Rock Art Research

Nawarla Gabarnmang, a large rockshelter in the Jawoyn Lands of the Arnhem Land Plateau, is one of Australia’s richest and most well-publicised Aboriginal sites. The site is of high cultural significance to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people alike as it has historical significance to both peoples; a popular stop-over camp for Aboriginal people; an extensive, well-dated archaeological deposit; a history of human modification; and one of Australia’s most extensive and well-preserved rock art galleries. As a background to these facets, we present an overview of the shelter’s setting within the cultural and temporal landscape of the Arnhem Land Plateau. While an archaeological survey of the site complex in which the Nawarla Gabarnmang shelter lies exposed additional aspects of the significance of the place, discussions with local senior Aboriginal people and reading of earlier ethnographic work revealed non-physical aspects pertaining to the site; details that could not be achieved by archaeological investigation of the Nawarla Gabarnmang shelter alone. The archaeological survey documented additional art styles and ceremonial activities that were practised at some time during the 50 000 years of Nawarla Gabarnmang’s occupation. As the recent ‘Jawoyn’ rock art has been dated to the past 500 years, the interpretation of motif and site classes by Jawoyn and other knowledgeable elders has enabled a social context to be overlain onto the landscape of Nawarla Gabarnmang at least for this recent time period.