Engineers of the Arnhem Land plateau: Evidence for the origins and transformation of sheltered spaces at Nawarla Gabarnmang

When did Homo sapiens first reach Southeast Asia and Sahul?

“…2). It exceeds unambiguous evidence for the use of symbols anywhere on the SCS arc by >20 ky. With one apparent exception (85), it exceeds the earliest age estimate for edge-ground axes in Sahul by 30 ky and in Eurasia by 27-35 ky (83,86,87). It precedes nearly all evidence for unifacial points and intensive seed processing in Sahul by 60 ky (88,89).…”

Investigating the Anthropic Construction of Rock Art Sites Through Archaeomorphology: the Case of Borologa, Kimberley, Australia

“…At three large rock shelter and rock art sites in Australia (Nawarla Gabarnmang: e.g., Delannoy et al 2017), Spain (La Garma: Arias and Ontañon 2012) and…”

“…For example, pre-existing subterranean chambers and corridors were marked with piles of rock, sometimes to create underground pathways that demarcated appropriate means of passage, such as the placement of a stone step deep in a cavern at Chauvet Cave (e.g., Delannoy et al 2018). At Nawarla Gabarnmang, rock pillars and ceiling surfaces were manually removed, opening up the usable space and exposing new rock surfaces for painting Delannoy et al 2017). Such rock-workings from the deep past are sometimes easy to see, but often they are not, and require focused investigation of the spatial properties of both sites and objects.…”

“…At Nawarla Gabarnmang, the cessation of massive rock-workings dates to c. 11,000 cal BP. As at Borologa, this stoneworking predates the 1391 extant motifs on 42 ceiling panels and many of the c. 500 motifs on the pillars, which are overwhelmingly Late Holocene in age(Castets 2017;Delannoy et al 2017Delannoy et al , 2018Gunn 2018). At Borologa 1, the wasp nest radiocarbon date indicates that the large painted rock surface of the southeastern alcove formed more than c. 9300 cal BP: the ceiling could only have been painted after the evacuation of the rock from its cavity.…”

Determining the origin and changing shape of landscape‐scale rock formations with three‐dimensional modelling: The Borologa rock shelters, Kimberley region, Australia

“…When was a site first used? Those beginnings are then positioned in broader sociogeographical settings, such as to investigate the spread of people across land and seascapes (e.g., for a story of global colonisation, see Gamble, 1994); the introduction of artefact types and technologies from one area to another (e.g., for the spread of Sudden and San Rafael Side‐notched points along the southern Rocky Mountains, USA, see David et al, 2005); when people started to modify the physical matrix of rock shelters (e.g., in Arnhem Land, Delannoy et al, 2017; in the Kimberley, Delannoy, David, Genuite, et al, 2020); or temporal trends in site and regional occupation (e.g., for increased intensities of site use in Late Holocene temperate Australia, see Lourandos, 1983). Rock shelters feature prominently in many such investigations, because their prominent physical demarcation and visibility in the landscape often signal enduring locales of human activity that span thousands of years.…”