Hostname: page-component-8678677fb7-q8n7b Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-10-06T06:21:12.422Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A rare miniature and small-scale stencil assemblage from the Gulf of Carpentaria: replication and meaning in Australian rock art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2020

Liam M. Brady ,
John J. Bradley ,
Amanda Kearney  and
Daryl Wesley
Liam M. Brady*
Affiliation:
College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University, Australia
John J. Bradley
Affiliation:
College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University, Australia Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, Monash University, Australia
Amanda Kearney
Affiliation:
College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University, Australia
Daryl Wesley
Affiliation:
College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University, Australia
*
*Author for correspondence: ✉ liam.brady@flinders.edu.au
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recent survey in the Gulf of Carpentaria region of northern Australia has identified a unique assemblage of miniature and small-scale stencilled motifs depicting anthropomorphs, material culture, macropod tracks and linear designs. The unusual sizes and shapes of these motifs raise questions about the types of material used for the stencil templates. Drawing on ethnographic data and experimental archaeology, the authors argue that the motifs were created with a previously undocumented stencilling technique using miniature models sculpted from beeswax. The results suggest that beeswax and other malleable and adhesive resins may have played a more significant role in creating stencilled motifs than previously thought.

Keywords

AustraliaGulf of Carpenteriarock artstencilsexperimental archaeologybeeswax

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 94 , Issue 375 , June 2020 , pp. 780 - 796
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2020

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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Adam, L. 1954. Primitive art (3rd edition). London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Alberti, B. 2012. Cut, pinch and pierce: image as practice among the Early Formative La Candelaria, first millennium AD, north-west Argentina, in Back Danielsson, I.-M., Fahlander, F. & Sjostrand, Y. (ed.) Encountering imagery: materialities, perceptions, relations: 23–28. Stockholm: Stockholm University Press.Google Scholar
Back Danielsson, I.-M. 2010. Go figure! Creating intertwined worlds in Late Iron Age Scandinavia, in Gheorgiou, D. & Cyphers, A. (ed.) Anthropomorphic and zoomorphic miniature figures in Eurasia, Africa and Meso-America: morphology, materiality, technology, function and context: 79–90. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Back Danielsson, I.-M. 2013. Materials of affect: miniatures in the Scandinavian Late Iron Age (AD 550–1050), in Alberti, B., Jones, A.M. & Pollard, J. (ed.) Archaeology after interpretation: returning materials to archaeological theory: 325–44. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast.Google Scholar
Bailey, D.W. 2005. Prehistoric figurines: representation and corporeality in the Neolithic. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203392454CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ballard, C. 1992. Painted rock art sites in Western Melanesia: locational evidence for an ‘Austronesian’ tradition, in McDonald, J. & Haskovec, I. (ed.) State of the art: regional rock art studies in Australia and Melanesia: 94–106. Melbourne: Australian Rock Art Research Association.Google Scholar
Berndt, R.M. & Berndt, C.H.. 1999. The world of the first Australians. Aboriginal traditional life: past and present. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Boyd, C.E., Castañeda, A.M. & Koenig, C.. 2013. A reassessment of Red Linear pictographs in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Texas. American Antiquity 78: 456–82. https://doi.org/10.7183/0002-7316.78.3.456CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, J.J. 1991. Yanyuwa bark canoes: a brief survey of their use by the Yanyuwa people of the south western Gulf of Carpentaria. The Great Circle 13: 85–96.Google Scholar
Bradley, J.J. 1998. ‘We always look north’: Yanyuwa identity and the maritime environment, in Peterson, N. & Rigsby, B. (ed.) Customary marine tenure in Australia: 125–41. Sydney: Oceania.Google Scholar
Bradley, J.J. 2008. When a stone tool is a dingo: country and relatedness in Australian Aboriginal notions of landscape, in David, B. & Thomas, J. (ed.) Handbook of landscape of archaeology: 633–37. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast.Google Scholar
Bradley, J.J. with Yanyuwa Families. 2010. Singing saltwater country: journey to the songlines of Carpentaria. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Brady, L.M. & Bradley, J.J.. 2016. ‘Who do you want to kill?’ Sorcery rock art, and affectual and relational understandings at Kurrmurnniyini, south-west Gulf of Carpentaria, northern Australia. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 22: 884–901. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.12495CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brady, L.M., Bradley, J.J. & Wesley, D.. 2019. Beeswax rock art from Limmen National Park (Northern Territory), northern Australia: new insights into technique-based patterning and absence in the rock art record. Australian Archaeology 85: 128–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.2019.1660947CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooke, P.M. 2016. Limmen National Park rock art survey. Unpublished report to the Parks & Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory.Google Scholar
Cox, J.C. 1888. Notes on two wax figures obtained from an Aboriginal camp at Miriam Vale near the head of Baffle Creek, Rockhampton. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 13: 1223–26.Google Scholar
Foxhall, L. 2015. Introduction: miniaturization. World Archaeology 47: 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2015.997557CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gunn, R.G., Douglas, L.C. & Whear, R.L.. 2012. An example of stencil masking from the Arnhem Land Plateau. Rock Art Research 29:238–41.Google Scholar
Haagen, C. 1994. Bush toys: Aboriginal children at play. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Hayward, J.A., Johnston, I.G., May, S.K. & Taçon, P.S.C.. 2018. Memorialization and the stencilled rock art of Mirarr Country, northern Australia. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 28: 361–78. https://doi.org/10.1017/S095977431800015XCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langley, M. & Litster, M.. 2018. Is it ritual? Or is it children? Distinguishing consequences of play from ritual actions in the prehistoric archaeological record. Current Anthropology 59: 616–43. https://doi.org/10.1086/699837CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Layton, R. 1992. Australian rock art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Le Quellec, J.-L. 2009. Les images rupestres du Jebel el-’Uweynât. Archéo-Nil 19: 13–26.Google Scholar
May, S.K., Taçon, P.S.C., Wesley, D. & Travers, M.. 2010. Painting history: indigenous observations and depictions of the ‘other’ in north-western Arnhem Land, Australia. Australian Archaeology 71: 57–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.2010.11689384CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, F.D. 1948 Australian Aboriginal decorative art (4th edition). Sydney: Australian Museum.Google Scholar
McDonald, J. 1992. The Great Mackerel rockshelter excavation: women in the archaeological record? Australian Archaeology 35: 32–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.1992.11681467Google Scholar
Moore, D.R. 1977. The hand stencil as symbol, in Ucko, P.J. (ed.) Form in indigenous art: schematisation in the art of Aboriginal Australia and prehistoric Europe: 318–24. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Morwood, M.J. 2010. Visions from the past: the archaeology of Australian Aboriginal art. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Mountford, C.P. 1956. Records of the American-Australian scientific expedition to Arnhem Land, volume 1: art, myth, and symbolism. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.Google Scholar
O'Connor, S., Mahirta, D. Tanudirjo, M. Ririmasse, M. Husni, S. Kealy, S. Hawkins, & Alifah, . 2018. Ideology, ritual performance and its manifestations in the rock art of Timor-Leste and Kisar Island, Island Southeast Asia. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 28: 225–41. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774317000816CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Povinelli, E.A. 1993. ‘Might be something’: the language of indeterminacy in Australian Aboriginal land use. Man (New Series) 28: 670–704. https://doi.org/10.2307/2803992CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rhotert, H. 1952. Libysche Felsbilder: Ergebnisse der XI. und XII. Deutschen Inner-Afrikanischen Forschungs-Expedition (DIAFE) 1933/1934/1935. Darmstadt: L.C. Wittich.Google Scholar
Taçon, P.S.C., Langley, M., May, S.K., Lamilami, R., Brennan, W. & Guse, D.. 2010. Ancient bird stencils discovered in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia. Antiquity 84: 416–27. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00066679CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomson, D. 1954. The moulding of clay in Arnhem Land. Man 54(180): 117–19. https://doi.org/10.2307/2795297CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turpin, S.A. 1984. The Red Linear Style pictographs of the Lower Pecos River region, Texas. Plains Anthropologist 29: 181–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/2052546.1984.11909199CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turpin, S.A. 2005. Location, location, location: the Lewis Canyon petroglyphs. Plains Anthropologist 50: 307–28. https://doi.org/10.1179/pan.2005.027CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walsh, G.L. 1983. Composite stencil art: elemental or specialised? Australian Aboriginal Studies 2: 34–44.Google Scholar