Sven Ouzman: “40,000 Years of Rock Art and Place-Making from Sahul and Australia”

For the conference series "Parlando di arte rupestre" (Talking about rock art), Sven Ouzman presents “40,000 Years of Rock Art and Place-Making from Sahul and Australia”.

Australian rock art exists in an astonishing variety of forms – cupules, grooves, handprints and stencils, engravings (petroglyphs), paintings (pictographs) and beeswax art - even extending to phenomena like stone arrangements. Subject matter ranges from human and animal tracks, to human and other animal figures – as well as plants (more so than almost anywhere in the world), to potent symbols and Beings; and including records of ships and the material culture of Makassan visitors and European invaders. The oldest know rock art is an ochre-marked piece of limestone recovered from 41,000 year old archaeological deposit in northern Australia, which challenges the definition of ‘rock art’. The youngest rock art is being made today – a remarkable on-going tradition. It is likely there is still rock art given the strong stylistic similarities between rock art from northern Australia from the dated images of Sulawesi. Indeed, we should think of ‘Sahul’ the older, larger landmass that preceded ‘Australia’, whose shoreline only assumed its present from about 6,000 years ago. Indeed, Australia is home to multiple rock art traditions from the tropical north through the arid interior right down to the cold cost of Tasmania. Indeed, many sites may now be underwater. These traditions have multiple meanings, many of which are still being researched; typically in partnership with Indigenous Traditional Owners. The history of non-Indigenous rock art research is also a fascinating topic ranging from racist colonial misinterpretations of ‘exotic foreigners’, through to collaborative, multi-disciplinary and socially engaged work. This presentation will discuss the history and latest developments in Australian rock art research and management in a time of profound social and climate change.

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