Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

Aboriginal Art

There are thousands of rock art throughout Australia, most of them in the north of the continent. The high interest in rock art is partly because many of the art sites are prehistoric origin, so are windows, if not clear windows, to prehistoric life. Some of the petroglyphs and hand stencils have been there since Pleistocene, and some of the paintings may be as old.

George Grey was the first European to record the huge Wandjina figures of western Australia, paintings of such quality and aesthetic accomplishment that he didn't believe they were the work of Aborigines. For over 100 years the Aborigines were not credited with the best of the art, the thinking being that they were simply too primitive to have accomplished such an artistic feat. The best of the art works were attributed to any people who someone thought might have passed by Australia, the lost tribes of Israel, Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, Hindus and even LGM, visitors from outer space. In the 1970s Aboriginal art was finally recognised for what it was, aboriginal art of world quality.

Tasmania

 

Sources & Further reading

Josephine Flood, Archaeology of the Dreamtime, J.B. Publishing, 2004

 

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