Art in the bark: Indigenous carved boab trees (Adansonia gregorii) in north-west Australia
Sue O’Connor, Jane Balme, Ursula Frederick, Brenda Garstone, Rhys Bedford, Jodie Bedford, Anne Rivers, Angeline Bedford and Darrell Lewis.
Research publications listed below result from Rock Art Australia-funded research.
2022
Fibre technologies in Indigenous Australia: Evidence from archaeological excavations in the Kimberley region
Jane Balme, Sue O’Connor, Tim Ryan Maloney, Kim Akerman, Ben Keaney, and India Ella Dikes-Hall.
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
Superpositions and superimpositions in rock art studies: Reading the rock
face at Pundawar Manbur, Kimberley, northwest Australia
Robert G. GunnBruno David, Jean-Jacques Delannoy, Benjamin Smith, Augustine Unghangho, Ian Waina, Balanggarra Aboriginal Corporation, Leigh Douglas, Cecilia Myers, Pauline Heaney, Sven Ouzman, Peter Veth, Sam Harper.
2021
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory
Investigating the Anthropic Construction of Rock Art Sites Through Archaeomorphology: the Case of Borologa, Kimberley, Australia.
Delannoy, J. J., David, B., Genuite, K., Gunn, R., Finch, D., Ouzman, S., Green, H., Peter Veth, P., Harper, S. & Skelly, R. J. (2020).
2019
Australian Archaeology
Dating painting events through by-products of ochre processing: Borologa 1 Rockshelter, Kimberley, Australia
Bruno David, Jean-Jacques Delannoy, Fiona Petchey, Robert Gunn, Jillian Huntley, Peter Veth, Kim Genuite, Robert J. Skelly, Jerome Mialanes, Sam Harper, Sven Ouzman, Balanggarra Aboriginal Corporation, Pauline Heaney, Vanessa Wong, May 2019
2017
Journal of Archaeological Science: Data in Brief, 14: 813-835.
Characterisation of mineral deposition systems associated with rock art in the Kimberley region of northwest Australia
Green, H., Gleadow, A., Finch, D, (2017)
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 14: 340-352.
Mineral Deposition Systems at Rock Art Sites, Kimberley, Australia-Field Observations
Green, H., Gleadow, A., Finch, D., Hergt, J and Ouzman, S, (2017)
The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art.
“Plants Before Animals? Aboriginal rock art as evidence of ecoscaping in Australia’s Kimberley”
Ouzman, S., Veth, P., Myers, C., Heaney, P. and K. Kenneally 2017 in David, B. and I. J. McNiven (eds). Oxford Handbooks Online doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190607357.013.31
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory
Home Is Where the Hearth Is: Anthracological and Microstratigraphic Analyses of Pleistocene and Holocene Combustion Features, Riwi Cave (Kimberley, Western Australia)
Rose Whitau, Dorcas Vannieuwenhuyse and Emilie Dotte-Sarou, Volume 24, Number 4, Dec 2017.
Quaternary Geochronology
Untangling geochronological complexity in organic spring deposits using multiple dating methods
Emily Field, Sam Marx, Jordahna Haig, Jan-Hendrik Maye, Geraldine Jacobsen, Atun Zawadzki, David Child, Henk Heijnis, Michael Hotchkis, Hamish McGowan and Patrick Moss. Volume 43, February 2018, pp 50-71.
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Australian Archaeology
The effect of retouch intensity on mid to late Holocene unifacial and bifacial points from the Kimberley
Tim Ryan Maloney, Sue O’Connor & Jane Balme July 2017
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Rock Art Research
A port scene, identity and rock art of the inland Kimberley, Western Australia.
Balme, J. & S. O’Connor 2015.
Rock Art Research 32(1):75-83.
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Journal of Archaeological Science
Settling in Sahul: Investigating environmental and human history interactions through micromorphological analyses in tropical semi-arid north-west Australia.
Vannieuwenhuyse, D., S. O’Connor & J. Balme 2017
2016
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Australian Archaeology
A 600-year-old Boomerang fragment from RiwiCave(South Central Kimberley, Western Australia)
Michelle C. Langley, India Ella Dilkes-Hall, Jane Balme & Sue O’Connor 12 May 2016.
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Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
X-ray computed microtomography and the identification of wood taxa selected for archaeological artefact manufacture: Rare examples from Australian contexts.
Rose Whitau, India Ella Dilkes-Hall, Emilie Dotte-Sarout, Michelle C. Langley, Jane Balme, Sue O’Connor 2016.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X1630089X
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Journal of Archaeological Science
Settling in Sahul: Investigating environmental and human history interactions through micromorphological analyses in tropical semi-arid north-west Australia
Dorcas Vannieuwenhuyse, Sue O’Connor, Jane Balme January 2016.
Australian Archaeology
Re-excavation of Djuru, a Holocene rockshelter in the southern Kimberley, north Western Australia
Maloney, T., S. O’Connor, D. Vannieuwenhuyse, J. Balme, J. Fyfe; 2016
Journal of Archaeological Science Reports
Dingoes and Aboriginal social organisation in Holocene Australia
Balme, J. and S. O’Connor; 2016
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X15300742
Nature Communications
See–saw relationship of the Holocene East
Asian–Australian summer monsoon
Deniz Eroglu1,2, Fiona H. McRobie3, Ibrahim Ozken1,4, Thomas Stemler5, Karl-Heinz Wyrwoll3,
Sebastian F.M. Breitenbach6, Norbert Marwan1 & Ju¨rgen Kurths1,2,7
PlosONE
Towards an Accurate and Precise Chronology for the Colonization of Australia: The Example of Riwi, Kimberley,Western Australia.
Wood, R., Z. Jacobs, D. Vannieuwenhuyse, J. Balme, S. O’Connor & R. Whitau 2016
Quaternary International
Wood in press Wood charcoal analysis at Riwi cave, Gooniyandi country, Western Australia.
Whitau, R., J. Balme, S. O’Connor & R. Wood, 2016
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618215302251?via%3Dihub
2015
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Extreme rainfall activity in the Australian tropics reflects changes in the El Nino/Southern Oscillation over the last two millennia.
Rhawn Denniston, Gabriele Villarini, Angelique Gonzales, Karl-Heinz Wyrwoll, Victor Polyak, Caroline Ummenhofer, Matthew Lachinet, Alan Wanamaker, William Humphreys, David Woods and John Cugley March 2015
2014
Journal of Archaeological Science
Results from the first intensive dating program for pigment art in the Australian arid zone: insights into recent social complexity
Jo McDonald, Peter Veth, Karen Steelman, Jeremy Mackey, Josh Loewen, Casey Thuber, TP Guilderson
Archaeology in Oceania
Dating point technology in the Kimberley.
Maloney, T., S. O’Connor & J. Balme 2014.
Archaeology in Oceania 49:137-147.
2013
Quaternary Science Review
A Stalagmite record of Holocene IndonesianeAustralian summermonsoon variability from the Australian tropics
Rhawn F. Denniston a, Karl-Heinz Wyrwoll, Victor J. Polyak, Josephine R. Brown,Yemane Asmerom, Alan D. Wanamaker Jr., Zachary LaPointe, Rebecca Ellerbroek, Michael Barthelmes a, Daniel Cleary a, John Cugley, David Woods, William F. Humphreys, August 2013
Quaternary Science Review
North Atlantic forcing of millennial-scale Indo-Australian monsoon dynamics during the Last Glacial period
Rhawn F. Denniston, Karl-Heinz Wyrwoll, Yemane Asmeromc, Victor J. Polyak,William F. Humphreys, John Cugley, David Woods, Zachary LaPointe, Julian Peota, Elizabeth Greaves, June 2013
Books
Cave Art
Bruno David has published a book on cave art. Deep underground, hidden from view, some of humanity’s earliest artistic endeavors have lain buried for thousands of years. Read the full review by Meg Conkey, Professor Emerita, University of California, Berkeley
Published by Thames & Hudson World of Art
Photographs From The Frontier Kimberley 1910-1911
Taken by the first Swedish scientific expedition to Australia
From prints held by the National Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm.
Organised and annotated by Kim Akerman
Published by Hesperian Press 2017
Wanjina: Notes on Some Iconic Ancestral Beings of the Northern Kimberley
Kim Akerman has written an essay crystallising his thoughts relating to Wanjinas that have accumulated over the past forty years. The Kimberley Foundation Australia congratulates Kim for his scholarship. Read the review by Nicolas Rothwell in The Australian.
Wanjinas are cosmological Beings represented in the rock art of the central and northern Kimberley region of Western Australia. Evidence suggests that Wanjina rock paintings were made at least as far back as 4000 years ago and continue to be made and renewed today.
Images of Wanjina Beings are usually characterised by halo-like headdresses and mouthless faces with large round eyes, fringed with eyelashes, set either side of an ovate nose. Most Wanjina images found as rock art are depicted without a mouth, although on some more recent works on bark, boards, or canvas the mouth and teeth are indicated.
This essay provides details on the appearance, nature and powers of Wanjina. It also presents information on their mythology. A series of appendices is included with a range of ethnographic, mythic and related information.
Kim Akerman acknowledges the debt he owes in the writing of this essay and the opportunities he has had to work with and alongside Mowanjum Worrorra Elders of the 1960s and in the 1970s and 1980s the Ngarinyin and Wunambal senior men and women.
Stockists:
VIC NGV Store – Federation Square
NSW Abbeys Bookshop – 131 York Street, Sydney
WA Serendipity Books West Leederville, State Library Bookshop, Boffin’s Bookshop, Lane Bookshop Claremont – Perth; Short Street Gallery – Broome
TAS Artmob and the Hobart Bookshop
Direct with Hesperian Press
Kimberley Rock Art
Australia has some of the best and oldest rock art in the world, but much of it is difficult to access in rugged wilderness terrain.
Now some of this art is available to all in a series of high quality books that are proudly printed in Australia. A three-volume series on the prolific rock art of the Kimberley has been published by Mike Donaldson, a geologist and bushwalker who has been documenting rock art sites for more than 30 years.
The Kimberley Rock Art 3-Volume set is available online at Wildrocks Publications.
A Companion to Rock Art
A Companion to Rock Art offers an unparalleled overview of a field that has evolved significantly within the last two decades. A range of interpretive frameworks within which petroglyph and pictograph art forms can be understood is examined in detail. This exciting field of enquiry continues to engage both researchers and the general public, with the search for elusive meanings in the images. Whether they were produced for the exchange of information; for secular or sacred purposes, for signalling alliance networks and identity; or as legacies of origin narratives are just some of the challenging questions that confront the modern archaeologist. This Companion is an authoritative guide for researchers, instructors, and students in anthropology, archaeology, religious studies and prehistoric art.
Edited by Jo McDonald and Peter Veth. Published by Wiley-Blackwell
Kimberley History: People, Exploration and Development
Western Australia’s Kimberley region embraces one of the world’s last great wilderness areas. The region has a fascinating indigenous and early European history. Archaeological evidence indicates that Aboriginal occupation of the Kimberley began between 53,000 and 60,000 years ago. Known European exploration of the Kimberley coastline commenced in 1644 and land based exploration in 1837.
Containing 15 papers by different authors, this lavish illustrated book is the proceedings of the Kimberley Society Kimberley History Seminar held at the University of Western Australia in 2010.
Kimberley History: People, Exploration and Development is available online at the Kimberley Society.
