New analysis unlocks the hidden meaning of 15,000-year-old rock art in Arnhem Land

• Despite this beguiling potential, rock art research can be highly challenging.
• Our new research published in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences uses an innovative approach to understand rock art in Arnhem Land in a fundamentally different way.

A dramatic landscape change

• It has also been the subject of dramatic landscape change as a result of sea levels rising significantly over the last 14,000 years.
• The complex landscape of sandstone cliffs and flat floodplains would have dramatically changed: from open savanna, to mudflat, to mangrove swamp.

An astonishing rock art record

• Arnhem Land has an astonishing rock art record that continues to be maintained by Traditional Owners today.
• The rock art in Arnhem Land can be categorised into a number of different styles, which change over millennia.
• For example, saltwater animals such as fish appear in the rock art record when the sea had risen enough to impact this area.

This is the first time this approach has been used in Arnhem Land. The results provide new insights into what inspired people to create rock art at different times in the past.

Valuable mangroves

• Importantly, we found rock art production was most active, diverse in style, and covered the most area of the plateau during the period when mangroves completely covered the floodplains.
• This may be because the mangroves provided abundant resources which sustained a large and stable human population.

Detailed landscapes provide deep insights

• These rock art placements have the potential to tell us much more about the archaeology of Arnhem Land.
• This reflects significant social and economic changes, which follow the landscape evolution over the long history of human occupation in western Arnhem Land.
• Our work shows more detailed models of the landscape directly surrounding archaeological sites can yield profound insights into past human activities, even those as difficult to interpret as the incredible artwork of Arnhem land.

• Daryl Wesley receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Flinders University, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and National Geographic.
• Ian Moffat receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Flinders University, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation.