Superpositions and superimpositions in rock art studies: Reading the rock face at Pundawar Manbur, Kimberley, northwest Australia

Abstract

Patterns of superposition in rock art are often used to systematically construct style sequences. However, once on the rock, images can affect subsequent engagements with the art, the rock surface, the site, and its surrounding landscape, and this recursiveness can be studied through the superimpositions (significantly overlaid markings) on a rock face. This is an opportunity for archaeologists to investigate the culture of engagement not just at the moment of the art’s initial creation, but subsequently also. In this paper we show how a long sequence of art styles that together span c. 17,000 years or more was not haphazardly arranged at the key site of Pundawar Manbur, in the Kimberley region of northwest Australia, but rather was constituted of many meaningful overlaps whose particularities reveal much about the culture of art and site engagement over time.