Even bison make great archaeologists. Literally. Roaming bison in Canada’s Wanuskewin Heritage Park have uncovered 1,000-year-old petroglyphs – rock carvings – and the tool used to carve them, revealing the practices of ancient peoples in North America. The heritage park is situated on the historic lands of the Dakota First Nation, and Northern Plains Indigenous … Continue reading Bison archaeologists uncover 1,000-year-old rock carvings
Tag: rock art
Machine learning reads Arnhem Land rock art
What can machine learning tell us about the rock art in Arnhem Land? South Australian researchers, led by Daryl Wesley of Flinders University, working with the Mimal and Marrku Traditional Owners of the Wilton River area in the Northern Territory, took a close look at the rock art in Arnhem Land to examine how the … Continue reading Machine learning reads Arnhem Land rock art
Oldest Australian rock painting
An image of a kangaroo has been identified as Australia’s oldest known rock painting, dated to over 17,000 years old. The two-metre-long kangaroo is painted on the ceiling of a rock shelter on the Unghango clan estate, in Balanggarra country in the north-eastern Kimberley region, WA. A research team led by Damien Finch from the University of … Continue reading Oldest Australian rock painting
A missing part of the rock art gallery
Arnhem Land rock art is continuing to provide a window into Australia’s past, with scientists describing 572 previously unknown images in a paper in the journal Australian Archaeology. The Maliwawa Figures, which range in age from 6000 to 9400 years, were documented across 87 sites from Awunbarna (Mount Borradaile area) to the Namunidjbuk Estate of the Wellington Range … Continue reading A missing part of the rock art gallery
Small works of art on a large canvas
Australian researchers are exploring the backstory to the most detailed examples ever found of a rare form of rock art. The miniature stencils are too small to have been made by tracing articles or body parts, suggesting models first had to be created. Seventeen images were found in the Yilbilinji rockshelter at Limmen National Park … Continue reading Small works of art on a large canvas
Cave art link to Australia’s first people
Outlines of human hands painted in a Timor-Leste cave might be from the time of the last Ice Age, possibly offering insight into human migration to Australia from Asia around 65,000 years ago. Previously, all known rock art in Timor-Leste – also called East Timor – was thought to be from the Holocene, which began … Continue reading Cave art link to Australia’s first people
Indonesian rocks show ubiquity of ancient art
Two pocket-sized stone artworks found in an ancient pile of Indonesian cave rubbish have put the out-dated notion that Europe was the cradle of artistic expression on ever shakier ground. The stone ‘plaquettes’ were unearthed by a team of Australian and Indonesian archaeologists working in the Leang Bulu Bettue cave, one of the dozens of caves scattered … Continue reading Indonesian rocks show ubiquity of ancient art