in the remote Mitchell River region of the northwest Kimberley, is one of many local expressions of the Kimberley rock art sequence. Here we report excavations at two sites in this complex: Gunu Rock, a sand sheet adjacent to rock art panels; and Gunu Cave, a floor deposit within an extensive rockshelter. Excavations at Gunu Rock provide evidence for two phases of occupation, the first from 7–8 to 2.7 ka, and the second from 1064 cal BP. Excavations at Gunu Rock provide evidence for occupation from the end of the second phase to the recent past. Stone for tools in the early phase were procured from a variety of sources, but quartz crystal reduction dominated the second occupation phase. Small quartz crystals were reduced by freehand percussion to provide small flake tools and blanks for manufacturing small points called nguni by the Wunambal people today. Quartz crystals were prominent in historic ritual practices associated with the Wanjina belief system. Complex methods of making bifacially-thinned and pressure flaked quartzite projectile points emerged after 2.7 ka. Ochre pigments were common in both occupation phases, but evidence for occupation contemporaneous with the putative age of the oldest rock art styles was not discovered in the excavations. Our results show that developing a complete understanding of rock art production and local occupation patterns requires paired excavations inside and outside of the rockshelters that dominate the Kimberley.

Highlights

The Kimberley region of Western Australia, with its world-class corpus of rock art lying at the interface between Asia and Australia, has long been recognised as offering enormous potential for tackling fundamental issues in Australian archaeology [1]
The pressure flakes identified in the assemblage average about 5.7 mm long and 5.1 mm wide; they are larger than the flakes detached from most of the scars on the excavated Gunu Cave point, but are smaller than the largest scar sizes on a broken Group 2 Kimberley Point recovered from the surface at the rockshelter entrance (Fig 17B)
Three different quartz luminescence dating techniques—OSL single-aliquot (UVSA), OSL single-grain (UVSG) and red TL (RTL)—have been applied to this site to test the integrity of the luminescence signal (S2 Text, Table 1, Fig 9)

Summary

Introduction

The Kimberley region of Western Australia, with its world-class corpus of rock art lying at the interface between Asia and Australia, has long been recognised as offering enormous potential for tackling fundamental issues in Australian archaeology [1]. Gunu Rock, at the centre of the complex, consists of an art panel with painted images variously interpreted as deer by Wilson ([32]:4–7, 109–113), figures engaged in dance by Welch [33], or gunu, or yams by the Kandiwal people (Fig 3). This art panel, and the site complex surrounding it, has been referred to as ‘Reindeer Rock’ [32,33,34], ‘Deer Rock’ [33], and ‘Deer Cave’ [31].

Methods

Columnar

Discussion and conclusions