Iconic imagery: Pleistocene rock art development across northern Australia

Abstract

There is general agreement that the peopling of Sahul was achieved sometime before 45,000 years ago, with most parts of the continent colonised by 30,000. Rock art, both engraved and painted, is present in all areas where these early people left their mark. Did this artistic endeavour come with these people or was this an expression of being in Sahul? Certainly there are aspects, like the cupules and hand stencils, which have parallels outside the continent. However, there are many features that suggest separate artistic traditions and conventions that were present and have continued since these early times. Spread over an area greater than one million sq km (386,000 sq miles), stretching in an arc over 2,000 km from the Pilbara coast, through the Kimberley and into Arnhem Land, is a vast body of rock art that demonstrates there to be differentiation in the symbolic structuring of people’s lives relatively early after colonisation. This supports the notion that regionalisation within Sahul is not simply a Holocene expression.