Climate change and rock art: a valuable resource at risk

Abstract

Rock art sites are significant repositories of cultural knowledge. Generations of Indigenous Australians lived through some of the most cataclysmic climate change events in human history, including the last glacial period that finished around 25,000 years ago. The knowledge Indigenous societies acquired from these events is held in stories and songlines and is also depicted in images on rock faces around the continent. This is also the case throughout Southeast Asia where rock art depicts the interrelationship of humans and the world around them. Many rock art sites contain images of species now extinct, and scientific analysis of rock art is also providing evidence of the changes in climate over millennia. With rising sea levels, coastal rock art sites are at risk from the impacts of human-induced climate change. This chapter examines the evidence held in rock art, the evidence of climatic damage to rock art, and discusses some of the approaches to rock art management that can incorporate responses for the preservation of rock art in a changing climate.